A TAKE ON TEA AND TEA TIME

Tea-time is when the whole family gets together to unwind after a long and tiring day. It is almost a ritual in many homes, when everybody sits together, relaxes and shares the day's experiences with one another.

So carefully select your tea, pour in water that's the appropriate temperature, and steep for the right amount of time. Take this moment for yourself. You can even make a point of using this time as a detox from screens and technology. You'll also want to make sure you have the right environment to drink tea.

Tea is the most popular drink across the subcontinent, not only because of the culture, but it's affordable to even the poorest. Tea is grown in India; it's a major export from regions like Darjeeling.

The Assam Valley and Cachar are the two tea-producing regions in Assam. In West Bengal, Dooars, Terai and Darjeeling are the three major tea producer regions. The southern part of India produces about 17% of the country's total production with the major producing states being Tamil Nadu, Kerala, and Karnataka.

The name “chai” is the Hindi word for “tea,” which was derived from “cha,” the Chinese word for “tea.” The term chai means a mix of spices steeped into a tea-like beverage.

Polyphenols, or flavonoids, are likely a key component to what makes tea a healthful drink. These chemical compounds act as antioxidants, which control the damaging effects of free radicals in the body.

THE WORD TEA:

When tea traveled to Europe, it was mainly traded by the Dutch through the port of Amoy where the Amoy word te was pronounced as tay. The Dutch changed it to thee which became known as tea or tee in English, the in French, thee in German and te in Italian, Spanish, Hungarian!

TEA AROUND THE WORLD:

It takes around 2,000 tiny leaves to make just one pound of finished tea. There are more than 1,500 types of teas in the world. Tea plants grow wild in parts of Asia, but over 25 countries cultivate tea as a plantation crop. The very best tea comes from high elevations and is hand-picked.

ORIGIN OF TEA TIME :

Though teatime emerged as a distinct afternoon ritual in the 1840s, its roots can be traced all the way back to when tea first arrived in England about two centuries earlier, says Jane Pettigrew, an expert on tea history and author of multiple books on the subject.

Afternoon tea was introduced in England by Anna, the seventh Duchess of Bedford, in the year 1840. The Duchess would become hungry around four o'clock in the afternoon. The evening meal in her household was served fashionably late at eight o'clock, thus leaving a long period of time between lunch and dinner.

What's your tea time and any specific ritual you follow? Do share it in the comments.