UNITEA | Around the World in EighTEA Days

Let’s face it, there are many people to whom tea is not a beverage, it is a religion. And this clique swears that brewing a cup of tea the right way is a ceremony – it disciplines and calms the mind and is a balm for the soul. These are the teaists, and the art of brewing that perfect cup of tea, perfectly, is teaism. And this group of ardent tea drinkers is strewn all over the world. Here are a few of them :

		ChinaThis is the nation, which gave the world its early morning cuppa, so it is fair that it has a highly ritualized style of tea making. Bunging a tea bag into a cup of boiling water would be sacrilegious in China. Let’s begin with the attitude of the tea maker – he/she should be calm, confident and capable of creating a relaxed ambience in the room. The tea should be fragrant and long leaved. The water used should be pure and clean, the cups of superior quality and the walls of the room must be hung with aesthetic artwork. And what you get at the end of this exercise is a cup of delicate tea, which elevates ones, mood and allows the drinker to find beauty and pleasure in the simple things around him.

		JapanIt is said that the Japanese got tea into their islands straight from China. So they too take their tea very seriously. Old traditional houses are said to have a separate room called the tea room, where people enter, leaving their cares and worries behind. The highly ritualistic way of brewing the tea, the flavour and fragrance of the tea, the artworks and colours chosen for the room – all these work together to make the tea there a drink fit for the Gods. Tea Ceremonies still hold an important place in traditional Japan.

		TibetIn this cold, windy land, tea has no religious or profound meaning – it is a wonderfully hot and cheering drink, best used to combat the cold. Given that this land sits high up on the Himalayas, the Tibetans will do anything to get a bit of heat into themselves. They believe that butter, particularly yak butter, also has heating properties, so they stir in a generous dollop of the butter into their tea. And their third ingredient is salt – it is said to keep fatigue and muscle cramps at bay and that goes into their tea as well. So there you have it – a cup of hot, buttery, salty tea from the high reaches of Tibet.

		RussiaThe Russians love black tea, and are said to drink prodigious quantities of it. The Samovar is closely associated with Russian tea drinking customs. A samovar is a metal container, which holds hot water. Strong black tea, which was prepared earlier, would be diluted with the required amount of water from the samovar, and the whole family would sit around, sipping appreciatively. You could call it uni”tea” in the family.

		IndiaIndian Masala Chai is an addictive mix of the best of things – spices, tea and sugar. While the prim and proper English style tea is popular across the land, its spicier colonial cousin is equally popular. Enhanced with a smidgeon of cardamom, pepper, ginger or cinnamon, masala chai is a beverage that has transcended barriers of class, creed, caste or religion. It holds the status of the pan-indian drink.

		Great BritainAn English man and his cup of tea – they are hard to separate, and feature in everything, from comic strips to economic documents. Earlier, black tea was popular, but somewhere down the line, they took to adding a spot of milk in their tea. Such was their love for tea that they named a light meal consumed in the evening as tea. It included quintessentially English snacks such as thinly cut cucumber sandwiches, macaroons, cakes and scones, and of course, fragrant tea served in delicate chinaware.

		ChinaThis is the nation, which gave the world its early morning cuppa, so it is fair that it has a highly ritualized style of tea making. Bunging a tea bag into a cup of boiling water would be sacrilegious in China. Let’s begin with the attitude of the tea maker – he/she should be calm, confident and capable of creating a relaxed ambience in the room. The tea should be fragrant and long leaved. The water used should be pure and clean, the cups of superior quality and the walls of the room must be hung with aesthetic artwork. And what you get at the end of this exercise is a cup of delicate tea, which elevates ones, mood and allows the drinker to find beauty and pleasure in the simple things around him.

		JapanIt is said that the Japanese got tea into their islands straight from China. So they too take their tea very seriously. Old traditional houses are said to have a separate room called the tea room, where people enter, leaving their cares and worries behind. The highly ritualistic way of brewing the tea, the flavour and fragrance of the tea, the artworks and colours chosen for the room – all these work together to make the tea there a drink fit for the Gods. Tea Ceremonies still hold an important place in traditional Japan.

		TibetIn this cold, windy land, tea has no religious or profound meaning – it is a wonderfully hot and cheering drink, best used to combat the cold. Given that this land sits high up on the Himalayas, the Tibetans will do anything to get a bit of heat into themselves. They believe that butter, particularly yak butter, also has heating properties, so they stir in a generous dollop of the butter into their tea. And their third ingredient is salt – it is said to keep fatigue and muscle cramps at bay and that goes into their tea as well. So there you have it – a cup of hot, buttery, salty tea from the high reaches of Tibet.

		RussiaThe Russians love black tea, and are said to drink prodigious quantities of it. The Samovar is closely associated with Russian tea drinking customs. A samovar is a metal container, which holds hot water. Strong black tea, which was prepared earlier, would be diluted with the required amount of water from the samovar, and the whole family would sit around, sipping appreciatively. You could call it uni”tea” in the family.

		IndiaIndian Masala Chai is an addictive mix of the best of things – spices, tea and sugar. While the prim and proper English style tea is popular across the land, its spicier colonial cousin is equally popular. Enhanced with a smidgeon of cardamom, pepper, ginger or cinnamon, masala chai is a beverage that has transcended barriers of class, creed, caste or religion. It holds the status of the pan-indian drink.

		Great BritainAn English man and his cup of tea – they are hard to separate, and feature in everything, from comic strips to economic documents. Earlier, black tea was popular, but somewhere down the line, they took to adding a spot of milk in their tea. Such was their love for tea that they named a light meal consumed in the evening as tea. It included quintessentially English snacks such as thinly cut cucumber sandwiches, macaroons, cakes and scones, and of course, fragrant tea served in delicate chinaware.