Do you know 8 fascinating drinks from India?
By the time you finished reading the title, your mind must have processed a few names like masala chai, mango lassi, buttermilk, and aam panna. But wait! Stop assuming, and don’t skip the blog. As you read, you will find about eight desi-fascinating drinks that taste both heartfelt and exotic.
The saying goes that the dialect and the cuisine alter every 100 kilometers in India. Cuisines differ from north to south, east to west, and city to village. It is so diverse that you can never claim to know every dish. There are many dishes left out, especially drinks. A select group may be acquainted with the foods, but they are mostly unknown to the global population.
The beverages are available in a variety of flavors and textures and have the potential to become popular worldwide. This blog will take you to the world of local drinks. I can’t promise it will be love at first sip, but once you acquire the taste, you will find your love. So, do try. For your convenience, I only explained the making techniques rather than the entire recipe. The purpose is to give an idea of the beverage.
Table of Content
Kashmiri Tea or Noon Chai
While staying in Kashmir, I drank a cup of noon chai daily with my breakfast. The first few cups were a challenge. I was not used to its salty taste and thought the cook had mistaken salt for sugar in my tea. After a few days, I realized that the salty taste was typical. By the time I left the place, I had become addicted, having learned how to relish it.
Locals enjoy their noon chai with freshly baked lavaas (one of the varieties of Kashmiri bread) coming straight out of the Kandur, a traditional small bakery at the corner of every street. After each sip, the small bite of lavaas balances the salty taste and adds richness.
What is more interesting about the tea is not the taste but the color. The tea has a faint pink color, which is unique in terms of tea. The ingredient and the method make it stand out among the others.
What have the locals taught me about its making?
Boil the gunpowder tea, one of the oolong or green tea varieties, with water and baking soda. Stir for a while. Allow the brew to simmer, and add ice-cold water. Repeat the process until it turns dark red with a blue hue. Strain the mixture and add the milk and salt. Adding milk turns the color a faint pink. Serve it in a samovar. The samovar is a copper or brass container. It has a compartment in the vessel’s center to hold the live coal. The heat from the coal slowly cooks the tea and infuses it with a smoky flavor.
The science behind the pink color;
The sodium bicarbonate makes the water alkaline. The catechins auto-oxidize under alkaline conditions and impart a dark color. This dark color further reacts with the milk component to form a lighter version.
Sheer Chai
The sheer chai is a noon chai with a twist. Using sugar and nuts makes sheer chai different from the salty version. It is a celebratory drink in Pakistan and certain provinces of North India. Noon chai and sheer chai are assumed to be synonymous, but Kashmiris like their tea to be salty.
Kahwa
You go knocking at the door of a Kashmiri. He will welcome you with a hot, aromatic drink, the Kahwa. The mood of the festivity determines the flavor. If you carry good news or are an invitee to a holy occasion, you will get to drink Doodh Kahwa. At other events, like weddings, gatherings, or inviting friends, the saffron kahwa will be your welcome drink. The third, spiced kahwa, is a drink for rejuvenation.
Doodh Kahwa
It is condensed milk with the goodness of almonds and cardamom. Its richness makes you feel holy.
How can you prepare?
Boil the milk with crushed almonds, sugar, and cardamom. Allow for a two-thirds reduction. Serve with almonds and saffron.
Saffron Kahwa
It has an intoxicating aroma of cardamom and saffron. The perfect drink to greet your guest with warm hospitality.
How can you make saffron kahwa?
Start by preparing the cardamom extract and steeping the saffron. Boil the crushed almonds and sugar. Then add the cardamom extract and the saffron-infused water. Please give it a nice boil. And voila! Your saffron tea is ready to serve. Garnish with saffron.
Spiced or Green Tea Kahwa
The third item on the list is the most talked-about kahwa. Before writing this blog, I thought kahwa was like a black masala tea. But as my research proceeded, I re-discovered kahwa.
It is the extract of all the spices, similar to kadha (North) and kashaya (South). Yes, you guessed right! Green tea is optional. The locals made a simple kahwa from cardamom, cinnamon, clove, black pepper, and saffron. They add honey in place of sugar to make it beneficial.
Kahwa is an all-purpose home remedy drink. You can ask for kahwa if you are freezing, need something hot before bed, or want to end the day joyfully.
Prepare the healthy version;
Extract the spices in boiling water until the color changes to a light brown. Strain, add honey, and serve hot.
Butter Tea or Po cha
It reminded me of the local Sikkim boy with the bare minimum of warm clothes standing at my door with a milk can. On the other hand, I was shivering in my three layers of clothing. I often ask him how he manages; he smiles and replies, “I drink butter tea daily.”
Butter tea is a drink popular among the people of the Himalayas, like in Ladakh, Sikkim, and Arunachal Pradesh, and they drink it with breakfast to keep warm through long winters.
It is an emulsion of tea and butter with a hint of salt. Butter tea is served warm, not hot.
The traditional way of making;
To make butter tea traditionally, you need pu-erh tea leaves, a bamboo churner, and yak butter. Brew the tea leaves for an extended time to achieve a dark brown color. Pour the strained brew, salt, milk, and butter into the churner. Begin churning and continue until everything is evenly mixed. Transfer the butter tea to a kettle and heat it until it is warm. One should avoid boiling, as it spoils the taste and texture. Tea bags, cow butter, and a mixer have replaced the traditional pu-erh tea, yak butter, and churner.
Chhurpi Mui and Soup
Tibetans in India have integrated with native Indian culture to a very high degree. In the state of Sikkim, many local people have adapted Tibetan cooking styles to suit their tastes. Chhurpi is a traditional Tibetan cheese and a part of Sikkim’s regional cuisine, like chhurpi noodles and chhurpi soup.
Chhurpi is a product of buttermilk, a leftover from churning butter, and is locally called mui. There are two types of chhurpi: soft and hard. The soft one is for savories, and one can eat the hard one as candy.
The traditional way of making;
Traditional making requires a tolung, a bamboo churner. The cheesemaker allows the milk to sit in the tolung overnight to curdle the milk. A churning process separates the butter from the whey. Mui, or buttermilk, is leftover whey that contains SNF or solid-no-fat. Upon heating, all the remaining solids in the mui separate from the whey part. These solids are fresh chhurpi. In the final stage, the cheesemaker drains the whey water and hangs it up to ferment and dry it to make a soft chhurpi. It acquires a tangy taste during fermentation. The soft chhurpi is further dried or smoked for months to form a hard one.
Mui goes well with lunch or as a refreshing drink after a long day at work.
Tongba
Don’t be surprised if you ask for a beer in Sikkim and get a bamboo jar of fermented millet soaked in hot water. The pot you’re holding is the Tongba, and the millet is Mandokpenaa thee.
Mandokpenaa thee is a cooked, fermented, and aged millet. It forms a solid mass after the fermentation and aging processes. The millet masses are steeped in Tongbas filled with hot water. The steeping extracts the alcohol from each fermented millet grain. One has to sip the alcohol-infused water through a perforated bamboo straw. Tongba gets refilled with hot water whenever the millet gets dry. It is entirely up to you how frequently you fill your tongba before the alcohol runs out.
Fermentation in Mandokpenaa thee
It is a two-way fermentation. First, through mold fermentation, a sweet flavor is produced. Second, through yeast fermentation, alcohol is made in a closed container. After that, it needs 3 to 6 months of aging to be mature.
Thandai
The festival in India is seasonal. In these celebrations, food plays an important part. Seasonal availability and demand have a significant impact.
The food served at these festivals has religious and health significance, like Thandai. Though it is a Holi-specific drink, it is essential throughout the summer. It is a sweet, nutty, mildly spiced drink. The ingredients in Thandai keep the body hydrated and cool. A glass of thandai can keep you refreshed throughout a summer day.
Making thandai is a daily affair, as I like it so much during the summer.
How I make it
The process starts with making the thandai syrup. Soak almonds, cashews, melon and poppy seeds, fennel, black pepper, green cardamom, and rose petals overnight. Peel the soaked almonds to remove the skin. Grind all the ingredients to a fine paste. Well, you can use a mortar and pestle the traditional way or a grinder. I love my paste to be more conventional. So, I use mortar and pestle. Make a sugar syrup. Add the paste to it. Mix it well, and your syrup is ready. You can preserve it or use it instantly.
Solkadhi
I chose the Konkan region for my monsoon trip because of its mesmerizing landscapes. During the monsoon, nature is at the peak of its youth, and the beauty is beyond one’s imagination. And this was the place where I tasted my life’s first Solkadi.
Kokum is the soul of the solkadhi. It looks like a small orange with carpels. It is purple in color and tangy in taste. Every part of the Kokum is valuable. The seeds are dried and used for making kokum butter, and the dried peels are substitutes for tamarind in savory dishes.
Solkadhi is an appetizer made from coconut milk and Kokum. It is an accompaniment to every meal in the Konkan region. Having a glass of Solkadhi in a humid and hot environment feels refreshing.
The making
Soak the dried kokum peels overnight, which extracts the peel’s juices, color, and flavor. Add the extract to the coconut milk. Adjust the amount of kokum juice as per the level of sourness. To enhance the taste, mix ginger, garlic, and black salt. The solkadhi looks like a creamy purple buttermilk. It has a sweet and tangy flavor. Coconut milk imparts sweetness.
Ragi Malt
You must have heard of finger millet or ragi. To refresh your memory, here is a short note about ragi. It is a millet that can grow in drought-prone areas and is primarily a winter crop, or rabi. Ragi has the goodness of iron, calcium, vitamins, and fiber; however, the taste is not always acceptable. You have to acquire the taste.
The word “malt” comes from malting, which breaks down complex carbohydrates into sugars. The soaked grains are dried and roasted, then milled into a fine powder.
Ragi malt is a drink of malted ragi boiled in water and sweetened with jaggery and milk. It is consumed as a hot beverage like tea. You can try other recipes like ragi mudde (balls), ragi dosa (pancake), ragi porridge, and so on.