Chai-vinism? Viral Chai Latte Recipe with Maple Syrup Has Left Desi Tea-lovers Fuming

Chai is the absolute favourite of us desis. For some of us, the smell of brewing tea overtakes the smell of coffee beans. Kadak chai, masala chai, adrak wali chai, pheeki chai, meethi chai--you name it, we have it in different gradations of colour, amount of sugar, tea leaves and milk. While, the essence of the tea remains the tea leaves, sugar, water and milk, people play with a range of condiments like ginger and green cardamom.

But one recipe of tea has managed to offend the desi tea lovers well within one minute. The recipe is called chai latte. Not sure, how this exoticising of the magic potion will serve any purpose. To begin with, the recipe uses tea bags. Hello? In our part of the world tea bags are used in offices and other places where time and supplies don't allow you the luxury to toss teaspoons full of leaves in pot of boiling water and watch it release the darkening tangerine in the water.

Then the recipe uses ginger, green cardamom, followed by cinnamon and cloves. Fine, acceptable. But why does it use star anise? Are we making biryani here? And this star anise (chakri phool) doesn't even look like one. It is zeera, may be. Many people on Twitter are writing that the only thing missing here was garam masala. Truly.

Then comes the point in the video where the chaivinist in you will ask why. Coconut milk instead of normal milk. Maple syrup instead of sugar. This is an assault on chai feelings. The concoction is stirred, poured in a cup and garnished which a cinnamon stick. By the end of the video,one realises at no stage of the recipe did the concoction bubble while boiling. Were they tossing in the ingredients in hot water and not boiling them in hot liquid? This questions and many more are haunting this video's comment section on Twitter.

This chai latte sounds as off as desi coffee. Dear appropriators, you can do better.