How British Tea Became Indian Chai

Tea is one of the most ubiquitous beverages consumed today by Indians across the country. Its well-documented colonial origins underwent the complex and century-long influences of urbanisation, capitalism, and social change, involving dimensions of gender, caste and class, to become the very Indian drink that is chai today.

During her childhood, my nani and her relatives were no drinkers of tea. But fast forward a few years and all of them had become fervent followers of the chai cult. By then, chai had become the centre of all social interaction, and my nani had turned into a smart hostess serving tea in fine chinaware, accompanied by biscuits and savouries. She reminded me of the chic sari-clad housewives that appeared on 20th century tea advertisements that extolled the drink as a maker or breaker of homes.

While today, nani’s tea sets have retired to our chai cabinet (yes there's a whole almirah allotted to chai-time snacks), tea drinking has been ritualised into an indispensable daily habit. The day begins with it, followed by another round in the evening, and further unknown quantities are gulped down casually in between. The call to tea is a brief interval in the incessant chugging of the household, when everybody, from gardener to elderly aunt, lays back with a cup of chai. This is accompanied by an entourage of namkeens, biscuits, toasts, papads and fryums. Often, pakoras, samosas, chaat and chana jor garam also feature during tea time. Chai taken alone is an aberration; a social faux pas that will be met by incredulous looks and demands for “kuch khane ko do” (literally, give something to eat).

Nani’s tea sets | Image credit Vishwajeet Singh Chauhan

Our daily trysts with tea are a connection to something greater the personal. Alongside my nani’s bone china tea sets, prized commodities from the early decades of independence, there is a larger historical narrative about the rise of tea-culture within the subcontinent, and how the ritual of drinking tea became a feature of the modern-day cultural identity of many Indians.

The popularization of tea across diverse geographical, social and economic boundaries was a rather erratic and long process that unfolded over the 20th century. It involved a complex interplay of factors ranging from improvements in transportation and urbanization, to the rise of planned marketing and advertising. By the end of it, ‘British’ tea had morphed into Indian chai. It cut through socio-economic groupings to become what historian Philip Lutgendorf calls the “essential lubricant of nearly all social occasions and commercial transactions, and the quotidian fuel” of the working class.

Cultivation of tea began in British India during the early 1800s. By that time, Britain was already addicted to drinking tea, and had been importing massive quantities from China. So prized was this leaf that the English East India Company (successfully) fought wars to secure its supply. Nevertheless, the Company could not enjoy a good night’s sleep as long as China retained monopoly over the production of tea. Eventually, the colonists turned towards India as an alternative base for tea production. Starting from 1774, efforts were launched with experiments to cultivate smuggled tea plants and seeds in the foothills north of Delhi. But success remained elusive. Then in 1823, a cousin of the Chinese variety was discovered in Assam. In the ensuing “tea rush”, large areas of subtropical forests were converted into tea plantations, owned by the British, where a brutal history of capitalist exploitation of indentured labourers took place. Between the first eight chests of Assam tea auctioned at London in 1839 and 1888, India displaced China as the biggest supplier of tea to Britain.

Tea drinking in India has rather snobbish origins: the habit slowly trickled down from elite circles of society. Kolkata’s ‘office babus’ and Bhadralok residents made up the first generation of tea drinkers in India, sipping on the beverage in British fashion: black tea mixed with milk and sugar in chinaware. Initially, tea crops were earmarked for export to the West. Despite large exports to the West, British capitalists would often daydream about a “market at our door.” But early efforts to acquaint Indians with tea, which began at the start of the 20th century, hit a dead end. For the first three decades, more than 90% of tea was exported. Within the country, tea was mainly marketed to the British, and the Anglophone classes who enthusiastically emulated their masters. Advertisements from these decades, unsurprisingly, celebrated tea as a natural product brought to Indians by the progressive, and civilising, British Raj.

But the Great Depression of the 1930s sent the tea planters of the colony into a frenzied search for a new domestic market. Previously scattered attempts by the Tea Cess Committee at encouraging domestic consumption of tea were given a major boost by the state. Reorganised into the ‘Indian Tea Market Expansion Board’ (ITMEB) and armed with a huge budget, it arguably launched one of the largest marketing campaigns in Indian history. A veritable army of ‘tea propagandists’ descended upon Indian, charged with the task of getting them addiction to tea. They travelled in vans serving millions of ‘pice packets’ and sample teacups. Often, ‘Demonstration’ teams would invade festivals and bazaars to teach the ‘correct’ method of preparing tea. All-female squads were also employed to take British tea into orthodox, purdah-observing homes. Tea breaks at workplaces were also actively encouraged, arguing that this would lead to a refreshed, more productive workforce. An entire spectrum of eye-catching signage and advertisements were produced, exhorting Indians to prepare and drink tea the ‘correct’ British way. These were often displayed in public spaces like railway stations and bazaars.

Like every social campaign, the ‘tea-propagandists’ had their own ideology. In the familiar patronising tone of the white colonizer, literature from the campaign proclaimed that drinking tea would help Indians imbibe qualities described as characteristic to the British — making them more alert, energetic and punctual. Advertisements from this period co-opted the current social discourse to lionize tea, shrewdly drawing upon the so-called ‘woman question’ and concerns of national integration. Publicity efforts appropriated the nationalist sentiment to herald tea as a ‘national drink’ that could unite the diverse communities of the subcontinent. Likewise, tea brands during this period — which invariably catered to middle and upper-class consumers — used images of empowered women in comfortable and westernised bourgeoisie settings to present tea as a marker of the cultured, modern Indian household. Thus, ITMEB tried to loosen tea from its imperialist associations, and at the same time, market it to a conservative society that aspired for modernity.

With the beginning of the Second World War in 1939, ITMEB’s efforts finally receded, but not because its goal was achieved. Despite decades of extensive efforts, in 1947, tea consumption still remained very low, and over 70 per cent of India's tea crop was being exported. This was in part, due to preference for other types of beverages (like almond milk, lassi, sherbets) and the growing strength of the nationalist movement. Nationalist leaders including Gandhi were promoting a sort of counter-campaign against ITMEB’s efforts. If the British advertised tea as an energizing brew with the potential to unite a diverse country, the nationalists argued that it was a product of brutal colonial exploitation; the very “blood of the peasants of Assam'' that no conscientious Indian should dare drink.

The colonial rule did not last long enough to see India turn into a profitable market of tea. But due credit must be given to the British for introducing tea into the public consciousness in large parts of the country. The ITMEB’s legacy lies in creating an aggressive marketing model that was adopted by all tea brands ( like Tosh, Brooke Bond and Lipton) in the successive decades. The strategy of providing single-use packets and product samples, first pioneered by the ITMEB, was eagerly adopted by brands. Likewise, tropes such as national integration remain in use.

Yet change was on the horizon as the British took leave: newfound sovereignty and transfer of tea estates from foreign to Indian owners spurred a dramatic increase in tea drinking in India. Government interventions like the reorganisation of ITMEB into the ‘Tea Board of India’ in 1953 drove cushy foreign planters to sell off their estates. In a particularly ironic change of tact, tea now became part of the nationalist project of state-building and pan-Indian unity. Advertisements now went against years of nationalist rhetoric and began assuring customers that tea was Swadeshi, an indigenous product. For instance, a 1947 ITMEB advert shows an Indian woman exuding Gandhian frugality, drinking tea, with bold text explicitly asserting the commodity’s ‘100% Swadeshi’ provenance. Likewise, tea continued to be marketed as a rejuvenating drink, but now helping to create active citizens who contribute to nation-building. However, ITMEB’s massive marketing campaign was now taken over by largely private companies, who expanded their efforts to every last village in India, using cyclist-promoters who distributed free samples.

Besides persistent marketing and advertising efforts, the abundant availability of affordable tea in post-independence India played a major role in the widespreading popularity of chai. While full leaf tea was mainly consumed by upper classes, most Indians showed a preference for so-called ‘low grade’ grainy tea. These ‘danedar’ varieties — processed using CTC machines — produced the potent flavour and fragrance cherished by Indians. Moreover, the spread of improved versions of CTC machines in the 1960s and 1970s revolutionised the tea industry. Affordable tea suddenly became readily available in the market, widely sold by brands like Lipton Yellow Label' or Brooke Bond Red Label. This meant a rapid expansion of tea retailers and chai stalls across the country, spurring a population of avid tea drinkers. Chai, in its innumerable variations seen in homes and locales across the country, became the centrepiece of social interaction both outside and within the household.

Throughout British rule, Indians provided stiff resistance against this alien concoction of leaves. But what they instead adopted was a creation of their own — one that was the nightmare of any tea propagandist. The rigmarole of making tea in the British method underwent several improvisations to become what is today known as chai. In flouting almost every single axiom of preparing a ‘nice cup of tea’, Indians decided to just boil all ingredients together to produce a fragrant, sweet and deep coloured liquor that would send tea connoisseurs of the likes of George Orwell packing. The ‘danedar’ variety lent itself easily to such a concoction. If the British variant was meant to be mellow, the Indian version features liberal use of cardamom and ginger, adding heat and sweetness to an already milky syrup. Milk too, is used in profusion, and some adventurous chai wallahs even add spices like pepper and cinnamon.

At its core, chai is a drink that emerged from the prolonged simmering of the colonial encounter in the Indian teapot. The story of tea highlights the power that images and advertising exercise over our choices and viewpoints in the era of capitalism. Amazingly, chai is unique in that despite its clear colonial origins, it shapeshifted into a completely indigenous avatar and came to be accepted as a drink of South Asian heritage — no mean feat in a country reverberating with contradictions rooted in the diversity of religion, language, class, caste etc. and tensions over what is ‘foreign’ and what is ‘native’. Further, it is testimony to the fact that cultures are not monoliths; instead constantly changing and evolving in form. That said, when we gather again to enjoy chai with our friends, co-workers or relatives, remember we are partaking in a living history of cultural and economic change.

Banner image credit Aysha Tanya.

Samarth Singh Chandel is a History Honours student enrolled at the Hansraj College, Delhi University, who enjoys exploring personal histories and histories of pop-culture, food, gender and caste.

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