making small discoveries while being a tea drinker...

I seriously need a way to make a good cup of chai without boiling it on a gas stove.

Now you would say why not a gas stove. After all the whole world..ah okay..the whole of India... okay at least the whole of north India makes (read boils) chai on a gas stove. We like our chai boiled for a while with the ginger and masala in it and then we add some milk and boil again. Right?

I have tried making chai in microwave and in a kettle but these electronic equipment are good only for the green tea and the black tea. Brewing the tea if I say technically. Boiling the tea is still not something an electronic equipment would do. Not at all the milky masala tea. But wait, let me tell you why I am complaining. Wanting to have an alternate to this gas stove method at least.  I have had a few too many accidents while boiling my masala tea on the gas stove. It's a pain to make tea when you want a cuppa while working. It's okay when you are already in the kitchen, working on something and the tea is made on the sly. But I rarely feel like having a tea when in the kitchen. It is most required when I am neck deep in work and want a breather. It's a pain when you want it the most and you are working full swing on your desk. Now do you get my point?

There is more to it. I often go and fill required amount of water in the pan, add tea leaves and ginger etc and place it on the burner to boil. And then I am tempted to reply to that one mail or finish that one para I was writing. Time flies in such times and I peel myself off from this stupid chair when I smell something burning, or feel some smoke in the house. No smoke alarms yet, but it's a scary feeling. Every time I curse myself for being so forgetful, but to no avail. It has already happened a few times and my maid knows it so well. She would smile and start rubbing the pan with a steel wool scrubber again. I have changed two saucepans in the last six months.

And I made a few discoveries with these accidents. Serendipity.

The saucepan gets all sooty and the carbon sticks to the base if you have added sugar to the boiling water and it just turns to gray ash if you haven't added any sugar to the boiling water. Easier to clean it later. Although it is common sense that sugar will caramelise and become a sticky residue, I never had imagined seeing a perfect ash forming in my saucepan.

So people, don't add sugar to the boiling water when making tea my way. Or just keep standing there to enjoy the bubbling tea over the gas stove. Inhale some and make yourself a better tea drinker.

Please don't forget to tell me a way to boil/make tea without standing by the gas stove if you know. And please don't ask me why I am having more tea than usual these days ...