As we know Chai tea comes mainly from India, and thanks to the British love for tea, it is wide-spread around the world today, and millions of people drink it every day.

This spicy tea has transformed into several new forms besides the classic boiling water plus milk and adding the tea leaves. Now we can find anything from Frappuccinos to chocolate mixes and the benefits of drinking Chai Tea regularly reach our ears through word of mouth, personal experience and articles.

My personal experience with Chai Tea goes back to my time living in the United Kindgom, where from time to time I had the chance to drink it. I found it to be very relaxing, and I still drink it to feel myself calm down and start a new day... which brings me to the article for today:

This week I interviewed Joel Pace from the well known “SLO Chai” fair trade booth at the San Luis Obispo Farmer's market. Needless to say, the sight of SLO Chai always intrigued me and I was really looking forward to talking to him about it.

The talk with Joel was very interesting, he is a man that has a unique perspective on things and is an extremely nice person, willing to share stories and information, he is well known amongst by the community and a few cafés in the area already carry his products.

He  sees the SLO Farmers' Market as a great vehicle to pursue and offer the community a healthy product and at the same time promote Organic Agricultural Practices and Fair Trade.

He is a firm believer in sustainability and impressively enough, SLO Chai has Sustainable Educator Grants, which as the name implies, is designed to help educators that focus on teaching the younger generations about sustainable living.

Joel himself, used to be a school teacher, and when his firstborn son came into his life, he worried about spending enough time with him, as too much work would leave out much chance to be there for him.

And so, he and his wife started thinking about how they could start something that would allow them to have the resources they needed to spend time together and raise their child.

He then remembered his trip to India in 2000, a trip he undertook to learn more about the world and more importantly himself. It was there that he tried Chai tea for the first time. Flash-forward to October, 2004 when they made their first official batch of what today is known as “SLO Chai”.

SLO Chai has an impressive website with a lot of options to try. Anything from the classic Chai blend to Chai Ale and even Chai Chocolate- they sell pre-made flavored tea in a variety of sizes and options... a definite stop for anyone that wants to enjoy a great cup of Chai tea.

Joel himself enjoys having his tea with waffles, and suggested putting some on ice cream and even making milkshakes!

Clearly the possibilities with Chai Tea are endless, and a good place to start getting a bit of information and purchasing your own original SLO Chai tea is, again, at their Web Page.

For now, I bid you farewell, and as for myself, I'm going to drink a nice cup of tea.