Regional Chai Masala Blends: How the Spice Mix Changes Across India

Fennel (saunf), which one reader told us belongs in any “real” Indian chai, gives a sweet, faintly aniseed note that softens ginger’s heat. Saffron (kesar) is the luxury addition, used in our most celebratory blends; one of our blenders, asked about our 2016 Diwali chais, said: “I am partial to the ones that have saffron and cardamom in them.”

How the regional spices show in the cup

The order in which you taste the spices is as much a part of each blend as the list. Avishek of our procurement team, scripting a tasting of three of our chais, described them like this.

• Kolkata Street Chai: “A full-bodied cup,” with ginger and nutmeg at the top, “aromatic cardamom” in the middle, and saffron that “can be perceived at edges; lends delicate sweetness.” He adds that “a dash of milk brings out the flavors even more.”
• Kashmiri Saffron Rose Chai: a “bright & brisk, medium-bodied cup,” where saffron brings “intense color, aroma” first, rose comes through in the middle and green cardamom “lingers on.” He called it “a dessert-like blend suited to celebrate all Indian festivities.”
• Assam Masala Chai: “Sweet, spicy dry leaf aroma” and “a full-bodied cup,” opening on ginger, with cinnamon and clove in the middle and cardamom and black pepper at the finish. With milk, “it is impressively dense, full-bodied and sweet.”

Our product note for Kolkata Street Chai reads the same cup a little differently: cardamom first, then “strong hints of ginger, citrus, malt, and nutmeg.”

What cooks do in each city

Our blends are a starting point; the cities have their own habits. In Kolkata, our writer found people mixing their own leaf in local shops, “50 g of orthodox Darjeeling tea and 100 g of CTC tea leaves, along with a few strands of saffron,” and noted that “people in Kolkata drink their chai sweet.”

In Mumbai, Jerry Pinto met a different chai in almost every community he visited, from a Marwari tea “made with only milk and with cloves to kill” to his own Mahim pot of elaichi, lemongrass, cinnamon and clove. For how these chais taste and where they are drunk, see Types of chai in India.

You can taste most of our blends side by side in our Authentic Indian Chai trial pack, which has 10 chais in 10 g sample packs, or in The Chai Tea Gift Box, six of our regional chais in tins.

We plan our own blends this way. Our 2015 range plan matched flavors to the calendar:

• Diwali: cardamom, saffron, cashew, almonds, raisins, dalle chili, nutmeg, pumpkin and maple, the rich, festive end of the spice box.
• Autumn: cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaf, pumpkin, walnut, kokum, maple and ginger, for the first cool evenings.
• Winter: pepper, clove, nutmeg and cinnamon, with coffee, chicory, chocolate, turmeric, tulsi and ginger as partners.

The same plan set out to “make regional chais our year long theme and carry 10 chais from different regions.” Home cooks make the summer swap by instinct. One of our writers suggested: “During summers, you may try using lemongrass, fennel and mint as well (that’s my favorite kind).” Our Gujarati Mint Spice Chai, launched in October 2024, is built the same way, on lemongrass, mint and ginger.

Each shifts the cup in a clear direction: fennel and rose toward sweetness, mint and lemongrass toward freshness, star anise and nutmeg toward warmth.

• Nutmeg (jaiphal): warm and sweet; grate a tiny amount, as it is strong.
• Star anise (chakra phool): licorice-like and warming; use it sparingly.
• Saffron (kesar) and rose: fragrance and color, as in Kashmiri and Varanasi-style chai. Kashmir’s other famous spiced drink, made with green tea, is Kashmiri kahwa.
• Mint and lemongrass: fresh and bright, as in Gujarati-style chai.
• Tulsi (holy basil): peppery and clove-like; it appears in our Ayurvedic chais alongside ginger and black pepper. More in Tulsi (holy basil) tea.
• Mace and ajwain: mace, the lacy coat of the nutmeg seed, and ajwain (bishop’s weed), a pungent, slightly bitter seed, are both on Peter Keen’s list for a fine masala chai. Our 2018 training manual also lists bishop’s weed among chai spices.
• Bay leaf: our Tea 101 page on teas of the world lists “even bay leaves” among chai spices.

Our Ayurvedic and herbal chais

Our Ayurvedic chais draw on herbs and roots from Indian tradition as well as kitchen spices: ginger, black pepper and tulsi in Rajasik; ashwagandha, turmeric, licorice and star anise in Rasayana; rose, licorice, ginger, cardamom and cinnamon in Ashoka Ras Chai, which tastes “floral at first, gently spiced underneath.” We describe them here for their flavor only. For what research does and does not say about spiced tea and health, read Is chai good for you?

Unusual additions

Some additions surprise even us. Peter Keen’s turning point as a chai drinker was a chocolate chai: “Dark, bitter chocolate and pungent pepper didn’t sound promising. It was superb.” Vanilla went the other way: our saffron vanilla chai took fifteen attempts in one day and never worked.

Some additions are not spices at all. Kausshal Dugarr, our founder, first tasted coconut oil in chai at a friend’s home, and wrote in January 2022: “Not the usual ingredient one adds to a cup of chai, but it greatly alters the flavor. Slightly nutty, absolutely different & very delicious.”

Chai spices also travel well beyond the saucepan. We have steeped a spiced chai into a concentrate for chai lattes (5 teaspoons of chai to 400 ml of hot water, 10 minutes, then strained and kept in the fridge) and frozen a saffron and rose chai, with condensed milk and cardamom, into popsicles. See Chai concentrate, powder and syrup and Chai latte.