BENGALURU: I used to be a coffee drinker. But after having lived in India twice, Assam tea with milk but no sugar in a morning breakfast has become an indispensable part of my daily life. The confluence of thick malt-flavoured Assam tea and milk was nothing more than anything else. This caramel taste has completely mesmerised my soul.
Since this change in my lifestyle consumption pattern, I was always looking for a best-value Assam tea packet. I tried several tea shops in town such as the prestigious Mariage Freres, deriving from a former French East-India company origin, and packets on a shelf in ‘Seijo Ishii’, and also organic natural food shops in town. Some were very expensive and ranged from more than $30 to $7 per 100gm. But I finally found the best-value packet sold in OK store with ¥ 299 which was less than $3.
The tea leaves were prepared in CTC, meaning ‘Crush, Tear, Curl’, which was the best way found by the British to steeping Assam tea. The malty flavour of Assam tea was no different from any other Assam tea leaves sold in town.
I used to drink a masala chai with sugar for a first-morning drink in Chennai. It was energising and wakening with spice in a sleepy morning. But I never visited chai vendors on a street at that time. It was only in Bengaluru where I started visiting chai vendors on a street. After eating spicy biryani lunch in Shezan restaurant located about a 10-minute walk from the office, I thought this was the best biryani, so far found in my view. I definitely wanted to go and try sweet sweet chai on a street to balance this spicy aftertaste. This could be the secret of Indian food.
After eating spicy, spicy food and perspiring heavily, you want some very very sweet dessert, either chai or an Indian traditional dessert which definitely would give you diabetes if you ate that every day. But this would become addictive once you accepted this spicy food and sweet, sweet dessert spiral. Actually, a lot of Japanese who tried local food were trapped in this spiral palatably. I became one of those who experienced this trap. This was addictive, I used to go to Shezan almost every day, eating spicy biryani and sipping chai in front of The New Indian Express building on the way back to the office for afternoon work. It was definitely a fantastic experience.
(The writer is ‘Refugee Examination Counselor’ of the Ministry of Justice, Japan, and also works as Senior Corporate Advisor of the Diversity Division of the Zenken Corporation, in Tokyo, after having retired from the Foreign Ministry of Japan as the Consul-General of Japan in B’luru, after a 23-year service)
(The writers’ views are their own)