Tea Drinking around the Globe
Tea is a refreshing, thirst-quenching, inexpensive, versatile, safe, virtually calorie and sodium free beverage when we take without milk and sugar.The one third of the world’s population drink tea across the globe.
Tea is served and drunk in a number of different ways in India. Mostly, it is brewed and served with milk and sugar, or leaves are boiled with milk, water, spices and sugar. Sweet milky tea is poured from hot kettles into cups or mugs. Of late, tea liquor without milk is gaining popularity.
In modern Chinese home, tea is always served to guests as a sign of welcome and hospitability. They are served in glasses, covered mugs or little Chinese tea pots and bowls. Tea has remained an integral part of Chinese culture for thousands of years. The importance and popularity of tea in China continues till modern days and has become a symbol of the country's history, religion, and culture.
The love of tea spread to Japan from China with the Buddhist monks who travelled to and fro from China. The modern Japanese society has kept alive the famous “Cha-no-yu” or Tea Ceremony from the early days of Zen Buddhist monks. The sacred Japanese tea ceremony evolved in the late 15th century under the influence of the Japanese philosophies of Zen Buddhism. The ceremony places supreme importance on respecting the act of making and drinking tea. Zen Buddhism honors the essential elements of Japanese philosophy (harmony, purity, respect, and tranquility) during tea ceremony. The tea ceremony was so important that special tea rooms were built in backyard gardens, and mastery of the tea ceremony was a required for women to marry. A special type of powdered tea of highest quality, called matcha (pronounces mahcha) is served in a small porcelain bowl. The Japanese believe that tea is more than an idealisation of the form of drinking and it is a religion of the art of life.
The Tibetans, drinks green tea by boiling the leaf for about half an hour before passing the liquid through a strainer made of horsehair (sometimes today made of plastic) into a long wooden container. Traditionally, yak butter and salt are added to the tea and churned until emulsified. These additives help to replace the fat and salt lost by those living in the high-altitude regions of the Himalayan Mountains. Younger generations of Tibetans sometimes drink Indian tea also. Tea remains a Tibetan staple, with per-person consumption of up to 40 cups or more daily. Tibetan etiquette dictates that no guest should go without tea and that his or her cup can never be empty.
In Iran and Afghanistan, people drink green tea as a thirst quencher and black tea as satisfying warming refreshment from small porcelain bowls .In Egypt, tea without milk is brewed strong and served in glasses, and sometimes flavoured with sugar or mint leaves. In Morocco, black tea is brewed with sugar and mint in a long spouted pot and is then poured into a thin stream into tall glasses.
