Of Teas and Things....

This post is one I'm sure all my tea drinking readers will relate to, for it's a tiny paen to tea.

What I know about the history of tea (without consulting WikiBaba) is not much except about how in the ancient times, a Chinese Buddhist monk after having accidentally dropped some leaves from a tea tree (yes, its a tree not a bush for if not pruned, a tea tree grows upto 10 feet) into a pot of boiling water, tasted the resultant brew and found to his happy surprise that he felt fresh and awake. And that is how, through the Chinese grapevine, it is said that the popularity of tea grew and spread far and wide.

But this is not a history lesson on tea and so I'll not talk of how tea took root in India courtesy the British Burra Sahib and how in the Colonial times, desi bahus drinking tea were the hapless recipients of snide comments such as "....thinks she is a very big Memsaab".

We have come a long way since those dark days of tea to the present, when tea is a culture in our country, a culture and a way of life.

And I am a tea- lover, adoring tea in all its avatars.

I love chai as it is drunk in most of Northern India, a thick latte, brewed to kingdom come. I remember brewing chai at the crack of dawn in Shillong, shivering in my cold kitchen as the aroma of adrak and elaichi filled my morning. In fact, the only reason I would wake up that early along with the insomniac of a cockerel next door, was that I loved sitting on the stairs of my doorway, monkey cap snug on my head, palms cocooning my huge tea mug, watching the dawn grow older, its mists mingling with steam from my tea cup. I recall how I pounded ginger (waking up my upstair neighbour with the din) , a single peppercorn, two cloves, an elaichi, a sliver of cinnamon, a few aniseeds (a trick taught to me by my house help) and a small bay leaf (for this I owe my thanks to a dear friend) in my brass mortar and pestle and then brewed milk, water, tea (only CTC, the more kadak the better) and the masala for about eight or nine minutes on a really low flame till the colour of the brew looked right and the fragrance woke up Kuttush who came sniffing to investigate.

Though I love chai, I'm rather partial to tea made the English way, steeped not brewed (apologies to James Bond). But I'm told nowadays most English people use tea bags instead of leaf tea. What a lamentable fall in standards......

In our country, thankfully, tea bag (dip-dip chai) is confined to the Rajdhani Expresses and the odd hapless VIP bureaucrat who goes on government inspections. Instead, we have leaf teas available all over the country at reasonable prices and I can say with conviction that they are all of excellent vintage. 

I'll begin with Palampur since at present I'm somewhere close. Kangra leaf tea is very light and comes with a generous dose of still green leaves mixed in with the black leaves. I'm still not too clear why these leaves are still green but then it doesn't really matter because the flavour of this tea is extremely good. I'm using a pack now and I feel that it is best drunk without added milk. Then there is the divine Temi Tea of Sikkim, produced by the Sikkimese government. I'm not an expert on teas but I personally feel that it can rival even the famed Makaibari..... And finally, no gossip of leaf teas in my life is complete without a mention of the leaf tea from Shillong from the Sharawn Tea Gardens, located just outside the city. Now this tea is also known as Sohrynkham tea and is sold only in a few departmental stores in that city. It has an interesting flavour, very distinct from the other teas I've drunk and is actually sweet, even without sugar added. I love it and having left Shillong many years ago, I dearly miss it as the tea doesn't seem to be available outside of Shillong, not even at Guwahati. But before I move on from the topic of the Sohrynkham tea, I must tell you a funny anecdote related to this brew. While living in Shillong, I had gone one evening to the local departmental store and was browsing around its shelves when I heard a fellow shopper, a young man ask the storekeeper, 

"Aapke pas Shah Rukh Khan chai nahin hai?"

Intrigued, I perked my ears.

The store clerk was stumped, "Shah Rukh Khan chai??????"

Both me and the store-clerk at first assumed that the young fellow was either severely mistaken or more likely, absolutely deluded. 

Then, the answer hit us both simultaneously!!!

SOH-RYN- KHAM....
SHAH-RUKH-KHAN...

Of course!!!

I remember both of us laughing our guts out while the ShahRukhKhan chai customer looked on, sheepish grin on his face.

Leaf tea is an acquired taste and preparing it a highly specialised skill. You need leaf tea of course, a ceramic tea pot with a strainer at its base, a tea cozy (get one from the Kashmir Emporium, they have nice ones, expensive but nice), a teaspoon, some pretty tea cups (saucers are mandatory) and finally a timer (use the one on your cellphone). The tea measure is a teaspoon of leaf for each cup and a little extra, for the pot as they say. Take water from your tap, not from the RO machine and bring it to boil ( DON'T over-boil, please). Warm the tea pot by rinsing it with warm water. Then spoon in the tea leaves, pour the freshly boiled water, place the tea cozy, set the timer for four to five minutes and fiddle with your Whatsapp (or better still, read my blog) till the timer rings. Pour the tea, add one teaspoon of milk (use a TetraPak milk like Amul), one to two sugar cubes, stir once and relish your tea as if it were Chianti or the finest Port.

Other Half doesn't like tea. And since tea, like good whisky, is savoured best only in company, my tea soirées are spoiled because they are invariably with a solitary participant, me. So today, in order to pull him into my tea party, I made Mint Tea. Mint Tea is a misnomer for it is actually a tisane rather than chai, with no tea leaves in it at all.

I picked some mint leaves from my garden, boiled them lightly with tap water, muddled them a bit with my mortar, strained the liquor into cups, added honey and a few drops of lemon juice and my mint tisane was ready.

Not bragging but it was a hit. And not just that, it was the inspiration for this post.

PS: Hoping my post is able to inspire the tea haters/ coffee addicts amongst my readers to try their hands at some tea making now.....
Do keep me posted.