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.

Roadside tea stalls

The Tea stalls (Chayer Dokan) are such a common sight in Bangladesh and in Dhaka in particular. This is the place the day laborer, the rickshaw puller, the student,  or the garments workers come together.

A small place surrounded (maybe) by a few chair, furnished with kettle, bread, banana, filter water bottle. I see them all the time when I move around the city.

Bangladeshis took to drinking tea from the Brits during their colonial times. Even though is not the same quality as the one grown in Sri Lanka, tea is one of the most exportable items in Bangladesh.

Once it was drunk in the restaurants. But now it is sold in footpath of city area. Why? Because it is cheaper. But how secure or healthy a tea stall on the footpath can be? A tea cup is used many times without proper cleaning. I doubt the quality of filter water too. I can't even look at the baked products sold there.

On a funny note, when we moved to Dhaka, there was an old lady with a tea stall right next to our temporary house. Business was brisk, the customers did not seem to mind everything was cooked right on top of the sewage drain. We would pass by at least once a day and every single time I would notice Cristina fighting a gagging reflex, trying not to throw up. Two weeks later, on her first day on the job, a local employee brought some food from the street for lunch and Cristina was quickly offered some sort of a fried meatball. She bit the bullet and decided to be polite and eat it. Five minutes later, same guy comes back with tea. Flashbacks of the old lady cooking on top of the sewage and courtesy was thrown in the wind :

"Thank you, but I just had my coffee"

I still laugh thinking about the episode :)

A tiny little tea stall on the side of the road. It's actually built on stilts, suspended over the drainage ditch. Once again, they manage to make use of every possible open space in this crowded city.