Morning Cuppa
All my life I have been drinking this beverage and little did I know that I had not been drinking the real one! I was under an illusion, as are the millions of “Tea” drinkers in India, that what we drink as tea is the real tea that is famous all over the world. But I was sadly mistaken! What we have been drinking is nothing but a low-quality product of the real tea – called CTC tea – and this actually has little value in the international market. Only in India and some of the south Asian countries is CTC tea drank in such volumes and relished too. I have lived many years near the tea gardens of Darjeeling – my home – yet the real tea did not reach us. Perhaps the value and price of this real tea prevented that.
However, we Indians have taken CTC tea to new heights and anything else in its place would not suit our taste buds. The black grainy CTC tea is the real tea for us. Its strong flavour and colour stimulates our senses. We are not bothered if this tea has any medicinal value at all (the orthodox and the green teas have loads of antioxidants and are consumed for this property both in Europe and other parts of Asia). To us the strong frothy concoction of over-boiled CTC tea in water, milk and sugar is what makes our day. Many of my friends say that a thorough shaking of this mixture adds more flavour to the tea – the nearby tea vendor pouring tea from one glass to the other in a circus-like routine is designed to impart this quality to our tea!
But with more information available to the Indian consumer and also with increasing purchasing power, we Indians have started drinking the real tea today – not the CTC tea – though in a small scale. The tea industry does have the potential to be big in India given the huge cultural significance and medicinal value of tea. What is needed is foresight and effort to make the Indian consumer develop a taste for the real tea. The low-priced CTC will continue to survive of course!
