Quick linguistics lesson. The word “chai” only means “tea.” The particular brand of tea we’re used to drinking here in America when we use this term is actually a “masala” chai, which is made of an array of spice and black tea. The thing about any masala is that ingredients may differ each time it’s prepared, based on things like region, occasions, and preferences. Due to chai’s mosaic nature, I’ll be listing off the different spices and what they do for the overall taste of the drink, then moving on to the instructions. This way, you can pick your own spice blend and then get cooking!
Cardamom is the most often mentioned spice in chai recipes I’ve found. Green cardamom is considered more traditional. It’s intensely fragrant, with sharp vegetal notes of green spice and pepper. The green pods are harvested before the black cardamom pods, which are muskier and more smoky. Cinnamon sticks can be added to bring out notes of sweetness and to give your drink a feeling of warmth. Fennel seeds offer a gentle anise or licorice note to the chai. Fresh ginger can give your chai a fresh vegetal spice note—and the good news is you won’t need much of it for that. Black peppercorns give the chai a spicy bite, which I’m rather a fan of. Those five are the most commonly combined spices, but there are some other options to consider depending on your palate. Whole cloves can give your chai a musky, strong taste. Coriander seeds lend a sweet and mild citrus note to the masala. And, if you happen to be a great fan of the anise or licorice flavor, star anise can be used instead of fennel seed to get that taste in your chai.
Once you’ve decided on your spice blend, you’ll need a few other things.
Ingredients:
Masala spice blend of choice
Water
Black tea (Darjeeling, Assam, and Ceylon are all top picks. Don’t spend too much on it as the spices will be the most important thing about the chai’s flavor)
Milk
Sweetener of choice (honey and brown sugar are recommended)
You’ll want about ⅓ the amount of milk as you have water. Your spice blend should be balanced as you see fit. You should have enough tea to steep the water you have well. For those of you left feeling uncomfortable without measurements, here’s one, two, three spice-specific and measurement-including chai recipes that you’ll love.
Once you’ve assembled your ingredients, the first thing you’ll want to do is crush and bruise your spices. Pods and cloves should be lightly crushed. Ginger should be sliced into rounds, you can leave the skin on. Cinnamon sticks can be bruised, they don’t need to be crumbled to give off their flavor. Add your spices and your water together in a pot and bring to a boil. Once boiling, reduce heat and simmer for ten minutes or until fragrant. Covering your pot will keep too much water from burning off, since we are trying to make tea. Once you’re satisfied that your water has been sufficiently flavored by your chosen spices, remove the masala from heat, and add your tea. Let the tea steep as long as you like, but the recommendation seems to be about five minutes. Now you can add the milk and the sweetener of your choice. If the chai has cooled, you can return it to heat, but be sure to keep the heat just below a simmer or you risk scalding the milk in the tea. Once you’re satisfied with the taste, strain and serve!
Tea always takes a little while to steep, but this one has two steeping periods: one with the spices, and one with the tea. Both take a great deal of time, totally to about fifteen minutes if you’re simmering the spices for ten and steeping the tea for five. This is part of why chai is such an investment, and why its flavor is so distinctive. This month’s media tie in also has to do with a steeping of a sort—but this time it’s in hardship and time. Off putting, I know, but bear with me. This month, we’re going to talk about the portrayal of mental illness in Kingdom Hearts: Final Chapter Prologue and the new fifth season of Samurai Jack.
There are plenty of misconceptions about mental illness, from the idea that you can’t have one if you’re functioning to the idea that only certain people are susceptible. What’s exciting about these two different pieces of media is that they take two very capable heroes and show how anyone can develop a mental illness given enough time and misfortune.
Let’s take an element of Aqua’s gameplay in Kingdom Hearts. Aqua is a keyblade master, a keyblade wielder considered powerful enough to fend off the forces of darkness with the light of her heart and keyblade no matter the circumstances. But, even in a fantasy world, how realistic is it to expect someone to fend off the forces of darkness for ten years while living in the realm of darkness? During her travels in the realm of darkness, Aqua enters an area called The World Within (30:37). The area is littered with mirrors, and each time Aqua messes up—by choosing the wrong mirror, falling off the edge of an area, going the wrong way and having to start a puzzle over—Aqua’s own voice reverberates through the speakers, discouraging her. The things it says include “Just let go of everything and fade into the darkness,” “No one can save you, and no one wants to,” “You’ll never see the realm of light again,” “Is there any point in continuing this fight?” and “Your bonds of friendship only tie you down.”
As the player continues through the area, the voice starts triggering of its own accord, berating Aqua with discouragement even when she isn’t making mistakes. As if that weren’t enough to signify Aqua slowly developing a mental illness, in each of the three mirrors she goes through is a phantom of Aqua—identical to her and as solid as she is. It’s easy to see how these phantoms are part of Aqua, as it was her reflection that pulled her through the mirror into this world to begin with, and the first time Aqua encounters one of her reflections, it discourages her the same way the voice does (40:40). These phantoms attack Aqua, and even though she beats all three of them, the battle against them becomes more difficult each time (46:50, 52:43). The third phantom is much stronger than the other two and is capable of creating clones of itself that mutter discouragements at Aqua as they prowl around her. Each clone goes down with one hit, the real phantom being the only one that doesn’t immediately disappear after being struck—but if the player is distracted for too long dealing with the fake phantoms, they lose their ability to defend against the real one when she strikes. That particular attack might make the battle seem hopeless, but Aqua is able to kill all of the clones at once if she lands a hit on the real phantom. It’s a very literal way of demonstrating the way coping with one’s mental illness can at times require a large amount of energy, and how sometimes dealing with one problem (the real phantom) can help soothe other created ones (the clones of the phantom).
Media is often prone to portraying heroes as besting things like mental illness as something other than a part of themself. While a player or viewer of Aqua’s story might be inclined to write the voice and Aqua’s phantoms off as creations of the darkness and not part of Aqua herself, the game doesn’t pull any punches on the subject. If Aqua attempts to leave The World Within through the original mirror she was pulled through at any time before she’s finished fighting all three of her phantoms, she will find an incomplete reflection of herself in the mirror and be unable to pass through (49:29). In this way, the game undeniably confirms the voice of discouragement and the phantoms to be part of Aqua.
The game also shows Aqua developing coping mechanisms to deal with her illness. During her travels, Aqua encounters Terra, the friend she saved from the realm of darkness. This friend is fighting a battle of his own, trying to resist another’s soul possessing his body and mind. When Terra is winning his battle, we see the person he is fighting against bound by chains of light (1:21:09). By the end of the game, Aqua is also using these chains of light to bind the darkness (2:14:30). What’s exciting about this is that her illness isn’t being shown as something she can destroy. Mental illness is a condition, part of our biochemistry and brain pathways. It can’t be destroyed, only lived with, treated through coping mechanisms, medication, and counseling so that it doesn’t overtake us and continue to affect our quality of life. Aqua’s victory comes through learning to bind the darkness within her to live with her condition.
Jack is also dealing with a mental illness in the new season of Samurai Jack. The premise of the new season is that fifty years have passed since we last saw Jack, but that due to his time traveling, time no longer touches him. Having lost the magic sword that made it possible for Jack to destroy Aku, the villain of the series, Jack has fallen into serious mental turmoil. He hallucinates his parents and the people of his village in the past as they accuse him of abandoning them in the first episode, and in the second he argues with a clean shaven, robe wearing version of himself that mimics the version of Jack the viewer is familiar with from previous seasons. The argument occurs nine and a half minutes into the episode when Jack is losing a battle against a team of new foes. It goes like this:
Phantom Jack: It's time to end it, don't you think?Jack makes use of several coping mechanisms in this short exchange. The first is to rationalize. His phantom makes a big sweeping statement about how there’s no hope, and Jack retaliates with data—mainly that he’s still alive and has made it this far without it. His phantom asks him what will happen when Aku finds out he’s lost the sword, and Jack rationalizes that Aku hasn’t found out yet, and that it’s likely he won’t since he only sends his minions these days. Then his phantom changes tactics and asks Jack how much longer he thinks he can win against these minions. Here, Jack minimizes the threat, reducing his enemies to nuts and bolts, reminding himself that it always seems bad at the beginning of a fight but that he finds his way through. Here Jack’s phantom gives up arguing logically and goes after Jack’s fear of death. The phantom doesn’t actually say the word “die,” but it’s implied given his use of “end it” at the beginning of the argument, and his implication that Jack’s ancestors want him to join them at the end. Jack disengages his phantom here, not allowing his phantom to speak the word “die,” instead interrupting him.
Jack: Never. They are just machines. I'll find a way. I always have.
PJ: When you have the sword, but now it's gone. There's no hope!
J: I've been doing fine without it.
PJ: Well, listen to you. And what are you going to do when Aku finds you and realizes you have no sword?
J: Aku doesn't know, and he hasn't shown himself in years. He keeps thinking that one of his machines can defeat me.
PJ: Maybe he's right. You haven't faced anything so powerful. How much longer can you keep this up?
J: It always seems bad at first, but then I find a way. They're just nuts and bolts, just nuts and bolts.
PJ: Who cares anymore?! There's no way home. There's nothing to fight for. There's no more honor. Come to think of it, the only honorable thing to do is—
J: Quiet.
PJ: No! I won't spend eternity in this forsaken time!
J: What do you want from me?
PJ: I want it to end. Aren't you tired? Wouldn't it be great to be free of all of this? Our ancestors are waiting for us. They want you to join them.
[Dramatic music] [Horse whinnies] [Horse snorting][Jack sees an opening to new shelter]
J: There.
PJ: You'll never make it! They'll get you!
J: I'll make it.
It’s obvious that Jack has been living with this condition for a time now, considering his sequential use of coping mechanisms up to this point. It becomes apparent that Jack is having a particularly bad attack, due to his shaking pupils at the beginning of the scene—something we’ve never seen Jack’s eyes do before—the physical appearance of a phantom of himself, and the failure of all of his coping mechanisms up to this point. Even at the end of the argument, Jack has yet to best his phantom. What ends the argument is Jack doing something his phantom tells him he can’t do—he makes to the temple he’s spotted, and loses his attackers in the twisting corridors. Sometimes when all other coping mechanisms fail, action can defeat a panic attack or other rut of negative thinking. Jack wins this round with his illness through just that.
What’s exciting about both of these portrayals of mental illness is that both characters cope with their conditions. Their conditions don’t defeat them. It doesn’t invalidate them. And it doesn’t stop them from living. These are powerful, truthful portrayals of conditions that one in five people will experience within their lifetimes. It means a lot to see them in our media.
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