"He boils milk with fresh ginger, a quarter of a vanilla bean, and tea that is so dark and fine-leaved that it looks like black dust. He strains it and puts cane sugar in both our cups. There's something euphorically invigorating and yet filling about it. It tastes the way I imagine the Far East must taste." -Peter Hoeg, Smilla's Sense of Snow   What most Americans call "Chai" is really Indian styled Masala Chai, a strong black tea with milk, sugar and masala (any spice mixture). The word Chai originated with the first tea drinkers - the Chinese - who called tea T'cha or Cha. Later, when tea was being grown commercially in India by Chinese growers it was still called Cha, pronounced Chai by the English.   Indonique's Chai is a blend of sweet South Indian Nilgiri CTC black tea and our Indian-born founder's family masala recipe of cardamom pods, whole pepper, cloves, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg. We can speak to the health benefits of the tea and point to the multiple beneficial effects assigned to the spices by Ayurvedic literature.