Chai, Coffee?

Tea or coffee?

 

Since I grew up in the north, I was used to chai everywhere. It always tasted good – at home, in dhabas, at the hostel canteen, and the oh-so-many darshinis in Bangalore; in hot places and in cold places.

 

It was only when I went abroad that I realized that (to be blunt) the rest of the world sucks at making tea. The Chinese may have discovered tea, but God, no Indian can drink their version of tea (We used to carry tea bags when we visited China – even tea bag chai is better than what they have). The West is just as bad, so much so that I stopped drinking tea altogether when I was there.

 

Coffee, I learnt from true blood south Indians, is different. Unlike tea, all coffee (even Indian made coffee) is definitely not the same – it is sacrilegious to even think such a thought. Coffee has to be made exactly right (And each individual has a different preference on how coffee should taste).

 

All of this came together in this great exchange in the Netflix series on the Kandahar hijacking, IC 814. In one scene, when offered tea or coffee at the office, the south Indian picked tea. His north Indian colleague was surprised, “I thought you south Indians love coffee”. Promptly came the response, “In a choice between bad tea and bad coffee, I pick bad tea every time”.

 

The exchange continued.

“Coffee is like a religion, sir. There is no place for misinterpretation.”

 To which came the reply:

“And tea is like blind faith. Good or bad. Tea is tea.”