- This is not chai.
This is a chai tea latte.
And look at how they spelled my name.
Emme?
(laughs) We're not gonna go get this.
♫ If you see something
♫ You better
- Hey, guys!
I'm Ahmed Ali Akbar.
I'm the host of See Something Say Something,
Buzzfeed's show where we tell life stories
and talk about being Muslim in America.
It's very cold out here in New York,
and we are gonna go find a good hot cup of chai.
We're gonna be joined by our cab driver Jamil.
I'm gonna go to Brooklyn, pick up my sister,
then we're gonna go to three chai places
and sample the stuff they have there.
To you, what is chai?
- It's a part of life, you know?
It's hard to quit that, you know?
- Yes.
Definitely addicting.
Do you like cardamom in your tea?
- No.
- Wow.
So you're very milk, sugar. - Just milk, sugar,
and that's it.
- Zainab, how obsessed with chai are you?
We are not about chai tea lattes.
- No!
Chai means tea,
so a chai tea latte is a tea tea milk.
- That's what I told you. - Chai is tea with milk.
- So, we're gonna go to three places.
My favorite place is Chandni.
Zainab, your favorite place is?
- [Zainab] Punjabi Deli, whoop whoop!
- [Ahmed] And Jamil? - [Jamil] I go to Haandi.
- You go to Haandi.
We're gonna compare all three,
decide which one is the best cheap,
delicious, tasty chai.
- Let's do it.
(energetic music)
- Ever since I started working at Buzzfeed,
I will go to Chandni and grab two cups of chai,
and I would give it to my coworkers.
I had somebody describe to me,
which, not inaccurately, but I wouldn't have thought of it,
as brothy.
- Huh.
(energetic music)
- So, we're here at Chandni in Manhattan.
We're here with the chef of Chandni, Muhammad.
How do you make your chai?
- Water, milk, spices,
pour tea inside, and that's it.
Tea is ready.
(funky music)
- [Ahmed] (chuckling) That is gorgeous.
- This is international recipe.
I learned from my mother.
- As all good recipes come.
I just learned so much.
I mean, I've seen it, but not like that.
That was on next level stuff.
Oh my God.
- It's magical.
- It hits you so right away.
- It's perfect.
- Every sip is just like,
it's got spice, it's got cream.
- Oh, it's like, silky.
- And a lot of sugar.
I know you don't drink sugar.
- Regularly, I don't actually, you know, as a routine.
If it comes, that's okay, doesn't matter.
- What would you rate it out of five?
- Definitely, I'm gonna go four for that,
because I don't drink with...
I mean, cinnamon and the laung, that other thing, you know?
It's not my taste, actually, for that.
But no doubt, it's a very good tea.
- I would give it a five out of five.
- I would give it a four because it's too sweet for me.
- That's good by me.
I'm happy with that.
All right, let's go to Punjabi Deli.
- Let's do it! - That's our next stop.
(Middle Eastern music)
(inhales and sighs) Yes, it smells so good.
- Smells like home! - It's very comforting.
I'm Ahmed.
- Okay. - Nice to meet you.
Your name is?
- My name is Kulwinder Singh. - Kulwinder Singh.
What do you put in your chai?
- In our tea, we put half water, half of the milk,
and then we add in cardamom, ginger, cinnamon.
We have also the cloves.
You will really enjoy this tea.
- [Ahmed] So, did you always make it
with the espresso machine?
- Yeah.
It's always working 24 hours.
As a taxi.
- [Ahmed] Like a taxi.
Are most of your customers taxi drivers?
- Yeah.
- Oh, it tastes so good.
- I feel like the difference between this and Chandni,
this you put in a Thermos, you drink it all day.
- When you open it up,
you can see the clove and the cardamom,
and I think there's even a slice of ginger
floating in here.
I love that.
- The chai, how would give it out of five?
- Four.
The method of cooking it different.
The other maker, a stove.
This one, a little bit different.
- To me, it's a five, right?
The chai is great,
and just being in that cozy cramped space,
just surrounded by smells of home,
it's a five for me.
- This is really, really good.
I would give it maybe a 4.5.
But what's amazing about it is,
they're in such a small location.
- But still, it's one dollar.
- One dollar! - One dollar, fresh tea.
One dollar, okay.
- Okay, so, because it's New York,
Zainab had to leave for an appointment,
so it's just me and Jamil Uncle for the last place.
You said you wanted to come in to Haandi.
Why did you want to go in?
- The owner and the other guy who works over there,
they know me.
So I hope we're gonna meet them.
Special tea for us.
- (laughs) That is the key!
You get better stuff. (laughs)
If you know the people, or if you're of the background.
(Middle Eastern music)
- [Jamil] What did you want over here?
- Well, what kind of chai would you drink here?
- Oh, just a good chai you saw here.
- Dudh patti, or...
- [Jamil] Dudh patti, let's try the dudh patti.
- All right, we'll get some milky...
I'm gonna have him do the ordering.
And speak in Urdu.
My Urdu is okay, but his is gonna be better.
(speaking foreign language)
- All the time, I bother him, you know.
(laughing)
- We've got three different types of chai here.
We got the regular tea on the left.
We got the dudh patti tea in the middle.
And we're gonna see the kashmeri chai downstairs.
You might not believe me, but it's basically green tea,
that when you stir it for hours and hours and hours on end,
it oxidizes and becomes pink.
Oh my gosh! (laughs)
Oh, I got some pink on my pants.
Okay, there we go.
That requires some expertise.
Oh my God, it's so pink!
Jamil Uncle is opening up his dudh patti chai.
We got seikh kababs, chicken kababs,
qormas, samosas.
They just gave it to us.
Because that's the way Pakistanis do, I guess.
We're gonna start with the dudh patti chai.
It's your favorite, right? - It's my favorite.
The color is really good.
(speaking foreign language)
- Yeah.
- Oh, yeah.
- This is my chai. - Oh, yeah.
There's no spice, right?
- [Jamil] No spice here, yeah.
- Just good tea.
- Good tea, yeah.
A little extra milk, you know.
- A little extra milk.
- A little bit extra, you know.
- The texture is amazing.
The texture is definitely the best of all
of the three we've had.
How would you rate your chai out of five?
- Five. (laughing)
- I don't think about this chai,
but it is really, really reminds me of home.
I want to give it 4.5, though.
I don't know, it's kind of a five, to be honest.
It's a five, let's be honest.
Very comfortable tea.
I could drink it all day, honestly.
So we recorded a conversation
with Jamil Uncle, also, for the podcast.
You can find that at buzzfeed.com/seesomethingsaysomething.
Talk about New York and the cab driver life.
Rate us on iTunes and subscribe,
and we're gonna do a lot more videos
like this in the future.
(hip hop music)