Of Tea & Other Musings

This weekend, I celebrated my first wedding anniversary with my super awesome husband. We stayed in a lovely cottage in Kasauli with a couple of friends, and had loads of fun, complete with lovely gifts - diamond earrings from him and a Buddha bust by friends [well known fact about me: I am a sucker for Buddha paintings, statues etc!]

Anyhow, the picture was taken at sunset, which was the best part of the whole trip. The straight line you see is where the sky was divided into two parts. Of course, the crappy camera could not capture the beauty. Sorry!

The time we spent there got me thinking about the importance of tea in the average Indian's life. Being married into a Kashmiri family, I have been introduced to three different types of tea, two of which I haven't even tried.

Tea is one of the most versatile drinks ever. You can add mint, lemon, almonds, cardamom, cinnamon, ginger, pepper, and so many other variants to make it lush. How do you like your tea? I like mine strong but add a lot of different flavors to it. Here's my 3 minute tea recipe:

1 cup water
1 cup milk
1.5 tbsp tea leaves (I prefer Tata)
2 cardamom pods, crushed
4 crushed peppercorns
grated ginger (depending on how much you like the flavor)
1/2 tsp fennel seeds (saunf)
some dried holy basil or tulsi leaves

Boil the water in a saucepan on high. Add cardamom, peppercorns, ginger, fennel and holy basil. Let it boil for a couple of minutes, till you can smell all the flavors. Add tea leaves and boil for a few more minutes. Finally, add milk and sugar. Wait it starts boiling and change the flame to low. Boil for another 1-2 minutes.

Accompaniments: Anything! I love tea with so many different things - biscuits, cake, paranthas, and even Maggi!