 I know I did. Very dumb. No one laughed. You are not funny. Today, we're actually doing informational video. We are? Yes. No info. With gold. Yeah, we haven't done that yet. Daa din ... returns from NZ story of chai in India Yes, well it says tea but I changed it to Chai Then chai is... More or less well, I know I know that's what they say yeah, but chai is tea if you say yeah I'd like some Camomile chai here and people would oh no They would know what that is because I don't even know what chai is here Yeah, well they would make you a Starbucks right right, which is a we don't get chai which is a red powder Even if you get chai in an Indian restaurant here, you're not getting chai you want chai you got to make it at home Yeah, pretty good at home. Yeah, it's really really good. Yeah, but yes So I'm sure this has to do with I want to make filter coffee at home. I have it. Do you? Here we go Indian streets are paved with gold all of liquid gold No matter where you go from the high peaks of the dark to the remotest parts of undermans You will find this one golden beverage. This elixir of pure refreshable everywhere You can find tea. Yep Well, when I say tea what I mean is chai boil water with the leaves of the tea plants Camelia Sinenses usually with milk and sugar. Not only is it the staple beverage in households across the country Offices and commercial areas have dedicated tea vendors who in turn don't even come close enough to fulfill the demand So you and everyone you know has that one chai vala who makes just the perfect tea India in short is run on chai But rewind the clock by a mere hundred years and tea had not the popularity it enjoys today So how did chai get so popular? Interesting. Let's find out. I thought this was a long history probably something to do with British According to a 2017 study that appeared in frontiers in plant science There are three possible sites where the humans generally began to use and grow the purpose And they are all around this area Southern China, Yunnan Provinces China and Assam in India However, the earliest written records we have indicate that tea started being used as medicine Extensively in China nearly 5,000 years ago when Buddhism finally came to China Tea and due to its healthful benefits became a part of the Chinese daily life and As the religion spread across the Silk Road So did tea which was now a part of Buddhist ceremonies Tea was happily spreading peace and alertness throughout Asia when in came the Europeans with their fancy ships and trade deals While India traded mostly in spices and ivory China traded porcelain its own spices and tea Portugal was the first of the old world to reach the far east and started drinking tea But when the Dutch came next they were so impressed that they created permanent stations in Java For the purpose of importing tea They were also the first to create a habit of daily tea drinking and from the Dutch Tea drinking spread to the high society of mainland Europe France Germany and Scandinavia This was also the time when Europeans started adding milk to their tea No one exactly knows why maybe not to stain their expensive porcelain in the year 1658 Dutch bought tea was first sold in London advertising its miraculous health benefits and All of the British high society went mad for this drink now The tea in England was similar to the European milk tea But they also added sugar that they were importing from West Indies this further boosted the popularity of tea It started being available in coffee houses across England along with coffee and hot chocolate in the year 1662 King Charles the second married Princess Katharine of Ricanza a Portuguese princess and an avid tea drinker This made tea a fashionable trend with the English ladies and led to the creation of a social event known as tea time Which interestingly still exists in various colonial hangovers like the sport of cricket Now tea was in such high demand in England that the crown wanted to trade directly with China But at that time the Dutch were the strongest of seafaring nations And so they restricted England to only opening trading stations in India They did not allow them to directly trade with China The crown made a few rich merchants responsible for these trading stations in India They called themselves the Levant Group and formed a company called the John Company or on papers the British East India Company Although the British East India Company later was able to directly trade with the Chinese The increasing amount of competition was making them desperate to look for a cheaper source of tea The Chinese at the time considered foreigners as barbarians and would not let anyone inside the country But we will come back to that later England on the other hand understanding that the continuing high demand meant huge profits for the future Were driven to try and use the land they had newly conquered India Now for many years there had been rumors of local Singapore tribes in North-East Assam Eating tea leaves as pickled vegetable In 1823 an English explorer Major Robert Bruce went on an expedition to that region And found out the rumors to be true There were wild tea leaves growing in Assam Which were being used both as a vegetable and in beverage for centuries However, when he brought the seeds and plants back to Calcutta The English researchers could not properly identify the Assam tea bush Because they thought only the China bush can be called tea and stop any further investigation Now back in Europe the demand for tea kept rising The British East India Company was dependent solely on China for its tea And so great was the amount of silver The Chinese traders that were English almost ran out of silver And to add to the problems the Chinese refused the British East India Company's monopoly to trade So trading from China got very very competitive To solve this England came up with a plan A plan to exchange addictions Chinese tea for Indian opium I was gonna just gonna say opium The Chinese market with opium growing in Bengal The Chinese became addicted to the drug And its demand was big enough to offset the money England lost in buying tea This also led to the opium wars which is a story for another time But England wanted to fully control the manufacture and import of tea With that in mind they created the India Tea Committee In the beginning the committee kept choosing wrong locations and wrong tea bushes Ignoring the Assam bush and insisting on the China bush Not understanding the lower temperature and higher altitude requirements of the China bush And so they failed again and again As mentioned before the Chinese did not let anyone in the country And so their methods of tea manufacture were largely a secret But that was before the great theft In the year 1848 a botanist from Scotland Robert Fortune Went to China disguised as a Chinese merchant And brought back to India tea seeds, tea leaf samples Knowledge of manufacturing both black and green teas And also wait for 80 Chinese tea specialists Who started working on tea gardens in India What a job! The samples were planted in Darjeeling and Assam Now because of Darjeeling's low temperature and high altitude The China bush was somewhat successful But Assam's lower elevation and warm humid climate caused the tea to fail The tea committee then researched the Assam problem carefully And finally identified the Assam bush as different from China bush They started the process of taming the wild tea bushes of Assam Ploughing methods learned from the great theft This proved to be a massive success The Indian tea was deemed better in quality than the China tea And the Assam bush replaced the China bush in India And so began the tea industry in Assam The tea bush was later also planted in the Nilguris in South India And Kangra Valley in Himachal Pradesh Within 50 years England was fully in control of their tea import In the year 1900 about 75 million kilograms of tea was supplied from India to England The Chinese tea import on the other hand fell from 90% to only 5% Wow! And India grew to be the world leader in tea manufacture During these early stages of the English setting up the tea industry in India The local customers were mostly the English imperial citizens And some in the Indian high society And so the early tea ads were largely targeted towards them But with the opening of the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway in the 1880s Tea started making inroads to all parts of the country And India itself emerged as a big tea market But it was only after the First World War in the 1920s That the status of tea as we know it today began taking shape And railway stations all across India from Bengal to Punjab Were the first places where tea vendors set up their shops With stoves and kettles to sell tea It was also when the tea companies started an educational propaganda Large hoardings and boards showing how to make tea in local languages Were put up in public spaces Demonstration events were held Where people were shown how to make tea at home And they were given this healthy and delicious drink free of cost Tea was now heavily advertised to all sections of Indian society It was necessary to start your day with a cup of tea Breakfast was said to be incomplete Without a cup of hot tea And to make the even more energizing and enticing Even more milk and sugar were added When tea finally reached common people's home They added their own ingredients to keep up with their own preferences Ginger, cardamom and other spices were added According to their taste and medicinal values And from a few shops and stalls in the 1920s Tea vendors started booming in the 1930s in every major city And they reached all of India by the 1950s Pachai did have some problems in South India Where the urban middle class was obsessed with coffee It did finally break through And started being served in hotels and coffee clubs In the 1940s, before independence Tea ads changed to reflect the Swadeshi movement And started representing different peoples And different parts of the country After independence, tea became India's largest industry And the biggest foreign exchange earner A picture of a united Indian nation started to emerge And it was a nation that united over a cup of tea This ad, for example, shows how 10 members of a joint family Hold completely different views But come together and negotiate them over a cup of tea Tea was a binding force keeping together the family and the nation Through ad campaigns and further decrease in prices Tea became the national drink of India All classes and sections of society were hooked onto this beverage In subsequent decades, tea started to appear As a subject of the newly popular art of photography It also started showing up in popular national and regional movies And it became the center of socializing And getting together for gossip culture On the other hand, more and more ads began relating tea with art And showing it as a necessary tool in one's creative and artistic pursuits In India, tea is available in small town railway stations In five star hotels and everywhere in between You can find a chai vala on highways, city streets or on small narrow roads Anyone who has been woken up by the chai chai chai of tea sellers Inside the train compartment knows how ingrained tea is With the daily life of the country In its past, it has led to wars and rebellions And today functions as a part of a united nation and an ever-growing industry The benefits of these leaves are well documented and well researched So why don't you sit back, relax and have a cup of tea Great, great video Great Hello internet, let me know if you like this video in the comments below I will be making more videos on things that interest me about India So please subscribe to stay updated So informative Yeah, very informative, very well put together Yeah Everything was information that you needed And it went all the way back to the wars that happened Because tea is still the biggest industry in India I guess that would make sense It would make sense to me that it is As far as being an exporter Even just in terms of Darjeeling Literally, yeah Darjeeling alone Most Americans, even if you don't drink tea, you know the name Earl Grey and Darjeeling and Chamomile are the three biggest probably tea sellers Well, Earl Grey is a type of tea, I believe It is a type of tea Yeah But Darjeeling is specifically to that region Earl Grey is not a place No, no Like for example, Darjeeling tea is to the tea world what champagne is To the wine and champagne world Because legitimate champagne comes from Champagne France You can't call it Champagne Right, it's a sparkling wine if it doesn't come from Champagne France Same thing with Darjeeling, it has to come from that region I'm interested to know the history of tea in America Because the Dutch came here, settled in New York That was the beginning of American expansion in the West Was the Dutch settling down in Manhattan And I'm wondering because obviously tea was huge Because the majority of people who came over here after the Dutch were from England And then they colonized and had the wars over here between French and the French fighting for the area Was the Boston Tea Party the beginnings of not just the American Revolution But did we was our switch from tea to coffee Not just because it was easier and less expensive Because we got the coffee right down here in Brazil and South America Yeah But was it a screw you and your tea England? Might have been From the Boston Tea Party And that's why we became a coffee country Yeah, I don't know why we became a coffee country It probably has something to do with cost and then Cost and ease, coffee is much more available here because of South America But I don't know when it started I don't know if it started with the First World War Right, I don't know We went over because I know that's where a lot of the names from coffee come from Like an Americana That's from the World Wars Oh really The Americans, the espresso was too strong for the Americans So they watered it down and they go Was this an Americana? Was this Yeah, so like a lot of those type of things Really, that's the history of that That's pathetic Yeah Americana though If you've done right Delicious Very strong Drink espresso and if you really want to go for it, drink some Turkish coffee That when you get down to the bottom of a Turkish coffee I can There's dregs you can chew I can find most pleasure in most coffees I love mine the most The most I've ever had I mean I like darks Obviously you have your favorites But I can drink a great cappuccino I can drink an Americana I can drink straight espresso I can drink anything I can't drink frappuccinos Because that's I can tell you probably one of the biggest culture changes for anyone who lived in India That comes to the United States Just for the three times that I have been And in particular the times I've been with Andrani and Calcutta Because we had leisure time We didn't have a lot of leisure time on the OSR trip But my times with Andrani and Calcutta I instantly within a matter of two days Became totally rigged into Okay, it's three o'clock. I want some chai Where can we get some chai? Yeah And all you have to do is walk a couple of streets and you've got it I think any time we were out And I didn't have Starbucks in my hand Which was not Go grab a chai Not often But it's such a great pick-me-up Yeah, it gives you a good amount of caffeine And then it's just it's easy to drink It's easy to drink It's a nice stop to the day It's real cheap It's very cheap You get to interact and stand and talk to people It's delicious And I genuinely wish we had that culture here Where you could just Because there are no chai stands Anywhere in the United States That I know of that are available There's a few shops I guess you would call it Or they are a restaurant as well The one I found that I get a lot of our ingredients at It's run by a bunch of It's run by Indians, obviously, the grocer But they make a decent chai I just make it at home I'm so thankful that Yeah Thank you, Vicki, for teaching me how to make chai Yeah, I did that too But that was really cool It was really good information Informative video Stuff we love, you know, guys So if there's more informative videos Like these That we should react to Let us know I'd love to actually know more about that war The opium wars Yeah, I would too I think I've heard about it I knew only I was coming into the picture here with China Yeah, I think I've heard about the opium wars But I don't know much about it Yeah Is that a war between India? Or is it? I'm guessing a bunch of people I don't know That I'm ignorant I know of the opium wars I And I know it was China and England Yeah But I don't know the specifics around it Interesting Yeah Well, that was cool Let us know more informational videos That we should watch down below And I hope you enjoyed your Chai