Coffee and tea in southern India

At the end of last year, when I read in the newspaper that Starbucks planned to open 500 stores in India, I couldn't help but worry about India's tea industry. In recent years, I have heard tea people in Hangzhou talk about the impact of coffee shops and coffee on tea, especially young people, who love coffee. I remember a teacher from a tea college said to me, "drinking coffee is very popular in Hangzhou." When I went to lecture, the students were not clear about tea, but they were very familiar with all kinds of coffee. "he smiled helplessly." it's fashionable to drink coffee, who knows if they really like it. "

When I went to get together with some Indian tea friends, I mentioned that Starbucks was in India. Wuxia and Ke Yun, two friends from southern India, smiled. "Starbucks is late, 100 years late," Wuxia said. " Ke Yun said: "Coffee is more popular than tea in the three southern provinces of India. We have a habit of drinking coffee. " It was at that time that I learned that India is not only a big tea producer, but also a coffee producer, ranking sixth in the world in terms of coffee exports.

Coffee originated in Ethiopia and spread to the Arabian Peninsula in the 9th century. Legend has it that Babudan, an Indian Islamist in the 17th century, made a pilgrimage to Mecca and spread across the Arabian Sea to Mazas, India (now Chennai). He brought back seven coffee seeds and planted them in Mysore, South India. From then on, there were coffee trees in India.

Once at my home in Wuxia, I drank Indian Mazas coffee, much like Italian espresso cappuccino. Wuxia is from Chennai in southeastern India. Wuxia said that her parents have lived in the United States for 50 years and still drink Mazas coffee every day. When she was 10 years old, her mother had given birth to her brother the night before, and the first thing her father did when he got up the next day was to make coffee for her mother to drink. Drink coffee the day after giving birth, this is called habit! Wuxia said that there are chicory roots in Mazas coffee, and before coffee and tea are found, the caffeine that Indians need comes from chicory roots, which makes Indian coffee different from coffee in other places.

At that time, Wuxia also prepared "monsoon coffee" for us, which she said was a specialty of India. She said that in the 19th century, India used wooden sailboats to transport coffee to Europe, and during the monsoon season, the ship had to travel at sea for four or five months. The sea breeze and the humidity of the sea make the fresh green coffee beans mature and change the color from green to yellow. The coffee made from such coffee beans tastes softer and smoother and is very popular in Europe. Later, in order to produce weathered coffee beans, coffee gardens in India invented the method of "monsoon treatment": every year during the monsoon season, the coffee beans are stacked in a ventilated house on all sides, let the monsoon blow for two months, and then transported for export. This reminds me of the process of natural transformation of Pu'er tea in the transportation of caravans in China in the early years. Xishuangbanna is located in the border of Yunnan. The caravan from Yunnan to Xizang will walk along the ancient Tea-Horse Road for many days. Pu'er tea bags are tied to horseback in the sun and blown in the wind. Over time, Pu'er tea has been weathered naturally, showing a unique color and strong fragrance.

Ke Yun comes from the Blue Mountains of southwestern India, facing the Arabian Sea to the west, with overlapping mountains and beautiful scenery, where there is both tea and coffee. So people there love both coffee and tea. In the past, Americans only knew Darjeeling when drinking Indian black tea, but now more people are drinking blue mountain tea. Blue Mountain black tea is similar to Darjeeling, with high aroma and fresh taste, but it is a small leaf species, but the quantity of tea is much higher than Darjeeling, so it is cheaper than Darjeeling tea in North America and is always available. Ke Yun said that in her hometown, the tea kiosks on the street sell both tea and coffee. These traditional tea kiosks throughout India are often shabby: four wooden stakes topped with linoleum or bamboo rafts. The vendors in tea kiosks not only provide tea and coffee, but also perform "throwing tea" and "throwing coffee". The so-called "throwing tea" is the technique of mixing milk, water and tea before serving tea. The hot tea is poured back and forth in two containers, and the tea is dancing in a great arc in the air, but not a single drop of tea will be spilled. Tea is thrown in this way throughout the South Asian subcontinent, but Blue Mountain's performance is the most exciting, and some tea vendors deliberately close their eyes when throwing tea in order to show their skills. The description of throwing tea reminds me of the tea art of the long-mouthed pot I saw in Sichuan, probably the same acrobatics.

Since 1990, with the growth of young white-collar workers and the middle class in India, modern coffee shops have emerged in India's big cities, especially in newly built modern shopping malls. The most common is a chain store called Tiantian Cafe. But coffee in modern cafes is more than 10 times more expensive than tea in traditional teahouses, while coffee in Starbucks is more expensive than coffee in Tiantian cafes. Wuxia said that after getting used to drinking the filtered coffee at home, the coffee in modern coffee shops must not be enjoyable, either too light or too sweet. Most of the people who go to these coffee shops are rich young people. However, although her son was holding a Starbucks coffee cup, it was made with Indian filtered coffee or Indian milk tea made for him by Wuxia.

Listening to two Indian tea friends talk about their feelings about coffee and tea, I feel that coffee and tea in India get along well with each other, completely unlike the two opposing cultures I often read in China. I think I drink both coffee and tea. Whether it's coffee or tea, it's really interesting to be able to get together with friends and exchange different drinking habits.