What to look for when you are buying chai patti

Judge it on the dry smell, the colour it gives in plain water, and the bite at the finish. Brew a spoonful with no milk and no sugar before you decide anything. Milk and sugar hide almost every fault a tea has, which is exactly why the packet that seemed fine for a month suddenly does not.

Most people buy chai patti by brand habit or by price, and never test it, because the test never occurs to them. Here is what the trade actually checks, and you can do all of it in a kitchen with a spoon and a cup.

How do you judge chai patti before you buy it?

Smell it dry

Open the pack and put your nose in it. Good Assam CTC smells malty and sharp, with something almost like raisins behind it. It should smell of something immediately.

What you do not want: nothing at all, which means it has faded; a dusty or papery smell, which means it is old or was stored badly; or a smoky note, which is a processing fault, not a feature, in a CTC.

Look at the granules

They should be even in size, hard, and close to black with a slight sheen. Uniformity matters more than most people realise: an even grain brews evenly, and a mix of large granules and powder means the powder over-extracts while the granules are still opening, which gives you a cup that is bitter and weak at the same time.

Dull, grey, chalky-looking granules that crumble to dust between your fingers are exhausted leaf. Too much fine dust at the bottom of the pack usually means it has been handled roughly or bulked out.

Brew it in plain water, with nothing added

This is the one that matters and the one nobody does.

One teaspoon, half a cup of boiling water, three minutes. No milk, no sugar. Then look at it and taste it.

• Colour. Deep amber to reddish brown, and clear. If it is dull brown and cloudy, it will be grey once milk goes in.
• Brightness. A good liquor looks alive, with a coppery ring at the edge of the cup. A poor one looks flat.
• The finish. There should be a clean bite as you swallow. That is briskness, and it is the thing that survives milk. If it is not there without milk, it will not be there with it.

It will taste harsh drunk this way and that is fine. You are not judging whether you would drink it black, you are checking whether there is anything in it.

What the pack should tell you

• A packing date and a best-before. Non-negotiable, and it is a legal requirement. A pack that does not carry them is not one to buy.
• An FSSAI licence number. You can look it up.
• Origin, stated plainly. “100% Assam” means something. “Premium blend” and “finest quality” mean nothing at all and are not regulated.
• Net weight, and a price you can divide. See below.

Compare on price per cup, not price per pack

A kilo makes 400 to 500 cups. So divide the pack price by the number of cups it holds, not by anything else.

Do that and the difference between a cheap tea and a good one usually comes out under fifty paise a cup. That is the real comparison, and it is why buying down on tea saves less than almost anyone expects.

There is a catch in the other direction too: a thin tea gets dosed heavier to compensate, so a cheaper kilo can quietly become a dearer cup.

Bigger packs are better value, up to a point

Price per cup falls as the pack gets bigger. But an opened pack fades, so the saving only counts if you get through it while it is still good.

For two people drinking two cups a day, a kilo is about seven months of tea, which is longer than it stays at its best once opened. Two 500g packs, opened one at a time, beats one kilo. Buy the biggest size you will finish in about three months.

Things that are not signals of quality

“Handpicked” on a CTC pack. CTC is Crush, Tear, Curl, a machine process by definition. Any pack claiming handpicked leaf for a CTC is either confused or hoping you are.

A very dark liquor. Colour is easy to force by over-boiling a poor tea. Depth without briskness is a warning, not a recommendation.

Fancy packaging and gold foil. You are paying for it, and it tells you nothing about what is inside.

The word “premium” on its own. It is not a regulated term and it is not a grade. One published guide to Indian tea brands puts the mass-market position bluntly, describing the use of “dust grade or fannings, leftovers from premium tea grading” (source). Dust is a perfectly good grade in the right place, which is a hotel kitchen where cost per cup rules. What matters is whether the pack tells you which grade you are getting.

Price alone, in either direction. Expensive orthodox leaf is not better for milk chai; it is worse. And the cheapest CTC on the shelf is usually cheap because there is less in it, not because someone found an efficiency.

The short version

1. Smell it dry. It should smell malty and sharp.
2. Brew a spoon in plain water for three minutes, no milk, no sugar.
3. Look for a clear, deep, coppery liquor and a clean bite at the finish.
4. Check the packing date and the FSSAI number.
5. Compare on price per cup, and buy the biggest pack you will finish in three months.