On wintry weekends during our first years in Dubai, we would often get together with close friends at one of our favourite restaurants that served excellent tea and have lengthy conversations while enjoying the cool nip in the air.
It immediately transported us back to several experiences of drinking tea during the years of growing up in India. These pleasant recollections seemed to stretch beyond the taste and ritual of the beverage itself and were refreshingly different, depending upon the place and the people surrounding them.
For instance, during our days of attending lengthy lectures in college, gathering for ginger-spiked tea with lively chatter and cupid tales as the perfect accompaniments, provided all the refreshment for the carefree fun and camaraderie of the times. At home, when friends or family dropped by for a leisurely chat, cups of steaming tea paired with tempting nibbles set the mood for a lot of reminiscing and loud laughter.
Among the experiences of tea that stand out in memory is one of milky tea served along with a platter of an assortment of the most tantalising Indian sweets during a visit to a friend’s home. Also, the memory of sipping tea and munching on banana fritters, while happily chatting with cousins and watching the monsoon pouring in strands down the sloped roof of our ancestral home, cannot be erased. For most of us, the charm of train journeys in India has always been associated with the tea sellers who handed out steaming cups of the brew at regular intervals, the rustic feel of the glazed clay cups and sampling a variety of snacks available at every railway station ...
Keeping alive the culture
Though a long-time tea enthusiast, I have, over the years of living in Dubai, developed a liking for good coffee as well. My first encounter with the coffee tradition of the UAE came several years ago during a desert safari, while sipping the fragrant qahwa served in little cups. This quintessential part of Arabic hospitality seems to have provided a sweet after-taste that has lingered on ever since.
Whatever one’s preference, both coffee and tea help keep alive the culture of connecting to family, friends and to life itself, sharing stories and experiences and being aware of the emotions and feelings of the people involved. They help us maintain meaningful engagement with people and with life itself, beyond our growing obsession with ‘likes’, tweets or posts, reminding us about the importance of beautiful human interactions rather than being busy with developing online connections.
In this age of texting, where the art of conversation itself is becoming alien, the tradition of gathering friends and neighbours for tea or finding more time to connect to ourselves over a cup of coffee, without the distraction of mindlessly staring into the screen of a phone or laptop, offers a refreshing and nourishing break. Both tea and coffee offer the perfect way to make every day a celebration of the nuances of life urging us to put away the devices and screens and have more face-to-face conversations and to be more aware of our immediate surroundings.
Whether one’s favourite escape is coffee at a busy mall while watching the wonderfully vibrant crowds milling around, an elaborate afternoon tea in a restaurant while bonding with close friends, or sipping the brew in solitude, the culture of taking time to pause, slow down and spending meaningful moments with loved ones or with one’s own self in this increasingly fake world is a great way to connect to the present.
Reconnecting with oneself and the immediate world around us over coffee or tea helps infuse more warmth into this highly wired yet disconnected world and help us create lasting memories whose taste and flavour will linger for many years.
Fyna Ashwath is a journalist based in Dubai.
