Tea with Sunset

I have always liked my tea hot, freshly made and with the right amount of rich creamy milk. The current times have at least given me the liberty to enjoy my afternoon cup of tea on my terrace, just before sunset. Sipping my hot tea, watching the winter sunset against the calming blue sky has somehow become very important for my day to feel complete. 

But I look forward to the event so much , that more often than not, I end up spoiling its perfectness. Sometimes, I feel like imagining the act is more dreamy than the actuality of the event! Because in reality, we never get it right. Each day, one of my boys asks me a “ very important question” exactly while I am about to add the magical final touches to my ‘wannabe perfect’ tea and then it all collapses like a row of fragile card houses, it took so long to arrange neatly! 

And then this winter sun! Just give me ten minutes to be ready with my tea cup and sit peacefully while ‘His Highness” begins the “magic show”, the whole world is crazy about. Before I step out from my kitchen to the terrace, he has already gone!... vanished mid air under the Hudayriyat bridge. It's only 5.40 pm! I mean if it's supposed to be the ‘good weather winter’ in the desert, at least give us a longer evening to enjoy it! In the hot harsh summer, “His Highness” seems to be in no hurry and is seen loitering around the horizon till 7.30pm!

There goes my perfect peaceful cup of tea with a sprinkle of sunset. My life in the time of Corona so far has been exactly this! Striving for THAT cup of tea, chasing THE sunset! 

Will this hide-n-seek ever get over? Somewhere, we all wish that 2021 will arrive with a magic wand! The truth is, our expectations of “that” cup of tea and “the” sunset might just have to change!

~ One Thousand and One COVID Complaints! ~

Not my cup of tea

The right cup of tea can make a morning and a wrong one can spoil it. My morning tea was all messed up by the new tea boy in our office. The concoction was not to my taste though it was served in my cup. So as not to sound harsh, I said “It’s not my cup of tea!” He smiled and brought me the same tea in another cup!!!

In a modern workplace full of mixed tastes and cultures, it is not easy to get your perfect tea at the desired time in the right cup with the accurate mix of milk and sugar, especially with the options of green tea, black tea, Moroccan tea and sulaimani chai.The usual office tea boy in my current place of work is hearing impaired and cannot speak. But frankly he was always able to deliver an acceptable cup of tea only with instructions in sign language!!

When I worked in India, tea times were indeed fun times! The office could not accommodate a pantry, so the easiest and most exciting option was to “order” tea whenever required (or not required), from a road side tea stall. This was an interesting exercise of waving out from the window and showing with your fingers the number of tea cups that were to be delivered! And then after half an hour a small boy with greased clothes would bring an aluminium kettle and a few 'washed' extra small tea cups (with saucers). My cup of tea would be ‘half filled’ with a honey coloured liquid of saturated sugar syrup with minimum tea leaves and too much milk. In spite of a common set of instructions, he could never get it right!

Making the perfect cup of tea is an art indeed. It’s a subtle balance of the right amount of tea leaves, accurate boiling time, precise proportion of milk and sugar and finally the ideal cup. The lesser known secret to a great cup of tea lies in getting the exact temperature for the first sip. And that can only be achieved by the famous south Indian mixing technique of pouring the tea from one cup to the other for about four times, in rhythmic flow,not spilling a single drop!

Even after getting trained for almost seven years from a die-hard Indian foodie husband towards this unique tea making skill, I have never been able to get it right! Well, let’s say, it’s just not my cup of tea!!!