Chai Around the World: 9 Regional Variants

Irani chai

Hyderabad, Mumbai, Pune · 1880s

signature: condensed milk, long-boiled separately
served in: small ceramic 90 ml cup with saucer
eaten with: Osmania biscuit, bun maska

Brought to British India by Zoroastrian immigrants from Iran in the late nineteenth century, fleeing the Qajar persecution. They opened cafes in Bombay, Pune, and Hyderabad, and they made tea the way they remembered it: the milk and the decoction reduced separately, on low heat, for a long time, then combined only at the moment of serving.

The result is a deep caramel-coloured cup, milky and sweet, much milder in spice than the chai wala version. A small glass of it with a buttered Osmania biscuit is one of Hyderabad's defining tastes.

say it like: ee-RAH-nee chai

Noon chai

Kashmir Valley · centuries old

signature: pink colour, salt instead of sugar
brewed in: copper samovar over coals
served with: crushed pistachios, almonds, butter

Also called sheer chai or gulabi chai. The pink colour is real chemistry, not dye: green tea leaves boiled with baking soda, then aerated by pouring the liquid between two vessels, oxidises the chlorophyll into a deep maroon, which turns blush pink when milk hits it.

Noon means salt in Kashmiri, and traditionally this is a salty drink, not a sweet one. It is the daily winter chai of Kashmir, drunk with naan or as the first thing offered to a guest. The Pakistani version is sometimes sugared, which Kashmiris will tell you is heresy.

say it like: NOON chai (noon as in afternoon)

Tandoori chai

Pune, north India · invented ~2014

signature: clay kulhad heated red-hot in a tandoor
method: chai poured into the hot kulhad, sizzling
flavour: smoky, with a caramelised top layer

The newest chai on this list, and the most theatrical. A clay kulhad is heated inside a tandoor oven until it glows; the chai wala pours brewed chai into the screaming-hot cup; the liquid foams violently, picks up a smoky burnt-sugar note from contact with the clay, and arrives at the customer's hands fizzing.

It started in Pune in the mid-2010s and spread across north India fast. Traditionalists call it a gimmick. Customers keep ordering it anyway, because the smoky caramelised flavour really is distinctive, even if the spectacle is the main draw.

say it like: tun-DOO-ree chai

Sulaimani

Kerala, Malabar coast · trade-era

signature: no milk, black tea with lime and spices
flavour: bright, sharp, palate-cleansing
served after: biryani, mutton curry, anything heavy

The black sheep of the family: a chai with no milk in it. Strong black tea, a squeeze of fresh lime, cardamom, clove, sometimes a leaf of mint or tulsi. Sweetened with jaggery or raw cane sugar. The result is more like a hot tisane than a milk tea.

It belongs to the Malabar coast's long history of Arab and Yemeni trade, and is the standard digestif after the kind of heavy, spice-soaked meal Kerala does best. A glass of sulaimani after biryani is what stops the heaviness from settling.

say it like: sue-lay-MAH-nee

Po cha

Tibet, Ladakh, Bhutan · the high passes

signature: brick tea, yak butter, salt
method: churned in a wooden cylinder until emulsified
texture: soupy, savoury, more broth than drink

At fifteen thousand feet, salt and fat are not luxuries, they are how you survive. Tibetan butter tea is brewed from pressed brick tea (often pu-erh), then poured into a wooden cylinder with yak butter and rock salt, and churned for several minutes until the whole thing emulsifies into something more like a thin soup.

Drunk in heroic quantities, sixty or more small cups a day in some monastic communities. The fat warms, the salt holds electrolytes, the tea wakes you up. None of it tastes like what a Western palate calls tea, and that is the point.

say it like: POH cha · also: bo cha, sucha

Phalap

Singpho country, upper Assam · ancient

signature: smoked, cured inside bamboo tubes
tradition: predates commercial tea by generations
brewed by: boiling smoke-cured leaves in water

The Singpho people of upper Assam were drinking tea long before the British found tea growing wild in their forests in 1823. Their phalap is fresh leaves wilted, packed into hollow bamboo tubes, sealed, and smoked over a fire for weeks. The bamboo gives it a sweet woody note, the smoke gives it depth.

Brewed simply with hot water, no milk, no spice. Phalap is the quiet reminder that the entire industrial tea complex of British Assam was built on top of a tradition that already existed and never asked for the help.

say it like: FAH-lap · the Singpho word for tea

Karak chai

UAE, Qatar, Kuwait, Bahrain · 1960s onward

signature: evaporated milk, heavy cardamom
name means: "strong" in Hindi-Urdu
where: everywhere · petrol stations, hotels, homes

Karak is the Gulf's answer to chai. South Asian workers brought masala chai with them in the second half of the twentieth century, and the version that stuck used canned evaporated milk (shelf-stable, perfect for the desert) and a heavy hit of cardamom. It became, very quickly, the national drink of multiple Gulf states.

It is now sold from drive-through windows next to petrol pumps, served in five-star hotels, drunk by everyone from Emirati grandmothers to South Asian construction workers. Same cup, same name. One of the most genuinely cross-class drinks on earth.

say it like: KUH-rak · means strong, kadak in Hindi

Teh tarik

Malaysia, Singapore · early 20th c.

signature: "pulled" tea, poured from height repeatedly
milk: sweetened condensed milk
texture: thick foam, almost custardy on top

Tarik means "pulled" in Malay. The tea is brewed strong, mixed with sweetened condensed milk, then poured back and forth between two cups held progressively further apart, until a thick froth builds on top. The pull aerates the tea, cools it to drinking temperature, and gives it a creamy mouthfeel no whisk can match.

Brought to Malaya by Indian Muslim ("mamak") immigrants in the early twentieth century, and now embedded in the Malaysian national identity to the point of being on stamps. Mamak stalls open at 6am and close at 4am. There is always teh tarik.

say it like: tay tah-RIK

Silk-stocking milk tea

Hong Kong · 1950s onward

signature: filtered through a long cloth bag
milk: evaporated milk, never fresh
found at: cha chaan teng, every corner

A British colonial inheritance, rewired by Hong Kong. The English-style milk tea was adapted by adding evaporated milk (richer, more shelf-stable) and brewed through a long fabric sock that becomes stained the colour of stocking nylon over years of use, hence the name.

The filter is the point: it softens the tannins, holds back the leaf dust, and gives the tea a silky body. Drunk at cha chaan teng (Hong Kong tea diners) with toast, macaroni soup, or a Hong Kong-style pineapple bun. Also forms one half of yuanyang, where it is mixed half-and-half with coffee.

say it like: si mat lai cha · 絲襪奶茶

chai around the world

the through-line