I think chai is bread in India. I was in the outskirts of Varanasi over a decade ago, no ATM was working for me and I had no cent to my name. I had a nice prepaid cap driver, who didn't seem bothered by this and brought me to a place where they made small clay pots from the dirt, cured them over fire and filled it with chai coming from a big iron pot. One guy made the pots, another cured them, one was filling the cured cups and another skimmed solids from the top of the pot into another container. The price was 10 rupees and the driver paid and welcomed me to India. Basically just 3 sustaining sips. I was baffled by it. There was long cue of people waiting for their chai, he told me it was a meal for those people. Doesn't seem sanitary but it was fine and is a drink I still have dreams about.

It is not just milk boiled with the spices that are at hand and some tea leaves. It is real sustinace for a lot of people far below the poverty line. A thick and savory muddy looking liquid, rich in calories and it makes shitty situations somehow fine.

You can not quite have it like that in the west, the combination of aniseed and other spices even create tiny amounts of amphetamines, so it packs a little more punch then just caffeine.

It's never quite as thick or flavourful in the west and probably contains no further stimulants except caffeine. So it will be much more boring here and probably way overpriced.

I tried to make it myself, but it was never any good. Even in India some chai is worse then the other. The dirt cheap ones people hand out in trains can be way better then the ones in a 4 star hotel.