!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> A Mama's World: A Teacup and The Tea

Friday, February 18, 2022

A Teacup and The Tea

A pale pinkish porcelain cup which was so thin that it glowed when I moved myself to have the light behind it. I, of course, could not dream of touching the cup - let alone move it. So an early understanding of physics set in, as I moved my vantage point to watch the pale pinkish glow much like the middle of a lily petal where the white of the flower is transitioning into the bright pink of the edges - it is the colour of the transition. A swirling body of light brown liquid with a tinge of orange at the edges poured into the precious little cup with a matching saucer. Ma would then squeeze exactly two drops of lemon in it and the brown with a tinge of orange turned a more vibrant orange. Bapi would sip it and say, "Ah" with his eyes closing in satisfaction. That's all the thank you Ma ever got for her efforts. The water boiled for a whole minute before the precious brown Darjeeling tea leaves (only a few needed) were sprinkled onto it, the gas immediately switched off and the saucepan quickly covered with a flat aluminium cover, and left to brew for three minutes. Too much leaves will make it bitter; boiling the leaves will make it bitter - robbing it of the rich aroma, rich flavour, rendering Bapi's trip, all the way from Belur to College Street to the one and only Subodh Brothers for a pack of their choicest Darjeeling Teas, useless. 


So, the first thing I learnt as a curious and bored child who just wanted to chat with Ma in the kitchen, was how to make the perfect cup of Darjeeling Tea. A brown paper packet that was ubiquitous in our tiny little home at Belur and probably the most expensive item in the very modest kitchen shelf. The tin container in which the tea would be stored was quality tested by Bapi for airtight-ness. The empty blue Glaxo Baby milk powder tin container did not make the mark. Farex tin container did. And so my childhood image of the precious Darjeeling Tea always comes in a Farex tin with three images of the same baby : crawling, scratching the back and bending down with much ease to do 'touch your toes'.

The cupset however, dominates my fancy and imagination. It was the most beautiful porcelain I have seen and I have no recollection of the brand but my memory of it is fancier than the Noritakes we own today. The modesty of our lower middle class home had a richness we do not have today. The price of teacups in our current home has not matched the value of the pale-pink teacups of Belur.

Dedicated to a dear friend who values the little things in life and who inspired me to write this today.

posted by Tuya @ 17:29

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