Dubai: What’s better than hot tea and great company?
Knowing that you’ve made history.
And that’s exactly what Dubai did on the evening of January 25 at the Global Village when it claimed the title of ‘Largest Cup of Tea in the World’.
Bader Anwahi, CEO of Global Village, said: “Tea drinking is an integral part of our culture in the UAE. We are proud of achieving this new record...”
One-hundred-and-thirty-eight chefs prepared 5,000 litres of milky tea, which was placed in a 3.66-metre cup with a top rim diameter of 1.42 metres.
Chefs who helped prepare the tea were a part of the UAE’s Culinary Guild and led by Chef Uwe Micheel, President of Emirates Culinary Guild.
Micheel told Gulf News: “We have been here since 9am and finished at around 3pm. We used the best ingredients to prepare the tea. We had 70 cooking stations and had 500 sets of recipes. We had to maintain the temperature of 80 centigrade.
“We were initially going to make 4,500 litres of tea but since we had the ingredients for 5,000 litres, we ended up going for it.”
According to Micheel, that quantity of tea is enough to fill 55,000 cups.
People visiting Global Village got to sample the drink for free.
Kevin Southam, the adjudicator of the event from the Guinness World Records, who made the announcement, said: “There’s a lot more planning [needed] than people realise for an event like this. There was someone from the municipality who was checking how the tea was made, making sure that everything was clean and the tea was drinkable.”
The earlier record was 4,050 litres, held by China.
The large tea cup structure will be on display until February 1.
Tourists Atul Sah and family, who were part of the Global Village audience, said: “As soon as we entered, we came to know about this event and came straight here. The chai is pakka karak chai!” It’s the real deal, they said.
Ingredients used
155kg of tea powder, 300kg of milk powder, 380kg of sugar, 7.5kg of cloves, 155kg of ginger, 47kg of cinnamon sticks and 47kg of cardamom powder.
