Y P Gupta prepared chai on a visit to the homestead a few years ago. It was pleasant but not exciting. George Meyer, Steve Wolfe and I dined at Spice-n-Curry in South Durham NC, this week and the chai was exciting.

The restaurant is adjacent to an Indian food store and we stopped to sample their wares. I returned the next day and asked our waiter how they prepared chai. He explained that every Indian family has their own chai recipe just as they have their own recipe for dal. But after I persisted he took me to the store to acquire the ingredients - black tea (they prefer Assam but my wife prefers something more delicate like Darjeeling), cardamom pods, fresh ginger.

This is the recipe, enough to make two large mugs.

• 5 cardamom pods crushed until the seeds roll out
• a little less than one small finger joint of shaved ginger. Ginger gets mushy stored at room temperature. It will stay fresh for awhile in the freezer. Special devices are made for slicing ginger but you can make do with a sharp paring knife and careful technique.
• two cups of water
• four teaspoons of sugar.

Bring the ingredients to a boil and reduce to a simmer for 5 minutes (too long and the tea turns bitter).

• Add two cups of vanilla soy milk. Cow's milk will do but an adult Vegan would never use cow's milk.

Bring to a boil and simmer for a couple of minutes. Don't scald the milk.

• Decant into a French Press coffee pot. The purists use cheesecloth.

Other common spices include cloves, cinnamon and black pepper.

Sip slowly contemplating the blessings of Lakshmi.