Saaya & the Rituals of Tamil Muslim Milk Tea
To have a ‘saaya’ is a daily ritual for South Indian Muslims. When tea becomes an object of ritual familiarity that is used to establish community, or act as a class signifier among middle class Tamil Muslims, Maazin Buhari examines the ingredients, the social cues, and what it means to be a saaya drinker.
A cup of saaya is boundlessly more than the sum of its parts. Stripped of any context, it is scarcely more than a cup of creamy chai, made by boiling tea leaves, ginger, and ground spices in a bubbling vat of milk. Contextually, it tells an infinite number of stories, as tea does, anywhere in the world. There probably isn’t a culture worth knowing about that can’t be explored through its relationship with tea. In my world, it is a lens through which I can trace histories of casual addiction, un-symbolic rites of passage, globally local senses of familiarity, and understand its position as a deeply nourishing panacea that a hot chocolate could only dream of being compared with.
There are as many ways to make a cup of tea as there are people on the planet, but more generically speaking — saaya will contain a noticeable quantity of milk, cardamom, cloves, a low-to-quite-high (breathtakingly high, if you’re my father) spectrum of pounded ginger, and saffron if you are particularly flamboyant. A rogue regional twist is adding ‘nannari’ or Indian sarsaparilla, either as a ground root, or in its distilled form, a syrupy manna — sold in amber tinted medicinal bottles with labels such as ‘AYURVEDIC’ and ‘BLOOD PURIFIER’ printed in bold red typeface. Nannari syrup tastes like the imagined intersection of a mild liquorice, artificial vanilla flavouring, whatever goes into making root beer, and golden brown caramel. Most Tamilians don’t call their tea saaya. They probably say ‘டீ’ which is just a transliteration of the English word. In proper Tamil, say Senthamizh, or in a formal register, it would be ‘thenir’ — but I’ve never actually heard anyone say that in conversation. Tamil Muslims, idiosyncratic in dialect, are likely to say something different altogether. Saaya is most likely a loanword from the Malayali ‘ചായ’ or chaaya’, and we have a tendency to pronounce the ‘ch’ sound as an ‘s’. As we borrow words, we also transform ingredients, and imbibe new meaning — thus deeply localising the pan-Indian tea experience.
The apparatus for making saaya should only be reserved for making saaya. A specifically designated pot, in which nothing will boil but fresh milk. A small strainer, or fine mesh sieve, through which only tea masala and ginger will pass. A small brass pestle and mortar, which will ring out a characteristic ding, as though announcing to the rest of the household that it is time to sit down for tea. Temple bells and adhaans probably have less classically conditioned sway than the clanging of the weighty mortar against the heavy bottomed pestle. I think the presence of the pestle and mortar implies a particularly high level of permanence, only someone's home would have one of those. The ease by which a saaya can be made could probably be used as a proxy for the homeliness of one’s environment. Tea bags and concentrated spice drops are a desperate substandard replacement that reminds you of the transient space you are in, a purgatory almost.
Earlier this year, having not been back home for an extended period of time in more than five years, my parents lampooned me for only drinking pour-over black coffee, no milk, no sugar (seemingly too picky about the beans I use, as well). My mother has always been a nescafe or ‘Bru’ drinker, a second-wave coffee consumer. But I had never unpacked the luxuriousness of using cardamom, one of the most expensive spices in the world, and dried nannari roots — going into a cup of tea, multiple times a day. Like every aunt and uncle I have, they insist that without their numerous daily cups they get headaches, and will be plunged into a fugue state from which only a saaya-defibrillation can resuscitate. Saaya is necessary, at minimum, twice a day, every day. Once in the daytime, to breathe life into one’s mornings, and once in the evening — perhaps to whet the appetite before supper. Maybe addiction is a bit of an extreme word to use, but what else do you call a micro-dosed stimulant necessary for daily functioning and mental clarity?
Like every other Tam-Mus child I know, I wasn’t given saaya when I was younger; I drank milk, three times a day, like some sort of over-nourished calf awaiting an unfortunate end. There was an unspoken rule, a delineation, that separated the children from the adults — what we sipped at tea-time. Milo, if in Singapore; Complan, Boost or Bournvita if in India, and maybe Nesquik if somewhere ‘Western’; but never saaya. Of all the stories tea can tell, it being a rite of passage is probably a rare one. I was shocked to hear that my cousin pours saaya into her son’s milk-bottle; it almost offended me personally. How inappropriate for a toddler to be allowed to drink saaya? Literal tea-narchy. But I wasn’t jealous of the tyke who probably drank it more for the sugar than its complex spice layering. When we turn about sixteen, or maybe eighteen, to mimic a more real developmental milestone, we start receiving saaya at 5 PM instead of a pint of milk. I don’t remember when saaya was first offered to me as an adult, and no one else would either, it is an imperceptible and irreversible tonal shift that implies a certain undefined form of maturity, and this develops in us a new daily craving. Perhaps because we were overstimulated as children, we didn’t need one more twice-delivered caffeine injection.
The intricacy and intimacy of saaya as a daily ritual also allows it to be used as a medium through which we can pass judgement on other people’s lives and styles. When visiting a neighbours home, affirming that their saaya is indeed satisfactory is to imply that they live well; it communicates an epicurean confirmation that even without the voyeurism of others, they must lead a modicum of a comfortable life. Or, it suggests that one has taught their hired help how to perfectly deliver the goods, since an upper middle-class household would almost never prepare its own tea. To say that a saaya isn’t very good, or indeed to compare it to another, more superior tea, is a soft act of slander — suggesting that they have not fulfilled their duties as a host, and perhaps more subconsciously, as a well-heeled member of polite society.
There isn’t much that immediately distinguishes a saaya from say, an earl gray, a long black, or a builders brew with two milks and no sugar. I mean, it is a different drink, but really not that different. But perhaps objects of addiction are rarely complex constructions, they just need to be readily available, and rapidly consumable. A saaya preference is an ongoing dialogue between what we spectate as children, and who we will become as adults — and as we, the new cosmopolitan millennials, move to different cities, replace nannari with ‘moon milk’ supplements, and start using one pot for more than one purpose — a saaya will simultaneously become less of a feature in our daily lives and more of a rarified luxury. The elaborate indulgence of making saaya from scratch will remind us of home, a nostalgia where the dings rang more frequently.
RECIPE FOR TAMIL MULSIM SAAYA
Makes 3 cups
Ingredients
2 tea-cups whole/full fat cow’s milk (can be substituted with oat milk, but not as good with other alternative milks)
1 tea-cup water
3 tsp powdered tea leaves
A few whole cloves
A few cardamom pods
Two pieces of fresh ginger, each roughly the size of of your middle and index fingers when held together
Sugar (optional)
A few threads saffron (optional)
3 tsp nannari syrup, or a small bunch of dried nannari roots (optional)
Other spices can also be used if preferred, such as cinnamon, black pepper, or star anise
Method
Pound the spice mixture in a heavy bottomed pestle and mortar
Remove the ground spices, and add the ginger and pound until roughly broken down, and the ginger juices just begin to separate
Add the milk and water to a saucepan and allow to boil
Reduce to a medium simmer and add the spices and ground ginger (and the nannari and sugar if you are using any)
Return to boil for 30 seconds
Reduce to a medium simmer once again, and add the tea leaves
Return to boil for one minute
If adding saffron, reduce to a low simmer and add a few teaspoons of bloomed saffron milk along with the strands
Strain, and serve
Maazin is a food writer based in London. He previously ran a popup restaurant with his best friend Wilhelm, in Edinburgh, Scotland. He enjoys reading and writing about food histories and evolutions.
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