the Maharashtrian monsoon tea: black tea boiled with milk, sugar, ginger, and fresh lemongrass leaves from the garden, the 'grass tea' of the rainy season
Origin: Pune & Maharashtra
From the journey of Lemongrass.
Gavati chaha means 'grass tea' in Marathi, and the grass is lemongrass. It is the ordinary Indian milk tea, boiled with sugar and black tea leaves in the Maharashtrian way, with a handful of fresh lemongrass leaves cut from the clump by the back door, and often a little ginger. It is above all a drink of the monsoon, when the plant grows fastest in the wet hills of the Western Ghats and a hot, fragrant tea is held to keep off colds. The lemongrass of the Indian garden is the same plant as the lemongrass of the Thai kitchen, Cymbopogon citratus. India also has a lemongrass of its own, the East Indian C. flexuosus of the Western Ghats, but that one has been grown for its oil, shipped from Cochin to the perfumers of the world, rather than for the pot.
For a milkless version, steep the lemongrass and ginger in boiling water for 5 minutes and sweeten with jaggery.
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