You put the water on, add a bit of ginger, the tea, the milk. You decide to try gud instead of sugar this time, maybe because your mother always did, or because you have been meaning to cut down on white sugar. You stir it in, and a minute later the chai looks like it has curdled.

If that has happened to you, you are not doing anything strange. It is the most common thing that goes wrong with gud ki chai, and it puts a lot of people off jaggery for good. That is a shame, because the fix takes about thirty seconds.

Why it matters

Chai is something most of us drink every single day, often more than once. Whatever goes into it adds up. If you have been wanting to move your family off refined sugar, chai is the easiest place to start, but only if it still tastes like chai. Nobody is going to keep drinking a cup that has split.

Why the milk splits

Real, unrefined jaggery is slightly acidic. It still has a bit of everything the sugarcane had in it, which refined sugar does not. When you boil gud hard together with milk, that little bit of acidity is enough to split the milk.

So a split chai is not a sign that your gud is bad. If anything, it tells you nothing has been stripped out of it.

The fix: add the gud last, with the flame off

Make your chai exactly the way you always do. Water, spices, tea, milk, and let it boil up a couple of times.

Then turn off the flame. Wait about half a minute. Only now stir in the gud.

That is it. Just off the boil, the milk is steady and the jaggery melts in without any trouble.

Powdered gud (shakkar) melts fastest, which is why we grind our Jaggery Powder fine. If you have a block, grate it first instead of dropping a lump in.

How much to add

Gud tastes richer than white sugar, so most people end up using a little less. Start with one level teaspoon a cup and see how you like it. It goes beautifully with ginger and elaichi. In plain chai you will notice the caramel taste more, and some people love that.

A few things to watch for

  • Boiling the gud with the milk. Almost every split chai comes down to this.
  • Pale, lemon-yellow gud. It has usually been whitened with chemicals and tastes flat. Good gud is golden-brown to dark brown. Here is how to tell the difference.
  • Keeping powder in an open dabba. Jaggery powder soaks up moisture from the air and turns into a lump. An airtight jar keeps it loose.

Try it tomorrow morning. If your family does not notice the switch, or likes it better, that is one small change you have made that you will be drinking every day.