“Tea-Chai…Tea-Chai…Tea-Chai” is the familiar call-out one gets to hear in the southern railways by the vendors running within the compartments and on the platform. While it is Chai-Tea for outsiders, they want to sound modest, indicating the flavor or variety of a tea, but neither Tea-Chai nor Chai-Tea makes any sense, but it perfectly rhymes with one’s cravings for a cup of tea. The tea vendors wake the dozing passengers falling into a peaceful sleep lulled by the speeding train. The tea vendors are often accompanied by coffee and other savory vendors and occasionally a fresh fruit vendor, usually a woman with a woven bamboo basket on her head. I have tried the tea on the train several times, trusting the vendors’ claims, but only to be disappointed every time. Somehow my palate never approved of the tea on the train, but it is always cheerful to have the vendors pass by though I may not buy anything throughout my journey. We usually avoid the express trains because the vendors don’t entertain us in the quick ride.
It was my mother who introduced me to this addictive drink. I would usually ask for a few drops of her glass of tea in my evening glass of milk after school to feel myself a grown-up and for the color it induced. When I was old enough to have tea just as a drink and not a drug anymore, I enjoyed every glass my mother prepared. Since then, tea has become my first love in the beverage category, and the assortment of milky drinks fell in second place. I only recently told my mother I enjoy the tea she prepares, but my palette for tea has grown wider.
Only a decade ago, coffee caught my attention, for it was easier to prepare a good cup given a sachet of instant powder. The filter coffee, an elaborate process to prepare but much elevated in taste and flavors, was introduced to me by my partner. I must credit her here for the perfect coffee since the Sunday morning coffee is still due. Coffee is now a morning ritual, but we enjoy a strong tea together anytime.
Tea, for me, is milk-tea, and I prefer it steaming hot with a strong taste of tea leaves and a pinch of tea masalas. Of course, I add sugar or jaggery but just a dash. I can still accept lemon tea, but I can never approve of green tea as tea. Green tea has benefits, which I do not deny; it has helped me stretch my facial muscles in weird shapes at every sip and sometimes a chill from the core muscles in response to its sweet bitterness. I would skip my tea but not have the green tea.
Tea has been a great conversation starter or even the center of discussion and sometimes a good break between a dull conversation. An elderly friend offered us tea during our casual meeting. While the tea was being prepared, he described how bad tea could be, and sometimes a cocktail of coffee and tea was served. We eww-ed at the thought of it but never knew we would be a victim in the next movement. The elderly friend shared his bygone years’ travel experiences, which helped us gulp the cocktail without much attention to it.
The petty tea shops on the roadside are our usual break points during our trips. Surprisingly, the tea we had at these spots was always good. Maybe we were deprived of it for long hours, or the shops have perfected the blend. Once we cross the Deccan plateau and move further up from the Vindya mountain range, the tea is fortified with different flavors. Tea in Delhi and Jaipur is something that my taste buds would remember. Some of the tea shops in these cities are close to 100 years or even older.
On our first Himalayan trek to Pangarchulla, I was awake and waiting after midnight, hoping for the clouds to clear to glimpse the milky way. The night was bitterly cold, and temperatures dipped way below zero. I had set my camera and waited long hours for a clear view. My fingers had swelled due to the cold, and I was hungry. I watched the entire canvas of stars slowly slide across the sky, occasionally dotted with satellites, and I also remember spotting a falling star, if it was real at all. The camp was asleep and may not wake up until the sun was out. A faint flame flickered far from the camp, which the camp leader had advised as a no-safe zone. A small group of shepherds had camped the night with their herd, and the tiny fire pit provided little comfort. The eastern sky had started to glow, and the shepherds were preparing to leave. My camera seemed friendlier to them, and we both got a spot in front of the fire pit. They offered a big cup of salt tea (a brew of tea leaves and a few Himalayan herbs with salt instead of sugar) prepared with fresh goat milk, waking up all my senses. I thanked them in my broken Hindi, the taste of the salt tea remained until breakfast, and the memory of it will last forever.
We opted for a big cup of tea in the tea houses along the trail of the Annapurna Base Camp trek instead of the hot soup at night. We were sleepless most nights and blamed the innocent tea as the culprit, only to realize later that the sleeplessness was caused by altitude. We compensated for the missed tea sessions once we reached the lower altitude and reclaimed our loyalty.
I feel very sorry to have made tea more Indian, in terms of consumption and production, than Chinese without giving them any credit to the land where it was first discovered. The British brought us tea, and Indian Tea Board popularized it in the 1950s. Maybe it is too English of me, as others say, to be a patron of tea.
