Talk:Masala chai/Archive 1

Comment
The bit at the top about the spread of the name of tea needs to be cleaned up for greater readability. 1. I imagine in almost all cases the word "Chai" is language-specific not country specific. 2. Other improvements...

I thought it was untenable to list countries that say 'Chai' to mean tea. Now I wonder whether it is untenable to list all the languages that use the word 'Chai' to mean 'Tea' as part of the main article text.

Note the article used to try to associate what tea is called in a certain country (either Chai or Tea) with the tea trade but this does not hold in general. DanielHolth 3 July 2005 05:43 (UTC)


 * I'm a stickler for Hindi transliteration and cay should be cāy strictly speaking (or Urdu cā'e from the Persian). On a different note: I, not being familiar with the nuances of Eastern Asian cuisine, had never heard of Bubble tea, but when I came across it it reminded me of Indian tea. Link? Or would this be redundant and lead to other links like maté? In any case it is always nice to find a little hub of WP where the Hindi vs. Urdu wars haven't breached yet. Khiradtalk 04:42, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

By the way, how about something on the Chai Wallah (चायवाला), or "tea vendor." If you've never seen them at work in person, in a documentary or Bollywood film, it is quite amazing. Almost exactly in the middle of this linked movie you can see one at work: Door Into Hindi: Lesson 5. And what about ठंढी चाय (ṭhaṇḍhī cāy), lit. "cold tea", etc. Worth at least a mention, no? Khiradtalk 05:23, 25 October 2005 (UTC)

The article, or at least the introduction, never outright comes out and says "Chai is tea." In American english, chai is a variety of tea that is definitely not considered tea. Americans think of tea, in the French or English varieties, as true tea. Chai is "sticks and leaves". Bottom line suggestion: Define Chai and it's differences from garden-variety English tea before going into the wonderous qualities of this fair and underappreciated beverage. Magicwombat 07:58, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

A good start may be "Chai is another word for tea. In English-speaking countries, chai refers to a tea prepared with spices, which is then generally served with milk." The first sentence is very poor, but true, and the second sentence says what people usually mean when using the word. Magicwombat 08:11, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Chai also being Russian for tea.

Proverbs on Chai
What about adding few proverbs related to Chai.

Probably it may not be everyones cup of tea; Atleast we have a live example of a storm in a teacup going on in with the editors of Hindi & Urdu Pratheepps 09:22, 12 June 2006 (UTC)

Psychedelic and chai
What exactly does chai have to do with psychedelic, apart from the fact that psychedelic trance came from Goa, India? tyx

Response to above query
Psychedelics where not brought up in the article, and to equate 'psychedelic' with psytrance in this context serves no constructive purpose as far as I can see, and may even elucidate a negative editorial response to that segment. I hope that my fear is unfounded, and that I may shed some light, if however little, upon this subject.

There is a noteworthy relationship between the global underground music scene and masala chai. I do not have enough knowledge to elucidate what this relationship exists, but I have witnessed a strong anthropological correlation of masala chai at events I have attended (such as Shambhala 06, http://www.shambhalamusicfestival.com/, and Intentions 7.5 http://www.tribalharmonix.org/events/summercamp/).

Intuition leads me to believe there must be some benefit of chai to the lifestyle of a participant in such an event. If we consider that a participant is probably eating very little, sleeping very little, and dancing very much, how does masala chai create benefit?

What answers would be get from the wisdom of the Ayurvedic sciences about the last question?

Whats answers would we get from the data accumulated by researchers into the effects of the individual, and combined effects biologically, and maybe even upon the consciousness, of the participant?

What do masala chai drinkers who attend such events say?

206.116.233.231 03:30, 29 August 2006 (UTC) Hyperi0n.v2


 * Chai is, in fact, a complete meal in and of itself. You get carbs, protein, vitamins, and antioxidents with every cup of Chai. Therefore and insomuch, consumption of said beverage by an individual commonly described as a "raver" is highly recommended, in order to sustain more dancing and consumption of psychoactive substances. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Sakredfire (talk • contribs) 11:35, 20 February 2007 (UTC).

Links
Two or three of the External Links go to retailers that sell their own brand of chai. According to Wikipedia's linking policy, sites that primarily exist to promote a product should not be linked to. Unless anyone has any objections, I'll be removing those links. Ztrawhcs 15:23, 3 August 2006 (UTC)


 * This may not have been what you were refering to, but I noticed Oregon Chai is currently (red) linked as an example of Western interpretations heavy in honey and vanilla flavors. I see no reason that link would ever have the importance to rank a wikipedia article. On the other hand, people who aren't familiar with the company deserve to know what it is. To me, it seems that linking to the (albeit commercial) Oregon Chai homepage would be the best way to fix this. The other option would be to remove the example completely, which might also be a good fix. Opinions?

--Spyforthemoon 16:24, 13 November 2006 (UTC)

Chai - the word and language
Just wanted to make a note about my changes of the reference to chai as a 'Hindi' word. It is POV to cite it as being a Hindi word without reference to its also being a word of the many other distinct Indian languages out there. There is also no verifiable etymological proof that it solely originated in Hindi and then was picked up by other Indian languages. Hence, the term pan-Indian. 68.173.46.79 04:30, 24 September 2006 (UTC)

agree with the above. chai is derived from cha in cantonese and there are iterations of chai in various other languages. to state that it is a hindi word would suggest that the other languages use of the word chai would stem from hindi, which is not true.129.112.109.252 18:31, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Chai vs. masala chai
This is unclear to say the least. The first section states that chai is just the Hindi word for tea, while masala is the hindi word for spice. Then some general info about the tea-drinking habits of India. Fine. But the second section gives directions for making what appears to be masala chai. This is confusing, the article just said chai isn't the same as masala chai, but it then gives directions for masala chai on the chai page. Proposal: rename this page to 'masala chai' since that's the only main content item. People looking for the american 'chai' would get redirected to the more specific term. The general Indian tea information could either stay on the new masala chai page, or just go into the main tea article. I originally thought of this as a merge, but while the masala page doesn't have much information, it doesn't match well enough to merge.--Spyforthemoon 14:21, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Agreed. -SpuriousQ 11:40, 19 November 2006 (UTC)
 * Thirded BovineBeast 16:43, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Fourthed --Sakredfire 11:36, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Fifthed. 130.225.96.2 19:33, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Since no one objected, but no one did anything, I decided to be bold and shifted the article as-is to Masala chai. Chai now redirects there. If anyone has complaints please air them. It might also be worth transferring the talk page so that issues with the page aren't forgotten, but I don't know if that's done. 152.91.9.219 (talk) 02:53, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Chai in Serbian
In Serbian language, the word "čaj", pronounced "chai" is also used to denote Tea. I don't know how the word got into the language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.30.64.46 (talk) 17:38, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
 * From Persian چای chay, which came from Chinese 茶 cha. The y at the end is from the Persian grammatical suffix -yi. The info's been added in now. - M0rphzone (talk) 03:26, 6 February 2012 (UTC)

Tea
I don't really see why this article is needed. It's just tea. Redirect to the Tea article, I say. Ordinary Person 10:36, 23 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Agreed. I came here to find out what chai is, knowing that it's something to do with tea, and the article just says it's the regional word for tea and goes into a whole litany of tea variations.  I vote for redirecting this to tea. -Rolypolyman 22:41, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * It's also a specific kind of tea, like green tea is different from black tea. If all this info is added to the main tea article that might be reasonable, but it does deserve to have info of its own, especially considering that chai is the kind of tea most popular in the East and has historical and cultural roots there, and far outweighs Orange Pekoe or Earl Gray or any of the types commonly popular in North America and Europe. -- Editor at Large  •  talk  23:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Well, chai is just tea. Masala chai is the type of tea that you are talking about.
 * First, sign your discussion comments using 4 ~ . Second, I can vouch (and if needed, give references) for 'Chai' meaning 'Masala Chai' within Australia. In English (and this is English wikipedia) Chai generally refers to Masala Chai because we obviously have another word for tea, TEA! I know, its crazy huh? Who would of thought, but there it is. I guess its kind of like in China, where they just call Chinese food, FOOD. Tinkstar1985 10:13, 17 August 2007 (UTC)


 * Yeah, this article should be on the tea known in English as "chai", not about what the word "chai" means in other languages (Wikipedia isn't a translating dictionary). Would anybody object to moving this to masala chai, and making the intro something like: Masala chai, commonly known in many English-speaking countries as simply chai, is a ... --Delirium 22:28, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


 * There are plenty of English speakers who use 'chai' and 'tea' interchangeably. 'Chai' may refer to masala chai in some parts of the world, but this is not universal even among English speakers. Since this article is mostly about the masala chai, Delirium's suggestion makes sense. I would have 'chai' redirect to tea. Nath 11:18, 10 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I would agree with Nath, but redirect Chai to Masala Chai - as it is the more common variation - and anyone familiar with the word chai as being interchangeable with tea will probably know the word tea, whereas not everyone who knows chai as Masala Chai, has heard the term Masala Chai before. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.240.46.149 (talk) 08:17, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

w00t
I see one man's life is another's tea, lol..... ;) &mdash;  Rickyrab | Talk 02:48, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Tea Tea?
Let me make this clear: Chai stands for Tea! so when you say Chai Tea, it means you're saying Tea Tea! Please refer to chai tea(which is obviously incorrect) as Chai or if you are referring to Masala Chai, then say so. --Irutavias 20:26, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Etymology
The whole section on etymology looks very suspiciously like original research. Unless someone (for example, whoever wrote it) can come up with some good sources, I would suggest removing the section entirely.--M m hawk 01:44, 4 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Okay, since this section is basically a repeat of part of Tea, I'll remove the section from here and refer the reader to the Tea Etymology section near the beginning.--M m hawk (talk) 21:27, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a dictionary
Whilst this is well beyond a dicdef, care should be taken to avoid original research when trying to expand on this.--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 00:45, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
 * As pointed out above, this seems like a duplicate of tea that serves little purpose than to point out some etymological differences.--h i s  s p a c e   r e s e a r c h 00:46, 20 December 2007 (UTC)