Over a steaming cup of tea!

                   My mornings usually start with a cup of tea! The splendid flavour of brewing tea always uplifts my moods.  

I never prefer to take tea alone and usually prefers a company to share the joy of the moments of sipping the hot tea.

One Sanskrit slogan wonders ‘hare! How many shades of colours in this World?’ implicating the varieties of human nature as like the countless shades of colours. Does this not apply to the varieties of tea preparation as well?

Wow! The ‘lemon tea’! Is it not a wonder mix?

There is ‘honey tea’....

Just the 'milky tea’......

May I call ‘Kadum tea’ as ‘raw tea’ instead of black tea? It is called red tea in China!

‘The hot and sweet Ginger tea.......!’

The North Indian clove tea.......!

And the ‘Cardomam tea.’............

The so called spicy ‘Masala tea’.........

Have any one heard about steaming tea served with a splash of pure ghee on top?  I heard such tea is consumed in Haryana. I tried it once…

I have tried 'minted tea' and 'iced tea'......

And the so called 'Green tea'. .........getting popular as a detoxing antioxidant..... 

Is it not that the paneer gives a fine flavour to tea. Even lemon grass extraction is an additive to tea's flavour.  Tea gives scope to endless variety of flavours.

 
And the small quantum cutting tea.

In his book, The Himalayan Blunder, Brigadier John Dalvi among other things lamented about poor logistic support which left our front line soldiers facing the Chinese incursion in 1962, to sip only their salted tea. Even with that poor refreshment our brave and simple jawans were uncomplaining and faced the enemies. In a historical novel on  Ghengiskhan, ‘Wolves of the plains’ the Mangolian tribes during the time of Ghengiskhan were said to have enjoyed bowls of salted tea as the snow rained around their tents.   However I could never even imagine the taste of salty tea.  

I have read Sadam Hussein as a lover of honeyed tea. 

Tea might be one of the traded items via the silk route and has found its place in many local traditions of cultural meal, social gathering or while receiving the guests along this route. Is not that tea so accommodative of so many snacks such as biscuts, rusk, boiled or fried legumes and even butter! 

            Tea is the beverage consumed large in quantity next only to water. It is poised to be declared as the National drink of India.

When I accompanied an office watch man, Subbiah, a versatile old man to the nearby petty tea shop, he complained lightness of the tea and demanded more ‘rung’ in it. Use of this Hindi word ‘rung’ to mean the decoction strength really absorbed me.  

I reminisce with nostalgia, when exclusive tea shops with latest cine songs blaring through their speakers started mushrooming as a cultural phenomenon in Tirunelveli during my teen age. I started tasting tea from every new shop coming up. During late night studies particularly before exams, the tea requirement shot up to even more than ten cups. Taking frequent breaks from last minute preparations I remember visiting the nearby 24X7 tea shops in town.

There were popular exclusive tea outlets. Some unknown ‘wonder mix!’ or ‘secret formula’ or the ‘dexterity of the tea master’ was used to be cited as reasons behind the taste of tea in such outlets by the tea mongers.  My favourite outlet was one tiny exclusive tea shop run by one Muslim old man and his son near Santhi Vinayagar Temple. They offer ginger tea with a splash of paneer flavour added to it.

Whether one visited those tea shops for the sake of accessing the latest cine songs before the advent of computers and internet downloads or for the sheer sake of tea or for taking a break from the dull routines of the day or for a social conversation or for just observing the bustling activities of the roadside life? I really don’t know.  

I remember my childhood comic hero, Tamilvaanan’s  Sankarlal as a tea monger who used to sip tea to stir up his investigative brain. 

When I was a kid, I remember sparrow or parrot (?) branded tea in tiny and colourful paper packs dangling around the grocery shops. The Lipton zum zum tea cartoon animation advertisement screened before every film show was such an attraction - perhaps  all of them gone into the impressionable memory of a kid - and are capable of  subconsciously driving some one to the tea?

The once ubiquitous charcoal copper boilers with reverentially applied vibuthi and kumkum on them have given way for LPG stoves and aluminium vessels.

How come the 'Malligai tea shop’ near the race course road in Maduari comes out with such a tasty magic potion? I am automatically driven to this shop without my conscious decision whenever I cross this place in Madurai.

There may be scores of tea preparations. But my vote is for the ginger tea; of course served hot. I usually prefer cane jaggery to sugar for tea. I consider jaggery as a natural blend for tea giving out a distinct flavour with an exhilarating aroma to it.

Though China is the mother land of tea, Indian innovation has given the drink, so many spicy flavours and on that count should this country not be called the father land of tea.

On the other hand, tea plantations introduced by the British denuded the Indian forests like their railway fish-plates. The first tea plantation in the World was made in Ootty during the Raj. 

As remnants of pesticides said to be present even on the processed tea leaves, popularity of organic tea is gaining ground.  

As per the Tamil medicinal concept, consumption of tea is said to be instigating 'Pitha nadi' i.e. causing 'pitham'.

In one of the twin novels, 'Gopalla Purathu Gramam' and 'Gopalla Purathu Makkal', I dont remember exactly in which one - the author narrates a pastoral anecdote of Tirunelveli District about the members of an agrarian family who attempted to taste this newly arrived edible - unknowing the effects, consumed tea in large quantities lured by the taste in the night and were unable to sleep until the late night, only to be woken up by the frightened neighbors in the late morning.

            The popular word ‘Chai’ is said to be of Mandarin with Persian suffix [Cha + Yi]. However I don’t understand why it is called ‘theneer’ in Tamil.

           Historically the Japanese tea parties belong to the famous zen tradition and have metaphorical connotations.  'Ichie-go–ichi-e' - the Japanese zen-focusing technique is a philosophy sprouted along with this ceremonial tea drinking tradition.

             Agricultural failures and migration of peasantry to tea estates in search of survival means during the colonial era in itself is a social history of TamilNadu.

             Obviously coffee is not my cup of tea. I still feel coffee as a bourgeois drink.  Ah, I remember to have wondered on how come one of my friends from Tiruchy during my college days taking coffee after every meal as a custom[?] and not preferring tea at all. I stop here about coffee as I don’t want to make much storm in my tea cup on coffee. On the other side, my attachment to tea is the only remaining part of my teen age socialist ideological hallucinations as I was so carried away by the wonderful depiction of a brewing proletariat revolution by Maxim Gorky in his novel 'the Mother'!