When in Bangladesh, drink tea

I am a self-diagnosed caffeine addict. If I don’t have my morning fix within a hour of waking, I am the grumpiest human being ever to have walked on earth. Before we departure DC, I stocked up on tons of Starbucks coffee just in case I didn't have coffee readily available in Dhaka.

I’m glad I did, but after visiting Srimongol, the tea capital of the country, earlier this year I realized that drinking coffee in Bangladesh is like going all the way to Paris and drinking Budweiser instead of the local cognac. When in Paris, drink cognac. And when in Bangladesh, drink tea.

Bangladesh is heaven for tea connoisseurs. The flavor of Bangladesh tea is so rich and flavorful, that I don’t think I want to see or taste a Lipton ever again. Who can call that tea?

Any country has its special drink. Mexico has great tequila, Dominican Republic has rum. Russia has vodka. Germany has its famous beer, Italy has its wine. Greece has ouzo, Sri Lanka has arrack. And Bangladesh has its tea. It’s part of the social experience to sit in a living room with relatives or close friends, hold up the cup to your nose and smell the hills of Sylhet, watch tiny leaf bits dance around and release color, and say "chaa bhaalo hoichey" (the tea came out good).

I had the most amazing cup of tea in Srimongol, the famous seven layers tea and wondered, with this available, why would anyone settle for Starbucks instead? Now, had I been the inventor of that, it would have definitely been an eight layers tea, with the last one being made out of cognac. Unfortunately, I am not and Desh is a dry country so will have to leave it at seven.