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Tea Your Cuppa
Tea is not just a morning treat. The upscale consumers, who have developed taste for orthodox tea, swear by the mellow liqueur of the long leaf.
The first thing in the morning is your morning cuppa satisfaction and you know that the world hasn’t changed overnight. A few good things like your morning cuppa persist on.
In Nepal, the morning cuppa is the precursor of all good things in life and is a heritage of taste that continues its battle with other brews including the upstarts like aerated drinks and the alien coffee
The Heritage
Tea (Camellia sinesis) is originally supposed to have been first used by the Japanese for its medicinal value and later adopted by the Chinese and then by the British as a luxury commodity. It is said that the British initially used to trade with the Chinese for tea mostly on barter basis but after the souring of the Anglo-Chinese relations, the British made a successful effort to commoditise tea through mass cultivation on the hills of Darjeeling, an area that they had just colonised after the signing of the Sugauli treaty with the then rulers of Nepal in 1815 B.S. Pretty soon tea became the most sought after drink in the English high societies. However, in the Indian subcontinent the abundant production resulted in tea being accepted as a mass drink.
There is something about tea
Tea is drunk in various ways and as a product it is produced in numerous grades, qualities, flavours and types. It is estimated that over 3,000 varieties of tea are traded world-wide.
As an industry, tea makers throughout the world follow a ritualistic tradition of business process right from the plucking of green tea to packaging. Like any other industry there is a conflict between purists and innovators in the way tea is sold as a product.
Traditionalists press for the orthodox, CTC and green varieties of teas while the new brigade is introducing tea as a lifestyle product more relevant to the modern lifestyle like flavoured tea, tea latte and herb infused tea.
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In the Indian subcontinent, including Nepal and Pakistan, tea is generally drunk with milk and sugar and the mass favours CTC for its strong body which mixes well with milk and sugar. However, the upscale consumers, who have developed taste for orthodox tea, swear by the mellow liqueur of the long leaf. Generally a long leaf tea liqueur is bench-marked for quality; for its rosy and muscatel aroma and its colour resembling a fine whisky unlike that of a CTC which tends to look more like a full bodied rum. Connoisseurs say that the best way to drink orthodox green tea is to get a cup of water to just boil, turn off the heat, add a teaspoon full of orthodox tea, tightly cover the container with a lid and let the tea infuse its flavour in the liqueur for not more than three to four minutes. The connoisseurs further advise drinking orthodox tea without any additives such as sugar, milk or cream so as to enjoy its true flavour.
In many oriental cultures, such as Japanese and Chinese, mostly unfermented green tea is favoured and it is drunk with meals unlike in the sub-continental and the English culture where tea is drunk early in morning, late in the afternoon or with breakfast.
Drinking pure tea is also considered good for one’s health as it contains antioxidants which assist in many functions of body metabolism. Though tea also contains caffeine the quantity is severely restricted as we only drink its liqueur whereas in case of coffee the powder is dissolved in water to derive its liqueur.
Two Leaves and a Bud…
Orthodox tea (fermented black tea) is generally considered to be of higher quality and is priced higher in the market. This type of tea is grown in moist mountainous areas and is produced in three or four annual batches with different characteristics in each batch. The first flush (or the batch of tea plucked in the early spring) is considered to be the best of the lot and fetches the highest price. The first flush is followed by the second flush, the monsoon flush and the autumnal flush. Tea estates or tea gardens in the traditional structure used to be governed by a manager also known as a tea planter and his role was and still remains vital in monitoring the plantation and the factory processes, which impart the distinctiveness to the tea.
Globally speaking…
Globally, Ireland consumes the highest quantity of tea per capita, and Kenya produces the biggest volume followed by China, India and Sri Lanka. However, the world’s best teas are reputedly produced in the tea gardens of Darjeeling adjoining the eastern border of Nepal and some of the Darjeeling teas from the first flush are auctioned at more than Rs 30,000 per kg. It is also estimated that globally tea consumption is growing at a healthy rate of 6 percent and holding the market share despite the onslaught of the American coffee drinking culture.
Nepal’s Proposition...
The Eastern mid hills with rolling slopes and a moist weather share similar geographical indicators as that of the Darjeeling hills and this area has been growing orthodox tea for some time now. As the tea plants of Darjeeling get tired out with age, Nepal’s tea is poised to fulfil the demand in the global tea market.
Meanwhile, let’s enjoy our cuppa tea and keep our ears open to listen to the connoisseurs for the right way of enjoying this exotic herb, which is poised to be one of the major export items of the country.
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