One of the last series which I binge watched on Amazon Prime, with my daughter, before she left for college last month, was 'Bandish Bandits.' It is the story of a family which has developed their own school of Indian classical music. It has been shot in in Rajasthan, India's desert state, with its vast tracts of dry, beige-yellow sand and an arid landscape, with thorny, dark green acacias scattered sporadically over the vista. The entire story plays out against the backdrop of the imposing and stunning palaces and forts of Jodhpur, (also known as the Blue City) in Rajasthan, built by the Rajput rulers of yore.
Now the very mention of Jodhpur is enough to send me spiralling back into early childhood and here I was actually seeing the city again, through the cinematographer's eyes. Since my husband heads a tea company here in Nairobi, my current life is seamlessly merged with tea: sales, targets, profits, losses due to Covid et al. So, as the first visuals of Bandish Bandit began streaming across the television screen, I excitedly turned to my daughter and said, "You know, I had my first cup of tea ever in Rajasthan!"
My mother comes from a family of coffee drinkers. Her father, wife and older daughter in tow, after a Masters In Business Administration from the University of Kentucky in the United States, way back in 1946 -48, returned to India. He was soon hired by a coffee growing firm and they all lived on panoramic coffee estates in the heart of southern India. So of course they drank nothing but freshly roasted, ground and brewed, top quality coffee. If I were lucky, my mother occasionally put a pinch of instant coffee in my morning milk...
But tea was an almost completely unknown entity in my life until I turned six. My paternal grandmother was a die hard tea drinker (see my post My Grand Mother's Ginger Tea) but she was to introduce me to her milky, sugary, shot-with-fresh-ginger, concoction much later. The honour of serving me my first cuppa goes to a humble but generous tea seller in Rajasthan's breathtaking 'Golden City', Jaisalmer.
This trip to Jaisalmer was also the first road trip of which I actually have memories...The very first one had been at the age of six months, on the highest motorable road in the world, at Leh Ladakh in Kashmir, where my Dad had been posted then. And so we travelled from Jodhpur to Jaisalmer where my Dad had some work and were soon safely ensconced in the Army Mess. In between sight seeing and a wee bit of shopping, my sister and I spent most of our free time swinging on the mess gate. And right outside the gate was the tea cart! If my memory serves me right, my Dad probably bought us all some tea from the vendor on our first day there, because I distinctly remember having a whole glassful in one of those glass tea tumblers ubiquitous to tea sellers in India...And then the fun started in the days that followed! The tea would be bubbling merrily away on a charcoal stove, spiking the air around us with the deep aroma of freshly pounded cardamon. And whenever the tea seller had more customers than there was tea left in the kettle, he would pour out the last remaining bit into two glasses, one for my sister and the other for me. Then he would start the whole process of boiling a fresh pot all over again, while we eagerly hung on the gate for the next bit of dregs coming our way! Note that tea in India is boiled, not steeped! And thus began my lifelong long desire for smoky, cardamon infused tea, which my husband brought to life again for me, nearly four decades later...
A few months ago, my husband was watching a food show where he saw a tea cart, complete with the little charcoal stove of my childhood tea fame! We already had a little Kenyan charcoal 'Jiko' which we use to roast aubergines or tomatoes. (Only rarely, we are aware of the hefty carbon footprint of burning too much charcoal or wood for too long). And so he decided to make some tea on it. We also had little terracota tea glasses, reminiscent of both our childhoods, large chunks of which were spent travelling on Indian Railways, courtesy the Government Of India. Tea in trains, before the scrouge of plastic hit us, would be served in these little earthern pots which, being eco friendly, could safely be tossed out of the train, mud to mud again...They also lent their own delicious earthy, flavour to the unique train tea!
He recreated to perfection the spiced, soul satisfying cardamon tea I had long craved, imbued with slightly smoky flavour, by virtue of being boiled on a charcoal fire. Since then, it has become a Sunday morning ritual, carbon footprint not exceeding a few tiny lumps of charcoal. And the best part is we are using Kenyan tea, one of the brands his company makes. So I'm giving back to Kenyan economy, in my own small way, always one of my primary goals towards our host country.
If tea was on the cards, could the favourite tea time snack from my home state be far behind? Boiled, spiced potato cutlets, traditionally deep fried in a gram flour batter and sinfully served popped into tiny, freshly baked white flour buns, with fresh, fried green chillies and dry coconut chutney, liberally sprinkled with red chilly powder, on the side...Vada Pav! I managed to recreate this all time favourite in a healthier manner, shallow frying the cutlets in a special, scalloped pan meant for another recipe and replacing the white buns with sesame topped brown ones. The taste of my motherland unfurled itself on my taste buds...
Tea, terracota tea cup and a traditional treat!
A short while after we had begun our tea ritual, restrictions on restaurants in malls here were lifted. When my husband and I were out grocery shopping in a mall close to home, my eye fell upon a group of nineteen or twenty year old Indian origin students, seated close to each other in the food court, with little thought for social distancing, beer bottles lined up on the table in front of them, masks pulled down around their necks, nonchalantly blowing smoke rings into the air, home from their expensive universities abroad, for the Covid 'holiday'....
I was truly glad that my own 'smoke and beverage' craving was limited to 'smoky tea'!
