Tea & Me

I was waiting to write on this topic for a very long time, finally this day has come. I cannot say that I never had tea when I was a child. I used to have it very rarely, in small quantities, on & off – mainly for the fun associated with it in having with others. When I was in classes like 10^th & 11^th, observed that it was also a stress buster.

The process of making tea appears to be a fairly simple one. Boil the milk, and then keep it aside. Boil water, when water boils, pour sugar into it, then pour the milk that was kept aside, and then add tea dust (powder). The boiling order can be changed, like first boil milk, then add water, and then sugar into it, and then the tea dust (powder). But as a regular tea drinker, I observed the method of preparation and the order in which is done, has a huge impact on the odor, color and taste of the tea.

I still vividly remember the process and the tea that was made in my grandparents’ home, when we visited there as kids. It is an elaborate process, and it needs an article on its own. Anyways, I will try to be brief and add it, since I don’t want to miss it here. In those days, it was the vintage firewood store, which used to be installed on the floor, normally outside the home. My grandmother, with grandfather’s help will lit the stove. It needs some effort to create and sustain the flame in that stove, which is an art by itself. First, some small pieces of dried sticks or small peeled bit from the big logs should be placed in the stove, and lit with a matchstick. At times, camphor is also used to create the initial flame. Then it has to be blown with the help of an ‘oothaankuchi’, which is nothing but a small hollow black iron rod, which is about a foot in length. As kids, I and my sisters were fascinated by this ‘oothankuchi’, and we used to take it from my grandmother and take turns in blowing the stove. Sometime, it brought in fire, or increased the intensity of the fire. But most of the time, it will put off the fire which was there already. But, invariably, this process which creates smoke, brought tears in our eyes. But we were never deterred to try it again.

Once the fire is consistent, my grandmother keeps the tea satti (a small aluminum vessel), that is designated for the sole purpose of preparing tea. Then, she will pour water into it, and when it boils, sugar is added. The sugar used will be jaggery, the brown colored one. Rarely the refined sugar, which was known as ‘aska’ was used. No milk will be added – this tea is known as ‘vara tea’. If I translate this, its literal meaning is ‘dry tea’, but it actually means ‘tea without milk’. That tea had a unique aroma, taste, which I never tasted again, later in my life. Probably, the water, firewood stove, jaggery, and the proportions, brought in that taste. And moreover we used to have it, sitting outside the home, in the open air, chatting with each other and that too in the early morning hours like five to five-thirty, when the sun was not out.

Later while in high-school, when I got into the habit of going for rounds in my cycle, I had a particular route that I followed on most of the days. While returning back to home, sometimes I stopped at ‘Aruna Paal Depot’ - a famous tea shop in our area - had a tea and then proceeded back to home. The tea there used to be very tasty in those days. Still, my tea habit stayed at 1 or 2 teas a month, until I went to hostel for my UG in PSG Tech Coimbatore.

On the first day at hostel, in the evening, from the hostel mess, they had a kept a small kettle with tea in it. I didn’t take the tea nor had any idea to take , until my roommate said that “Whether you take or don’t take, you have will be paying for it, as it is added to your mess bill. Immediately I fetched my tumbler from my room, filled it will tea from the kettle and had it. It was divine. Probably due to the ‘siruvani thanni’ (water from siruvani river), it had a unique taste. This slowly made me a habitual tea drinker. In those hostel days, especially in the third year, I used to go for long walks to the nearby areas, and while coming back, used to visit the  ‘NMB bakery’ and have tea along with egg puff, a combination that was famous in Coimbatore.

While in the second year in PSG Tech, we had Industrial training for about a month, during the semester holidays, wherein we have to be in the PSG Industry, and observe the Manufacturing process there. In the factory, an old man used to bring coffee in the morning and tea in the evening. He used to push a small cart in which there will be a big cylindrical container in which he used to bring them. Coffee in the morning and tea in the evening. Since we were student trainees, he wont be giving to us initially. But after going through a round around the factory, he used to come to us, and distribute the left over coffee and tea to us. Upon knowing that my father is a Railway Employee, he used to give additional cups of coffee, sometimes upto three. It was when I was having the third coffee that my team-mate Jayaprakash identified my small emerging paunch, and make a remark about it. Over the years, the paunch kept on growing, and I got rid of it nearly after twenty years, after I became a fitness freak.

While doing MCA, the number of teas I used to have in a day kept on increasing, with me going for a rounds in my cycle, coming back home and asking Amma to give tea. This also shot up our sugar expenses. Until my marriage, most of tea I had in my home were black tea, the milkless one. So, the expenses on the milk never shot up. In those days, I also started to have money, since I will be given money for taking the bus tickets to college. So, though minimal, I always had money in my pocket. This enabled me to have tea in any and every shop along the way to college, in the shop in front of our college, while waiting for the evening bus. Later I realized that it could be "stress teaing", as during and immediately after having the tea, the mind will be blank for sometime, when we wont remember any of the problems in our life. So, continued consumption will keep the mind blank, away from problem, for a prolonged time. 

Now let me make a note of the price of the tea in shops, which made a drastic change in my tea habit. My Mom says that she remembers that a tea was around 6 paise, when she was a child. Dad recalls that it even was at 5 paise. But as far as I remember, I paid 50 paise for the earlier days, which I occasionally used have when I was in high school. Then it went to 75 paise, then to 1 rupee, then 1.5 rupees, then to 2 rupees, then to 2.5 rupees. Most of the tea that I had while at PSG was 2.5 rupees. Then to 3 rupees. Now I have joined a job and started my career as a Software Professional. Which meant that now I got access to free tea in office, and hence my spending on tea in the shops reduced drastically. But still as I was a Bachelor, staying alone in Bachelor accommodations, I still used to have then and there in the evenings, and in weekends, in shops.

The evening teas I used to have in a shop, after a long phone call to my friend, sitting in neatly laid chairs and tables were some of the teas, I enjoyed a lot, gazing at the traffic on the road.

After a long time I went to Aruna Paal Dept in my native, and while purchasing the tea token, he asked for 5 rupees for tea. That changed everything. I paid five rupees, got the token, got the tea, and started having it. That's when I thought that 5 rupee is too costly for a tea, and that I should stop immediately. That was the last tea for which I paid 5 rupees for a tea in a shop. After that I stopped having tea in shops. I mean I stopped paying and having alone, just for the sake of having tea. I still used to have when I go out with Appa, and later when I used to go out with my friend. I had those teas just for companionship and togetherness.

Thus my long time habit of having tea in tea shops came to an end. As a software professional in corporate companies, I still had access to free tea and coffee in my offices, which I used to have. Mostly one in the morning and one in the evening. Over time, I became allergic to coffee. If I have three coffees in a row in a week, invariably that brought stomach pain and sometime acute head ache. Hence I had to drop coffee in my life, except very rare occasional ones.

In the meantime, I became a fitness freak, and as a fitness freak and a health conscious person, I started identifying those habits that I should stop, and stopping the habit of having tea stood first in the list. That's when me and my friend decided to stop the tea habit. Worse... it was not an easy habit to break. Exactly at the time when I used to have tea on other days, I felt the tea taste in my tongue, and after a couple of hours, got acute head ache. For almost two days managed, but on the third day, we couldn't hold anymore and my friend prepared tea. Words cannot explain how the tea we had pacified my mind, and brought a kind of peacefulness. I understood how addicted we were to tea, and stopping that is going to be very very difficult.

Thus, we started to have tea again. After many years, we tried the same experiment again, and again we failed after a couple of days. But over years, we reduced the size of the tumbler, and the quantity of tea we had. I understood its not the quantity that matters, but just tea that matters, even if that's going to be two or three sips. 

  
To this day I continue to have tea - only the free office ones and the ones prepared in home, and that too in small quantities. But I am sure that, one day, with great will power, will conquer this habit of having tea. 

In any case, as a tea drinker, I enjoyed this "Tea Podu" song a lot. Click the below link to watch.

- SPGR.