A Taste of Home: Kashmiri Pink Tea
Baking soda gives the tea its distinctive pink shade. Photo: Jonny Stiles
By AQSA HAIDER
Pink is a captivating color. When we hear the word we think of many different things: Peaches, cherry blossoms during spring, clouds in the early winter skies. When asking a Kashmiri what they think of when they hear pink though, you might get the response, “Kashmiri chai.”
Kashmiri Chai, culturally known as “noon chai,” is a type of tea that turns pink once you add baking soda to it. “Noon” means salty in countries like Kashmir, Bangladesh, and Nepal. The tea has a pinch of salt which gives it a sweet yet slightly salty taste, hence the name.
The tale behind this drink is that it was brought to Kashmir in the 1300s, through the Silk Road from China, by the Persian Sufi saint Mir Syed Ali Hamadani, an influential person in Kashmiri history who spread Islamic teachings.
“This chai used to be my favorite as I grew up,” said Nosheen Shafi, my mother. “I would drink it all the time, especially after school.”
During rainy days, Shafi and her siblings would come home drenched and find themselves a cup of Kashmiri chai made by their mother. “After me and my sisters would change, my mum would hand us cups one by one and make us sit on the floor to drink,” Shafi said.
“This chai was my grandmother’s favorite before she passed away,” said Shafi. “She would make it for us as well, whenever we went over to her house.”
My mother used to live with her six sisters, two brothers, and parents. They would drink the chai together as a family, sitting together in a circle.
“We wouldn’t be allowed to leave until we finished. After we did, we would play with each other or finish school work,” said Shafi.
One of my memories as a kid was my mother mentioning that we’d be going to a large family gathering. I remember seeing the chai on serving plates and asking, “Why is the tea pink?”
“When you add baking soda into the chai,” she explained, “it slowly turns from brown to pink. It looks bad at first, but when you taste it, that’s when you truly understand the experience.”
Making this chai is a straightforward but not necessarily short process. It’s time-consuming, but the results make it worth it.
First, you pour ¾ cups of water into a pot and boil it. While the water is boiling, add one spoonful of Kashmiri pink tea leaves and 1-2 pinches of baking soda.
If you look into the bubbles of the chai while it is boiling, you’ll see a pink color starting to form. Let it boil for 15-20 minutes, then add cold water and strain the chai into a cup. If you want, you can add milk to really bring out the pink color and make the chai even tastier.
My family, including our extended side, used to gather together as kids, replicating my mother and her siblings' tradition. We’d drink this chai together as a family, beginning the tradition with another generation. We would tell the story of the Persian Sufi saint as well, carrying on the tale.
One day, I hope I can share this story with another generation of kids. I hope I can replicate the tradition as the generation before me did for me, keeping Kashmiri chai alive.