Zhonguo Cha aka Chinese Tea.

We Keralites have one significant achievement to our credit. Of setting up a tea shop even on the Moon! No mean achievement I say, but people have their benchmarks! So be it.

I love coffee. The filter coffee at Saravana Bhavan Chennai, the Arabica and Columbian varieties from Marks & Spencer’s Hong Kong, and the Frapuchino at Starbucks, Guangzhou China.I am also a tea drinker. It’s in the DNA you see. I love tea even better than coffee.

My day starts with a strong cuppa with just the all time favourite Brooke Bond Red Label (BB RB) tea, milk and sugar boiled to the right level of strength that neither tea, sugar nor milk can claim superiority over the other! Tried Lipton Yellow label and never quite loved it as much as the BB RB one. Neither did Society nor the Mallu varieties of AVT and Kannan Devan or the Tamil varieties of 3 Roses or Stanes and the North Eastern variety of Darjeeling, Assam or the English Duncan’s and Twinings do! So it is the BB RB for me.

In India one rarely sees tea in any other form other than the dark variety which is used as a stimulating brew with sugar and milk or drank rarely as black tea or as the light, no milk, hot and sweet lemon laced version called the ‘Sulaimani’ which came to India along with the Iranis, Parsees and the Mohammedans from Central Asia.  Little did I know when I arrived in the Middle Kingdom that this is where the great drink called ‘tea’ originated from. Tea is called ‘Cha’ in Mandarin. It seems to have morphed into ‘Chaya’ in Malayalam and Chai in Hindi when it trekked across the mighty Himalayas in the purse of the Chinese scholars who came to Nalanda to study Buddhism and swam across the South China Sea in the company of the esteemed Chinese Wok called the ‘Cheeni chatti’ and the grand Cheena wala(Chinese fishing net) to reach the God’s own country. These symbols that are so very native to China are now part of the Malayali’s daily life!, To the point that a claim by the Chinese to return them to China will draw blood! Globalization is not a new phenomenon, the Chinese Silk Route traders were the ancestors of todays ‘Globalony’ as an eminent Harvard academician and economist put it.


In the Middle Kingdom (read Zhong Guo aka China), tea or Cha as it is locally known rules supreme. It is humble as a common mans drink and is the also the connoisseurs indulgence that are worth its weight in Gold and Diamonds.The Cha is available in China in a myriad number of flavours, colours, tastes and as combinations with a surprising array of other interesting stuff. Chinese Cha predominantly is available in 3 forms – white tea, green tea and dark tea. None of these varieties are ever mixed with sugar or milk for consumption but always only with boiling hot water.

The white teas are usually teas that are plucked young, dried for a shorter period along with flowers like chrysanthemum, jasmine so that the flavours of the flower mix with the ones of the tea. These teas are roasted very mildly and hence are light teas lending almost no colour or just a very light green to the tea when hot water is poured on them on a tea pot for consumption. These teas are great antioxidants and are used to wash away toxins as well as for giving a great smelling drink and a refreshing experience to consumers.

The green teas also come in different flavours mixed with other herbs like ginseng and are also high on anti oxidants and other properties that help one detox and be refreshed. The most famous and popular Chas belong to this category like the Oolong Cha. The best Oolong Chas are supposedly produced in the high sun kissed mountains of Taiwan. The Chinese disagree and believe that the mainland produces the best teas of all varieties.

The darker varieties like the ‘pu-erh’ cha or the ‘boley’ cha are roasted longer and also have more anti oxidants but have a roasted flavour which is fantastic. There are over a 100 varieties of teas of all kinds available in the Middle kingdom. The ‘English breakfast’ varieties of dark tea are popular in Hongkong and amongst many Chinese as well.

I like both the Taiwanese one and the one from the Mainland, especially the Oolong Cha variety so much that I have packets of them in my office as well as at home and drink Cha along the day right until bed time. My day starts with a cup of English tea – the BB RB Indian variety and the rest of the day the Oolong one takes over.

Tea was discovered centuries ago in China when a dry tea leaf was blown into a pot of boiling water by the breeze in a Chinese village. The villager smelt the aroma of the tea and liked it so he tasted the drink and the rest is history.

The Chinese place symbolism very highly in their lives and associate everything as a symbol of something else. Hence teas have evolved into various kind associated with symbolism. The best, the most expensive and the rarest of teas is the Monkey picked variety of tea. That’s correct – these are picked by monkeys who by virtue of their natural senses can identify the exact leaves to be plucked at the exact maturity levels. The monkeys that are trained to pick such leaves and deposit them with their owners are also prized possessions. Monkeys are also an integral part of Chinese Mythology attributed with great powers – aka the Monkey King! I am hoping to see an army of monkeys being unleashed to go and pluck tea leaves and they scamper along and pick up baskets and start doing the job. I wouldn’t be surprised if I do, this is China. In China, everything is possible!

One among the many that are considered as exotic teas are the leaves that are plucked by virgins and dried by the warmth of their body heat while covered with tea leaves overnight. Tea is also used as a herb along with Chinese traditional medicine to help treat some symptoms better. Another rare and prized one is the tea laced with gold dust!

Tea is consumed as an accompaniment to a meal, or as a refreshing drink anytime, or as iced coolants laced with lemon, honey or mint and served in plastic bottles in convenience stores , beating the competion(Pepsi & Coke) out of the ball park!

Tea drinking ceremonies can be so elaborate and very formal that they are used as a medium to show reverence, display of superiority of position and wealth, and also as a stage for social meetings and formal gatherings. There are prescribed different ways of drinking teas for both women and men.

Tea accessories are an extremely important element of the tea drinking ceremonies and tea making/serving. These can be very expensive made of jade and other valuable material or as simple as terracotta or wood. There are tea houses across China where one can sit and enjoy ones selection of great teas in a setting befitting a tea connoisseur!


I continue my journey in the search of more exotic teas in the middle kingdom. I am sure there's a lot more to see and a lot more tea to drink.

The beautiful world of phonetic Mandarin.

I take pride in the fact that I speak, read and write many languages. 5 to be precisely immodest. English, Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil, Sanskrit. Additionally, I also speak Kannada a little, a bit of Bangla/Bengali and some Putonghua (Mandarin).That will make the tally 8 and take it upto 9 when I learn Spanish after I am done with learning Mandarin. Now that I have boasted my vain self off to such an immodest start, let me embark on glorifying the whole effort!

I am currently trying to learn the Chinese Mandarin language from a kind and patient teacher who has miraculously survived the onslaught of my embarrassingly off-track Chinese pronunciations for the zillionth time in a span of 3 months. This gentleman who goes by the name Mr. Wichin Wang Tao is the human epitome of patience and purpose. He never fails to correct me with a smile and always encourages me to speak correctly.

The language is sheer poetry, both in the written and the spoken form. Since it is a phonetic language, each sound and its intonations have a meaning and so does each written character. It amazes me that by writing one character, the Chinese express a complete thought in itself! Which is why I call it poetry!. Imagine what a collection of characters can mean if each character can have meaning on its own. Compare it with English, barring the albhabet ‘A’ I, ‘N’ and X none of the alphabets mean anything by itself and always need a combination of characters or alphabets to form words that have some meaning.

Mandarin is the language spoken by the largest number of people in the world and people like me are adding to that population and will continue to do so in larger numbers. In spite of being the language spoken the most in the world, it has its myriad number of variations that are unique to each province or even with multiple dialects in the same province with most dialects not being understood by all. The common thread in between is the Mandarin language which is the official language of the Peoples Republic of China.

I am told that there are 5000 characters of Mandarin that are commonly used by Mandarin speakers in normal day to day life. In the same breath, I am told that Mandarin has over 25000 characters in the simplified version and much more in the traditional version. Now that’s a lot of language one needs to learn to master this language. Compare with the 26 alphabets of English and I can almost feel the embarrassment that the English language must be feeling! So lets not compare, lets just accept that each language is unique and is beautiful in its own way and also equally powerful for communication. With the peace made, let me move on to other areas on the language.

I also notice that there are a few words in the Indian language that are similar to that of Mandarin. Cha – means tea in most Indian languages and in Mandarin!, neyyo is butter in Mandarin, while neyy is ghee (melted butter) in many South Indian languages. Paapa is father is Mandarin, while papa is father in Hindi and many other languages. Maybe even in English!, I will not venture further in that direction!

Most of all, I enjoy the most when I speak a few words to my Chinese friends in Mandarin and realize that I have got the word, the pronunciation, the intonation and the tone right. My reward is the wide smile of happiness I see on my Chinese friends’ face when I speak Mandarin and am thrown a volley of Mandarin to deal with from their end! I get the feeling that I am instantly welcomed into a different sphere of their heart and life which I wouldn’t have been able to go into if I was just another “laowai”. “Laowai” in Mandarin means foreigner with an unpleasant undertone. It’s the most beautiful reward that anyone can get for speaking this very beautiful language.