The Tea Lovers, the Coffee Connoisseurs and the Game of Thrones

India is a tea-loving nation and the tea lovers are proud of this tea-drinking culture. Whether it is welcoming a guest at home or a business meeting with a client, tea is a part and parcel of the welcome kit. Every morning the sunlight entering our room through the windows fills the house with a lot of energy. The same is the case with tea. The aroma of a hot cup of tea early in the morning energises us for the rest of the day.

In the non-alcoholic beverage, it’s not only tea which is popular but coffee has also made deep inroads. The last decade has witnessed the mushrooming of numerous coffee chains across the length and breadth of the country. The homegrown chain from the Nilgiri – Café Coffee Day can be credited with making the coffee culture popular across the country. Barista, Costa Coffee, and now the King of Coffee chains – Starbucks has also joined the race. Coffee was always popular in India but was more confined to the southern parts.

Tea is for the Commoners while Coffee is for Connoisseurs

It’s not fair to compare the two but one thing is sure. Coffee is more for the connoisseurs while tea is more for the masses. To quench the thirst of the tea lovers several tea chains have appeared on the horizon. Chaayos, Chai Point, Chai Thela, Chai break, and the list goes on. The coffee and tea chains cater primarily to the upper class and only the rich can afford it.

A visit to these outlets and your wallet will get lighter by at least Rs 250-300. However, the tea which remains the number one choice of the tea lovers is the one made by the roadside chai-wala. A cup of tea for Rs 10 remains a favourite of the daily labourer as well as the well-dressed corporate executive.

Let us see how the ideological differences started between the two.

The Tea Lovers favourite brand came from Gujarat.

When it comes to variety, India offers a huge choice of brands:  Brooke Bond Red Label, Taj Mahal, Lipton, Tetley, Tata Tea  are the premium ones. Pataka and Marvel are the popular ones. But one brand which the country fell in love with comes from Gujarat.

This particular brand which came from Gujarat became popular among the masses in the year 2014. The entire country started loving this tea with a strong flavour. The tea soon got a big fan club who took to social media to promote the brand. The rich and the poor, the wise and the not-so-wise felt energized after having this particular tea brand. A substantial chunk of the population though felt that this particular brand was not their cup of tea. One of the probable reason can be that they were from an Italian Coffee drinking club.

This favourite brand of the tea lovers came with a lot of instructions

The tea from Gujarat had a fresh aroma and was reasonably priced. The leaves were picked from Ahmedabad and sun-dried over a while.  It was sold on a promise of “the most honest tea”. The country fell in love with it in the launch year itself. The packaging was excellent and it came with a seal of purity.

To get the best aroma of the tea it had to be made with milk. Buffalo’s milk was preferred. However one segment of the society felt that it tasted better with cow’s milk and started advocating it. It created a lot of controversies though the brand never gave any instructions for what kind of milk should be used.

Chai pe Charcha

The tea became so popular that a lot of Chai pe Charcha debates started happening. The tea lovers in Gujarat loved their masala tea (spicy tea). The ones in Maharashtra preferred their cutting chai (half a glass of tea). The tea lovers in North enjoyed their tea with an elaichi (Cardamom) or adrak (Ginger) along with a rusk or a biscuit.

Priced reasonably one had to pay a GST over and above the regular price. While the tea had a great distribution network, it was weak in states like West Bengal, Kerala, Punjab, and Rajasthan. The tea had a great distributor who worked hard in ensuring the availability of tea in these states. People in Rajasthan and Punjab had burnt their fingers with a hot cup of tea so avoided it while people in West Bengal and Kerala preferred Coffee over tea. The distributor found it difficult in changing their taste.

The Tea Diplomacy

The tea which had won the heart of Indians was also served to foreign dignitaries. US President Barack Obama and Donald Trump loved the tea served at Hyderabad house in New Delhi. The same tea was also served to the Chinese Premier Xi Jinping in Ahmedabad to win his heart. The dignitaries loved the aroma and the taste but somehow never showed their preference to import the same.

Globally the tea has become quite popular and is served at most international meets. So much is the importance of this brand that Global leaders want the tea to be served in all international meets.

The Italian Coffee loved by Coffee lovers but not by the tea lovers

Coffee is one of the most loved beverages worldwide and it has made a presence in India also. The brand which became popular in India didn’t come from South America but Italy. There was a period when the Coffee culture became quite prevalent in India. So much was the love for coffee that tea, often considered the drink of the poor, got left behind in the race.

The business meetings or the defense deals were all negotiated over coffee. The Coffee shops in Khan Market and Lutyens Delhi were crowded with middlemen trying to settle deals as quickly as possible. The Pizza and the Coffee culture became the norm of the country while nobody cared for the drink of the poor. A lot of pizzerias started selling coal-fired pizzas served with coffee. The coal used in the coal-fired oven was sourced cheap and the pizza owners, as well as the coal suppliers, made a huge amount of money.

Cappuccinos and Latte became the flavour of the country while the Adrak and Elaichi flavoured tea got left somewhere behind in the race. It created a massive rift in the society with the wealthier ones getting wealthy and the poor ones getting pushed further down the ladder.

The tea lover’s wish for their cup of tea got fulfilled in 2014.

The tea lovers celebrated the return of the tea culture in 2014 in a great show of strength. There is no looking back since then. The tea culture carries on so much that it has engulfed the Kahwa from Kashmir in its fold. The country which was alien to Kahwa, the special tea from Kashmir feels that it is a part of their regular tea menu.

Controversies happen when the tea lovers drop their cup over the coffee connoisseurs. But as it is said that everything can be settled over a cup of tea so the country is following that.

The tea lovers are at home maintaining social distancing during the lockdown but are hopeful that the tea will give them an immunity which will help fight the pandemic.

To simplify for my readers: You would have guessed by now! The Tea brand is PM Modi while the Coffee from Italy is Sonia Gandhi.

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Read more stories on tea. Click on the link below:

The Art of Making Tea: My cup of tea is different from yours

The Indian Tea: A beverage popular with all ages