Chai-Tea

If there is one legacy that the British solidly instilled here before they left everything in a big, jeezly mess, it is the all-pervasive love of tea. You can drive through a crowded urban area and you’ll see guys threading through the traffic with trays full of tea. The Urdu word for tea is "Chai," and all you members of the Starbuck’s Nation will be saying, hey! I should’ve known that one. Of course, chai here means just plain old tea, but at home Chai-Tea is a strange, but delightful, mulled and spiced tea. I’m not sure who the genius was that decided on calling that mixture Chai-tea (quite redundantly "tea-tea"), I guess they must have thought it sounded exotic. In fact, partly because of Star-Bucks and the gang, Chai was one of the few Urdu words that I knew before arriving here. (My vocabulary at that time consisted mostly of asaalam alaikum, chai, motu, gora, and ban-chode – which I found covered most situations.)

But I realize now, as I stare at this steaming cup of tea on my desk, that my life is completely dominated by tea. I could schedule my whole day by tea, I could measure out my life with… teaspoons. I wake up in the morning, and servants bring me tea… I arrive at work, and within 20 minutes, the servants bring me tea… I have lunch, and within half an hour, the servants bring me tea… If I were somehow feeling low on tea, I need only ask , and the servants will bring me more tea….If I go to someone’s house after work, I will doubtless be offered tea (brought by servants naturally). If it is someone I know, I can refuse, but if it is an elder, or the first time I have been there, I dare not refuse out of courtesy.

All this tells me one thing: Servants are fantastic. But beyond that, my tea consumption is off the charts. For a coffee drinker who didn’t drink tea until a few years back, this is quite the feat. And when servants make tea, they tend to make a very milky, very sugary tea. I’m sure that if I insisted on Tea-Bag tea all day at work, and added my own sugar, I would lose 5 pounds right off the bat.

But I’m feeling the addiction, man. If I don’t get my afternoon tea I start to twitch, my eyes droop and I get grumpy. I get jumpy and start jonesing for a Lipton hit. But then, just when I think I can’t take it anymore, the dudes arrive and start distributing steaming cups of delicious ambrosia, and I relax and know that all is right with the world.

Look out Tim Hortons, I may have found a new socially acceptable addiction.