As long as I recall, I have always been a tea lover. It was may be because I was born in a house-hold that was all Tea pro. Then I got married into a family that is again a die-hard tea lover. In fact, my addiction for tea reached to its profound limits while staying with my husband. I remember my first food/drink/edible at this place was indeed tea. Well, it is customary to offer tea/coffee to a guest. But, my stating that is just to endorse the relationship associated with tea. Once when I my husband flew to Colombo, he got the finest Dilmah in practically all the fruit flavours. He knew I, his then girl friend was always up for experimenting with new flavours of tea. Be it the Lime, Orange, Lemon grass or the Thyme. Green teas are something that I really love, or rather loved.
While living a corporate life with endless discussions in projector rooms, and hours and hours of con-calls, I must have drank close to a litre of tea in a day. I remember we both (husband and I) used to drive 10 km at 2 am in the night to some remote tea larri (kiosk) outside city premises to have 3cups of tea each. That was because in those days we were so careless that we did not even know that our gas cylinder had finished and we had no time or intention to get it refilled or at least place a request for a new one. Also, at that hour of the night, only the ones at the highways were open, ones within the city limits would get shut by 11 pm prompt. As I mentioned in my last blog, I practically did NO cooking even after few years of marriage. Till today, 99% of the times, tea is made by my husband only.
Since the introduction of these Cafe Bistros in the country, drinking coffee has become one of the trademarks of the elite in the society. Though my association with coffee has only been of making it for others, the real Cappucino style that I learned from my mother. For close friends, it is me only who prepares the coffee during all the get-together, but I would be the only one not drinking it, until unless it is getting wasted. Even at these cafes, I do not shy away from sipping my ginger-honey tea. At times, I did try the cold coffee in the form of Frappes and Mochachillos; they were nice but nothing could come in between my true love for the real larri wala kadak chai.
Both of ours love for tea did not even dim in the country of Alps. There also instead of the affordable coffee, we used to order the premium priced Darjeeling or the Assam tea. Our love for tea never really is measured in terms of money, in any currency. I recall once in my previous job in a research organization, I helped out a colleague from Sri Lanka with a project that she got stuck with; and in return she wanted to gift me something. I promptly asked her to ship the Chamomile, Jasmine, Thyme and Gignseng flavoured Dilmah. She was also taken aback, by the way we both have never even spoken to each other on the phone. It was just the e-mail connection between both of us, then also I did not think twice before asking for that gift in return for the help that I rendered to her. I really have been determined for the love of tea. Our close friends are also aware of this fascination of ours, and they use it to coax us into spending more time with them. So, with endless cups of tea, we both could be stationed at a place for hours and hours. At one of our close friend's place we both are customarily served 2 tall glasses of tea each along with Alu parathas for the breakfast.
All this seemed fine till now. It all seemed like a marriage full of genuine love. The true love for tea in me. But the story recently had a sharp twist. I visit one of my journalist friend at a popular tea larri often. There usually I drink tea, the way I have been doing for donkey number of years now. But at one instance of my visit to that larri I happened to drink coffee by mistake. I think the orders got mixed up with some other customers at the place and I got to drink a small glass of coffee instead of the regular tea. I wanted to discontinue drinking that, but since I am from the school of thought of not wasting food; I ended up drinking it all. By the time I had my last sip, I realised it was smooth as silk, with the flavour of coffee lingering on my palate for a long time. It seemed that I had experienced coffee in its pure form that day alone. Since then, I am dying to have coffee again. I never bought one, so I am little apprehensive and feel awkward in bringing about the change in me. I know it is just a usual beverage, but it like hits on my ego strong. Umpteen times I have been advised by few of my seniors at previous work places that "Business women look professional when they sip coffee, particularly on a client visit. Tea is for non-ambitious house wives". I have always shunned those sort of bias and impressions; may be the societal associations tagged with both the beverages in our country made me love tea more, and in a way revenge for these beliefs came out in the form of disliking coffee. Therefore, it is taking me a while to sip one more cup of the sheer smoothness and brilliant taste that I experienced that day for a mere 5 INR.
Does it sound like a devoted married man falling out for a young beautiful girl after successfully doting on his wife of 20 years??
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| me-churning-coffee-in-Kerala-for-my-mallu-friends |
Since the introduction of these Cafe Bistros in the country, drinking coffee has become one of the trademarks of the elite in the society. Though my association with coffee has only been of making it for others, the real Cappucino style that I learned from my mother. For close friends, it is me only who prepares the coffee during all the get-together, but I would be the only one not drinking it, until unless it is getting wasted. Even at these cafes, I do not shy away from sipping my ginger-honey tea. At times, I did try the cold coffee in the form of Frappes and Mochachillos; they were nice but nothing could come in between my true love for the real larri wala kadak chai.
Both of ours love for tea did not even dim in the country of Alps. There also instead of the affordable coffee, we used to order the premium priced Darjeeling or the Assam tea. Our love for tea never really is measured in terms of money, in any currency. I recall once in my previous job in a research organization, I helped out a colleague from Sri Lanka with a project that she got stuck with; and in return she wanted to gift me something. I promptly asked her to ship the Chamomile, Jasmine, Thyme and Gignseng flavoured Dilmah. She was also taken aback, by the way we both have never even spoken to each other on the phone. It was just the e-mail connection between both of us, then also I did not think twice before asking for that gift in return for the help that I rendered to her. I really have been determined for the love of tea. Our close friends are also aware of this fascination of ours, and they use it to coax us into spending more time with them. So, with endless cups of tea, we both could be stationed at a place for hours and hours. At one of our close friend's place we both are customarily served 2 tall glasses of tea each along with Alu parathas for the breakfast.
All this seemed fine till now. It all seemed like a marriage full of genuine love. The true love for tea in me. But the story recently had a sharp twist. I visit one of my journalist friend at a popular tea larri often. There usually I drink tea, the way I have been doing for donkey number of years now. But at one instance of my visit to that larri I happened to drink coffee by mistake. I think the orders got mixed up with some other customers at the place and I got to drink a small glass of coffee instead of the regular tea. I wanted to discontinue drinking that, but since I am from the school of thought of not wasting food; I ended up drinking it all. By the time I had my last sip, I realised it was smooth as silk, with the flavour of coffee lingering on my palate for a long time. It seemed that I had experienced coffee in its pure form that day alone. Since then, I am dying to have coffee again. I never bought one, so I am little apprehensive and feel awkward in bringing about the change in me. I know it is just a usual beverage, but it like hits on my ego strong. Umpteen times I have been advised by few of my seniors at previous work places that "Business women look professional when they sip coffee, particularly on a client visit. Tea is for non-ambitious house wives". I have always shunned those sort of bias and impressions; may be the societal associations tagged with both the beverages in our country made me love tea more, and in a way revenge for these beliefs came out in the form of disliking coffee. Therefore, it is taking me a while to sip one more cup of the sheer smoothness and brilliant taste that I experienced that day for a mere 5 INR.
Does it sound like a devoted married man falling out for a young beautiful girl after successfully doting on his wife of 20 years??
 |
| our-usual-chai-lari |
Sunny V Cafe
ReplyDeleteI am also fond of tea like you..
I like your blog
Your presentation style, and images.
Thanks for this beautiful share
recently i read an article... with that i can say :)
ReplyDeleteSouth India is a place where coffee is more popular than tea !
North India is not much familiar to coffee :)
Coffee is a costly drink than tea,, so people of middle class will often prefer tea than coffee.. few tea maniacs will like to have high grade tea :)
Recently we can see mushrooming cafe centers across colleges and malls.. which boosts the coffee consumers :)
Deep@k