Tea Time
I have never been a big tea drinker. As an American, I have always felt it my patriotic duty to give at least 30% of my net paycheck to Big Coffee in exchange for lattes in paper cups mass marketed in standardized distribution points efficiently located no more than 100 yards from any given point on a map of the United States.
I cannot even tie my shoes in the morning without first downing half a pot of coffee while, for me, tea has always been a cold drink I grab at 7–11 while on a hot, summer road trip or the weak brew in which I dump a shot of whiskey when fighting a case of the flu.
In Dharamsala, however, tea is everywhere. This small town nestled in the Himalayan foothills of northern India is chock full of cafes, roadside stands, restaurants, and tea shops offering a kaleidoscopic assortment of tea-based beverages. Whereas in the United States corporate approved, cookie-cutter coffee shops are ubiquitous, here each establishment has its own particular character and identity. Each place offers a unique take on the most popular tea drinks.
I have been in Dharamsala for a month and I have visited a different tea shop practically every day. I have enjoyed getting to know each place and sampling their products both hot and cold, sweet and bitter, spicy and creamy. I have found a few favorite spots where I’ve returned on a regular basis. And, I’ve found a couple that I probably won’t go back to again. But I have been most impressed by the imagination, creativity, and personal expression that each proprietor has put into their establishment. Here, you do not impatiently stand in line for your turn to order an overpriced hot beverage to sustain you through your morning routine. Here, every sip is a steamy, aromatic experience in which to languish.
In the West, we tend to associate tea with Britishness. When I think of tea, I envision a couple of proper ladies in big hats seated at a table decked out in fine porcelain teacups which they daintily lift to their pursed lips with an outstretched pinky. This close association with Britain is what relegated tea to its status as a second-class beverage in America. It was in coffee houses where our revolutionary forefathers met and percolated the Enlightenment ideals that eventually led to the American Revolution. And, of course they got the ball rolling by dumping British tea into Boston harbor. Since then, coffee has been the preferred democratic drink of Americans while tea has retained its more aristocratic identity.
A Brief History of Tea
While tea is indigenous to parts of northeastern India, before the colonial era it was much more prevalent and widely cultivated in China, where British traders were first introduced to it in the mid-16th century. Tea became popular among the English first as a medicinal drink believed to cure stomach ailments. It is speculated that any medicinal benefits could have been due to the long boiling process needed to make tea. Queen Catherine, wife of Charles II, is credited with introducing tea to the upper echelons of British society in the 1660s. It’s exotic appeal as a product of the Far East and high price quickly made tea popular among aristocrats who soon incorporated luxurious Chinese porcelain cups and tea pots to their tea drinking repertoire.
By the 1720s tea was one of the staple commodities imported to Britain from China by the East India Company. The sharp increase in supply lowered the price of tea and made it more accessible to the growing middle classes. Its exotic aroma and taste, its quick and easy preparation, and its reputed medicinal properties helped tea quickly surpass coffee in popularity among the British.
In the 1820s, as Britain expanded its colonies in India and became embroiled in wars with China, the East India Company began large scale tea cultivation in the Assam and Darjeeling regions where tea had been grown and consumed locally for centuries. With the support of Britain’s vast protected trade network, India soon overtook China as the world leader in tea production, a title it would hold until 2005 when China reclaimed the top position.
India is still a close second behind China, producing 1.2 million tons of tea in 2015. And, rather than exporting their tea to other markets, Indians consume 70% of the tea they produce, making it the largest tea market in the world by volume.
While Indians has always enjoyed tea, they have not always consumed it in such quantities. Fashionable tea shops and cafes like the ones I have been frequenting in Dharamsala are a relatively new phenomenon in India. Economists credit a growing middle class with disposable income for the increased interest in trendy tea joints.
A Tour of Dharamsala’s Tea Spots
What I have found most interesting about the tea shops and cafes in Dharamsala is the variety in styles and aesthetics. They range from very simple, nameless roadside stands to elaborately decorated, themed establishments with terraces overlooking the Himalayan panorama.
One of the first cafes I found is Coffee Talk, which falls right in the middle of this spectrum. It’s a small shop located just outside the gates of the Dalai Lama’s temple. As its name implies, they offer coffee as well as tea, as most places do. Though, on days when the electricity is out it can be difficult to get a coffee. The mood at Coffee Talk is minimalistic and relaxed. Several simple tables and chairs provide seating both inside and on the sidewalk. Its main appeal is its location close to the Dalai Lama’s temple where it is a natural meeting point for both locals and tourists. Siting at a small table perched on the narrow sidewalk you can watch the throngs of visitors and monks making their way to the temple gates as they dodge taxis and vendors hawking everything from little golden buddha statues to fresh spinach while you sip a tangy hot ginger lemon honey tea.
Compare Coffee Talk to this place (photo below). I am not sure it has a name. It is a stall crammed between two of the main roads in Dharamsala. Seating is minimal and I don’t get the impression that comfort was the main objective. The proprietor seems to pride himself on quick and efficient service and dispenses with any formalities. He also serves a few local dishes of the fried variety which you can take away wrapped in newspaper. One evening my friends and I were enjoying a quick cup of chai with milk when a cow wondered up to the stall and began eating the assortment of fried foods on display. Little shops like this also deliver. You can often see their waiters quickly walking through the crowded streets balancing a small tray with three or four little glasses of chai.
Snow Lion is my favorite café in Dharamsala. It is located across the street from the Buddha Temple. A large picture glass window affords a view of the people passing on the street and spinning the prayer wheels at the temple. I would describe the feeling at Snow Lion as “easy cosmopolitan”. Large, comfortable couches, a tall bookcase stocked with everything from A Tale of Two Cities to Fifty Shades of Grey, and Nina Simone playing on the stereo welcome you to sit and relax for a while. I think of Snow Lion as my own Les Deux Magots, the café in Paris where Hemmingway and Fitzgerald hung out in the 1920s. Many of my blog posts have been written here while sipping a nice hot Tibetan Butter Tea, a drink made with yak butter and salt. It has a smoky and bitter flavor.
Finally, Club 129, is tucked away down a small alley, up some steps and behind a barber shop. It is a small little café and tea shop. But its large windows open onto a grand vista of the mountains looming over Dharamsala and the valley stretching out below. The view alone is reason to enjoy this hidden gem. But you soon notice the quirky décor: brightly colored chairs and tables, lampshades made of baskets, intricate napkin holders made of carved wood. And the music playing on the speakers, one of my favorites, Chopin. I order the peppermint tea. It comes not as a simple cup of tea, but as a process to be experienced. Sitting at the window, carefully pouring the tea and letting it steep as you enjoy the view, the music, the art on the walls, and conversation with friends, you soon forget the meaning of stress.
Drinking peppermint tea at Club 129 is a process.
There are many, many, many more cafes and tea shops in Dharamsala and if I were to write about all of them this post would be 10,000 words long. But I hope I have conveyed a bit of the variety and individuality you can find as you search for the perfect hot cup of tea here, where it is not just a drink but an experience.
