Sip, Sip, hooray!
By: S S Pillai
Tea is such a popular drink worldwide that International Tea Day is observed during the third week of May every year.
It is difficult to believe that tea was discovered only around 5000 years ago and an accident was responsible for this world-famous drink’s fame. The leaves of a plant fell into the boiling water meant for a Chinese king.
The water became colourful, and the king liked its taste and colour. He also became more alert after drinking the beverage. That is how the drink became popular in the king’s empire and outside.
Leading business houses own tea gardens as tea has become a lucrative commodity. They prepare different types of tea to cater to people’s liking and sell them in attractive packs.
The competition is so fierce that a hefty amount is spent on advertisements in the media about different types of tea. When I visit some parts of the country, I see miles and miles of undulating green tea gardens interspersed with a few trees.
Women workers gather tender tea leaves from the top with hand-held machines and later deposit them at the nearby tea factory.
Buses and other vehicles run slowly on the narrow, winding roads passing through the gardens. Even wild animals enter those gardens from the neighbouring forests and keep the few people living there alert. Visitors who like to be away from the hustle and bustle of their daily lives stay in isolated hotels built atop hills among trees frequented by tree-climbing wild creatures.
Dust and leaf tea were always there. Teashops used the former variety to make strong tea for their morning customers. When I was a child in Kerala, most male villagers visited teashops to have their glasses of tea or coffee, sometimes without milk, either not to dilute their original tastes with milk or to escape the milk’s price. Dosas and idlis with sambar and coconut chutney were served on cut banana leaves as breakfast.
While the half-naked owner or employee deftly mixed boiled water with milk from different pots on live hearths in a steel mug and poured it into a strainer containing tea and added sugar before pouring it into glasses from a height into a tumbler, the customers read the day’s newspaper, divided into different sheets, and discussed the latest developments. Everybody drank the frothing tea without giving any directions to the tea-maker.
Tea has become an essential custom of welcoming guests. When I go to somebody’s house, the ladies ask whether I prefer tea or coffee. That is the only option I get. Usually, the guests do not instruct their hosts about the quantity of sugar to be added, thinking it better to leave it to the makers instead of giving extra trouble to them. In many houses in the north, they add cardamom, ginger, or cloves as they think it is the way their guests like the drink.
While browsing social media, I like the videos of turbaned Rajasthani men with bushy moustaches wearing white dhoti and shirts squatting on the ground and preparing tea in hearths fuelled by wood in the open early in the morning, with pleasing background music.
They put milk, water, sugar and tea leaves into the aluminium vessels and boil the mixture for a long time, stirring it continuously before straining and giving the brew in shallow bowls to people who drink it, often blowing into it.
Students drink several cups of tea while burning the midnight oil during the examination season, as caffeine in the tea keeps them alert and do not allow them to sleep. Many households now have cold tea in their refrigerators. There are packets containing tea bags, green tea, white tea and other kinds to cater to different types of customers.
Even those hurrying to their workplaces find time to stop for a sip of tea prepared by putting teabags into boiling water.
(The author is a retired professor of English. A regular contributor to ‘The Kashmir Vision’, his articles and short stories have appeared in various national and international publications)
