Tea Time in the Village

Tea Indian Style

I enjoyed drinking tea in India, no matter if it was in a shack like this was. I never got sick. The liquid is boiling, after all. The Indians poured theirs into a saucer to cool it, but I didn’t. I sipped mine from the cup. Here is a technique I use when drinking tea from cups that may not be pristine: Place the thumb of the hand holding the cup on the rim right where you will place your lips. Let your mouth rest on your thumb and it won’t touch the cup.

Have you noticed that Indians will not put their mouth on anything, not even a coke bottled? They raise the bottle above their upturned mouth and pour it down. Very sanitary! But I’ve never seen them do it with boiling hot tea!

This was a very simple tea house. I’m sure there is one just like it in every village in India and other east Asian countries as well. The man must use tongs to hold the pot. To me the tongs look like the tool used to clip a horse’s feet. And behind is a mechanical bellows, that round metal thing. Maybe this was a blacksmith’s shop at one time. Or perhaps every tea house has a bellows to get the fire going each morning.

Most likely they use cattle dung as fuel. They store it by patting the stuff flat and then slapping it on the wall of the house to dry. Maybe it falls off when it is dry, I don’t know. But you will see stacks of it, dried, by villager’s homes. I once saw a woman rush into traffic to pick up a freshly deposited pile of dung. When I say traffic, I mean cars, trucks, bikes and motorcycles as well as bullock carts. Her supply must have been very low.