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Holi and thandai
The spring colour festival, with cooling thandai made from fennel, black pepper, cardamom and rose.
Spices for Holi and thandai
Holi arrives as the cold season ends, and the drink of the day is thandai, a chilled milk drink thickened with ground almonds and spiced with fennel seed, black pepper, green cardamom, rose petals and saffron. The mix, sold in shops as thandai masala, is a good example of a blend built on contrast: peppercorns add a quiet warmth against the sweet cooling fennel. Gujiya, the fried dumplings stuffed with sweet khoya and cardamom, and savoury dahi vada with roasted cumin and chilli powder are the other tables of the day. Tradition holds that the drink was made to be cooling after hours of play in the sun.
The spices
Written by the EveryMasala desk with AI assistance. Background: "Holi" on Wikipedia. Customs differ from place to place and family to family. If this is your tradition and we have it wrong, tell us.
Photo credits on this page
The small pictures above come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences. Some are cropped to fit.
- Fennel: Elekes Andor, CC BY 4.0, source
- Cardamom: Didier Descouens, CC BY-SA 4.0, source
- Black pepper: David Monniaux, CC BY-SA 3.0, source
- Saffron: Hubertl, CC BY-SA 4.0, source