Karak Chai

Karak chai is an Emirati take on milky-sweet masala chai, but with fewer spices, allowing the individual flavours to come through more clearly. Cardamom sings the loudest with a backing track from fresh ginger and rose petals. The habit was brought to the Emirates by Indian and Pakistani labourers in the 1950s and absorbed ardently into local food culture.

Although tea has been drunk in China since the fourth century, it didn’t reach the Indian subcontinent until relatively recently