Join Me For An Afternoon Cup Of Chai

Hi there,

Thanks so much for coming this afternoon.

We're gonna sit down and have some chai together,

Which is my favorite form of tea.

Chai tea is a bit of a misnomer because the word chai actually means tea over in India,

So to say chai tea seems like you're saying tea tea in English,

Which I think is kind of funny.

But we're gonna have a cup of chai together,

So having a cup of tea in the afternoon is such a lovely way to slow down the day and connect with people or to have contemplative time all by yourself if you're alone.

It's a very sweet tradition and I've instituted it quite often in my life now over the years.

My wife and I sometimes will sit down and have a cup of tea in the afternoon and take a break from our in-home working lives and that's always really sweet.

So I'm glad that you're here with me and that we can enjoy this cup of chai together.

So I've tried all kinds of chai from black tea based to green tea based to matcha to all sorts of different kinds of chai and I have finally found what I think is the best chai tea that I've ever had and it's called Blue Lotus Chai,

Traditional masala chai and it comes in a three ounce metal tin.

You can buy it on Amazon and it's $18 for this three ounces but it's really cool about this is that inside take that lid off and inside there's this very sweet little wooden spoon,

A little tiny wooden spoon,

It's not even as big as my,

That's about the same size as the top half of my little finger,

It's very small and just one or two scoops depending on your tastes into your cup is all it takes for this chai.

So I'm gonna get a couple scoops of this,

I'll put it into my cup and I'll put some into your cup and I hope you're gonna enjoy this,

There's a couple more steps to take but let's let's do this part first.

So here goes the chai into the cups.

I like two scoops personally but I'll give you maybe one and a half,

How about that,

Just because it's pretty strong,

It's spicy,

It's got a little bit of a kick to it and that's a nice aspect of chai.

Chai tea has black tea,

Cardamom,

Sometimes cloves,

Sometimes black pepper and this particular chai has ginger root,

Cinnamon,

Yep,

Black pepper,

Nutmeg and cloves,

Yep,

So very very nice.

Has a little little tang to it when you when you taste it here you'll get a nice little bite,

Has a nice little bite to it.

So that goes in the cup and then we take the boiling water and we're gonna pour in about half the cup.

So let's pour that.

So there you go,

That's for you and here's mine.

There we go,

So about half a cup and then we take our spoon and we stir that chai.

Let's do that part.

First we stir up the chai.

That's yours.

Now I'll do mine.

There we go.

And now because it has a bite and because it's strong I like to put honey in mine.

So I put actually two tablespoons of honey into my chai.

So pour the honey in.

One tablespoon and I do it at this point because that water is boiling and it will melt that honey pretty quickly and dissipate it into the tea.

So there's two tablespoons in my chai and would you like two or do you want one?

Okay great.

There's your honey.

Okay and now the final step.

Now I use extra creamy oat milk from Planet Oat and there's another company that starts with a C.

I can't remember what the other company is.

It also makes kind of a nice creamy oat milk and the reason we do that in our house is that my wife is allergic to dairy which eliminating dairy has also eliminated 10 to 15 pounds for me.

So something about dairy just adds up the weight for me and so that's been a really nice benefit of difficult situations sometimes with my wife's allergy to dairy but anyway that's been a nice thing.

So we fill up the rest of the cup with extra creamy oat milk.

You can use whatever you want whatever kind of milk you like and originally as I was told by my tai chi instructor Master Robin Johnson was that tea was used to make milk more digestible.

So that's an interesting thought isn't it that you put a little bit of tea in your milk up in the Himalayas,

Yak milk or cow's milk in India or buffalo milk maybe or whatever in those parts of the world in Asia and the tea would make that milk more digestible and then the tea itself became a drink so that's really intriguing thinking about the history of that isn't it?

I think that's fascinating.

So anyway we'll put the rest of the cup which is half a cup half of the tea cup filled up with extra creamy oat milk and I heat mine up but I don't want it to cool down the chai too much so here you go it's already heated pour it in to mine and pour it into yours and then we stir that.

Okay there we go two cups of chai so let's sit down now and we'll enjoy our time together and take a sip of this chai.

Oh that's so good.

Mmm.

My my every time I take it that first taste is fabulous.

Yeah it's nice and hot.

So how do you like it?

I hope you like it.

Yeah yeah yeah yeah it's good stuff.

Mmm.

So we get to visit for a little bit and what's nice about having a cup of chai in the afternoon is that it feels both warming and energizing at the same time because of that black tea and the bite in it so that's why one of the reasons I really like chai a lot and you might consider that you might think about you know having an afternoon break where you stop for 30 minutes and make a cup of chai a cup of tea if you don't like chai that's fine of course but to make a cup and to sit with it and to feel that steam coming up and the aroma that's so nice and spicy and the beauty of contemplative time to me that's the key of it it's it's all well and good to have something yummy to drink I think that's wonderful and you might enjoy if you haven't already listening to my good morning coffee meditation here on insight timer or a meditation that I did in my favorite coffee shop that's called my favorite coffee shop but really to me it's so important to foster and to nurture and really create a contemplative life like a style of living that includes quiet time and time in nature time looking at the stars and watching the Sun come up seeing sunsets and giving ourselves the space and the precious time of savoring life goodness we know that in the last two years this is 2022 January when I'm recording this so for the last two years the whole world has been attacked and inundated by this COVID-19 pandemic and it's given us time to pause and do get quiet to spend time at home and I think it's made so many of us really consider how precious quiet time is how really important time with loved ones is and sometimes to the point where it got to be too much of course and strife happened and difficulties and conflicts happen between people but the beauty to me of all of this this last couple years has been that we've been able to reassess as people as a people across the globe the shape of our lives and to sit with a cup of chai like this to sit with you and have us experience this time together to me is a beautiful result I guess of what this pandemic has brought to us so if you've lost a loved one in the midst of this I don't in any way minimize that loss and the sadness and grief that you've experienced I want you to know how much it means to me that you came to this time together to have this cup of chai with me and I hope for you is that giving yourself the wonderful gift of contemplative time in the afternoon meditation time in the mornings time to think and plan and dream is absolutely vital to our happiness and I hope that you'll take that on either sitting with yourself sitting with loved ones and hopefully enjoying a cup of chai thanks so much for joining me this afternoon I am just so honored to be an insight timer and to have people like you come and experience my meditations and my talks and the offerings that I've made here in this community thank you so much have a wonderful day and enjoy your chai bye for now