Make some chai.
Cutie patooties! A lot can happen in a Month Or So. Things have happened on lots of fronts, this past Month Or So. When it rains, it pours.
location-wise: we decided to move coasts, to a city that we’ve been planting figurative seeds in for years. I’m marvelling at the beauty of the community around us here on the west coast, feeling warm about the lil’ community awaiting us in New City, and generally in awe about how beautiful it is to plant seeds around the world.
career-wise: your girl is officially pursuing threads that have been building over the past months/years, with cute intention. They are unraveling in a way that surprises, inspires, and roots me.
personally: a Very Cute Boy proposed with matching rings (matching rings = my favourite part). I said,”Yeah Yeah Yeah!”, we went for omakase, we read a book. Sweetest thing. <3
Cute beginnings, beautiful chapters, a winding life.
I don’t talk directly about my career or personal life a great deal on this blog. Yet, both feel so connected to everything I end up working through in these lil’ posts.
Today, I want to talk about making chai.
I make a cup most mornings of the week, and feel a little bit of bliss each time I sip it. It’s a starting ritual that happens each day, no matter how late in the morning I have it, and surprises me each time. I’ve finally mastered a cuppa chai, and won’t hesitate to tell everybody I know and their mother about it.
Things I Learned from Trying to Master Chai:
You just gotta show up - especially when things don’t feel linear.
I tried making a cup of chai everyday for nearly 6 months, and failed miserably each time, even with every recipe online in hand. Too watery, too milky, too strong, too ginger-forward, not enough cardamom, too something-something. I couldn’t figure out how to get the ratios right, and felt a bit lost about where to start.
I kept at it, tweaking here and there… though the results didn’t improve in a linear way, either! I was just about to give up (for a third time!) the day before I happened to get it exactly as I wanted it. And I’m so glad now that I kept showing up.
You never know where the right inspiration will strike from. As unintuitive as it sounds: mastery requires openness.
While it took me months of tries to get my chai where I wanted it to be, >50% of my Big Chai Breakthrough came not from toiling away over the stove, or from deep internet searches - but through the end-point of an hours-long chat with a dear best friend, Kulle, who put me onto her way of infusing ginger into her tea. Bam! Next thing I knew, I was good to go.
As much as we think that we need to only put our heads down in order to master something, that ain’t enough. Yes, consistency is key. And what’s more: to achieve robust and unique mastery, we need to tweak our work in a way that’s open to the world and opportunities around us. (Who watched the pastry chef chat at the end of Marcus’ episode in the Bear?)
As miserable as “trying” can get, there’s deep beauty in enjoying the ritual.
As frustrated as I was while trying to figure out how to make the right cup, I began to look forward everyday to my ritual of attempting chai. The tinkering became a constant amidst weeks and months of change. Mastery is inevitable when we love the journey of what we do, and when we pay deep attention to that journey.
Now, every morning of making my chai feels centring, as I think about each step when I do it, and everything it took to figure that step out. And - drinking chai is just a lovely, warming break in the day.
No matter how lost we are, it pays to have a vision.
My family generally leans towards filter coffee from the south, over chai. As much as I love a taste of filter coffee, I could never stomach a whole cup because of my caffeine sensitivities. Also, I just love chai more!
I never found much solace in the cafe chai versions near me. I’ve had some beautiful cups in India and North America, but I could never find a consistent taste that was just milky, ginger-y, masala-y, and sweet-but-not-too-sweet, enough. A Raha cup! It might not be perfect for someone else, but my cup is now perfect for me. And I’m so glad for that lil’ vision, even when I had no idea how to execute on it.
Today, 2 questions for you:
What’s a lil’ vision you have for a world you’d love? (It can be as simple as finding the right cup of tea in the morning.)
How do you plan on showing up when you feel lost, in order to make your beautiful world become real?
Sending love for all the new beginnings, in-betweens, and discovery ahead of us.
Much <3,
Raha