Noon chai

Noon chai (Kashmiri pronunciation: [nuːnɨ t͡ʃaːj]) or Sheer chai ([ʃiːrʲ t͡ʃaːj]), (also called Kashmiri tea, pink tea and gulabi chai) is a traditional tea beverage originating in Kashmir. It is made with gunpowder tea (green tea leaves rolled into small balls), milk and baking soda. It has become popular in Pakistan, India and the Caribbean.

Noon chai is traditionally made from green tea leaves, milk, salt and baking soda, and is usually cooked in a samavar . with baking soda until it develops a burgundy colouration, then ice or cold water is added to "quench" it and make it stay that colour. When milk is added, it combines with the burgundy to yield its signature pink colour. It is then aerated by ladling out some of it and pouring it back into the pot to incorporate tiny air bubbles into it, a process that yields a froth and that may take hours to do by hand.

When tea leaves are boiled, polyphenols are extracted from the leaves into the water. In green teas like those used in Noon chai, the polyphenols extracted act similar to the substance phenol red, which changes color depending on the pH level of the substance it is in—yellow when it is acidic, and red when it is alkaline. Since Noon chai is boiled for a long time, a lot of color-changing polyphenols are extracted from the leaves. When alkaline baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) is added to it, the tea takes on its deep red color (which then turns pink with milk).

Origin stories of the tea allege that it came from Yarkland (which later became Xinjiang, China) to Kashmir through the Silk Road. Noon chai originates from the Himalayas, where salt was added as an electrolyte to prevent dehydration at high altitudes. It is also related to other Central Asian salty milk teas, such as the Uyghur tea etkanchay and the Mongolian tea suutei tsai. Use of alkaline salts, like baking soda, in tea originated from the Tibetan Plateau, where naturally occurring deposits of soda were used to darken po cha. Later, in Ladakh, eastern Kashmir, hot spring soda crystals were used in local butter tea, or gur gur cha. Residents of Kashmir Valley adopted the practice from Ladakh, importing soda (called phul) from them and brick tea from Lhasa, then replacing yak butter with milk and cream to fit local tastes.