Something S Brewing Just A Cuppa Of Cheer

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I’ve been watching a lovely documentary on BBC Earth lately – on tea! On the premise that everything on BBC Earth is worth watching, and given I’m not a hostage to Korean serials (Malaysia has enough dramas, tragedies and farce playing out daily), these have become my daily staple.
I’m both a coffee and tea drinker. They’re part of my heritage, and probably of yours too. We either grew up on butter-roasted “kopi” (my mother told me it’s medicinal – probably just a ruse to make me finish my cup), or the “Diabetic’s Special” – sickly-sweet-and-creamy teh tarik.
In my kampung we used to have a man going around selling roasted coffee beans. He rode an old British BSA motorbike, and would grind the beans in his portable grinder powered by the bike engine. The aroma of newly-ground coffee would waft to every corner of the village.
I wish I could taste that coffee again. There are many kopitiams (retro coffee shops) capitalising on such nostalgia, but not even the best kopitiam coffee can compare with what mother used to make, even if mother sometimes used the coffee ground twice to make it last longer.
I loved the guy’s bike: a huge chunk of metal, with dings, dents and a lovely patina, and an engine noisily going thump, thump, thump, as it spun the grinder that released the aroma that was just … heavenly!
Somebody should start a similar business now. But not with one of those electric vehicles (EVs). Nobody in the future will wax lyrical about how sustainable and efficient was the EV that delivered and ground their coffee at their condo back in the halcyon pandemic days of the ‘20s.
To become a cherished childhood memory, there must be uniqueness and novelty, perhaps a hint of danger, mischief and disrepute, and plenty of memory gaps that you can use to embellish, or perhaps recreate.
A bit like myself, as some people have unkindly pointed out.
If I’ve to choose between coffee and tea, and if sherbets and rosewater are not among the choices, I’d go for tea.
It is actually the beverage that is most consumed in the world. America, that bastion of coffee drinkers, was originally into tea until the British, their then colonial masters, made some bad fiscal decisions and the colonists went anti-tea. Even so, the Yanks still drink rivers of it every day, mostly sweet and iced. This is not necessarily a bad thing, even if many in countries that didn’t invent sugar and refrigerators look down on it.
But tea reigns supreme in Asia and of all places, Britain!
I’ve sipped super sweet tea in Central Asia, and forced down oily butter tea in Tibet. A Hong Kong boss once dragged some colleagues and I all over Hangzhou’s hills to visit traditional tea plantations, where our Singaporean friends bought everything not nailed down to the floor.
I’m also quite familiar with the Japanese version. I’ve never quite done the full Japanese tea ceremony – too expensive for my tight Penang wallet – but have quaffed enough green tea to give me constipation.
The Indian subcontinent is the world’s largest producer of tea (even if the tea bush camellia sinensis came from China via the perfidious Brits) and obviously drinks a lot of tea too.
The British once spent 10% of their national expenditure on tea. In desperation, they stole tea plants from China to grow in India, and also to trade with opium, thereby causing major historical upheavals – the Opium Wars for one – that reverberate to this day.
The British have other sins to answer for. They also introduced afternoon tea with scones, which I hate as scones taste like papier mache mixed with sawdust.
But it’s in East Asia where tea has meaning beyond that of nourishment. While it may have started as a good way to ensure water is safe to drink (apparently that’s how beer was invented too!), it has become an integral part of life in many cultures.
While some of the tea ceremonies are too ornate and complex for me, I can see their significance, even if only to pay homage to simpler times of the past and fulfil a longing for a gentler and slower world of those days.
However, it’s amazing that such cultures with such lovely tea traditions can also be so harsh and cruel. Tea is an enigma, steeped, if you pardon the pun, deeply and mysteriously in the history of many cultures and civilisations.
Tea is lovely whether hot or “peng”; plain or with milk, spices, honey or lemon; whether green, black or oolong. Tea rehydrates you, as it’s basically just water infused with some very mild natural chemicals. But it’s also a diuretic, and at my age it makes sure I visit the toilet frequently.
Coffee has become too macho for me. It’s the weapon of choice for those who go into battles daily to hit their KPIs, vanquish rivals and take no prisoners. They walk around with branded plastic cups as a badge of honour, or perhaps a shield, to warn others “I am dangerous!”
I’m not against the occasional caffeine jolt. Ironically the tea leaf itself contains more caffeine than coffee beans, but the way they’re prepared means there’s more caffeine in a cup of coffee than in a cup of tea. We all need a bit of KITA (Kick in The Aaahh) while #KITAjagaKITA, so that’s OK I guess.
But otherwise, it’s tea for me.
My favourite brew is a pot of green tea mixed with black tea: this combination of east and west, earth and sky, yin and yang, awakens the somnolent soul within and is highly extolled by the sacred texts of I Cha and… Actually, it came about because I needed two tea bags but only had one of black and one of green. The resultant brew didn’t feel odd to my undiscerning palate. I was quite pleased with my invention, and it’s become my own tea tradition. Now I can’t wait to start a war or invade another country.
Anyway, happy drinking tea everybody! Now having offended the millions of coffee drinkers drugged up to their gills with their favourite arabica, it’s best I go and hide somewhere, armed with a big pot of tea, and close to a urinal too.
Gong Xi Fa Cai y’all.
 - FMT
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.

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