Tea stalls: Of university and diversity

Tea stalls in Chennai — outright common, yet unique

Beverages have been totemic of the civilisations in which they were consumed. The Soma Baana (said to be a distilled form of arrack) from the days of the Mahabharatha to the beer of Munich, swilled in copious amounts during the Oktoberfest (as well), testify to this. Likewise, Chennai, too, has its beverage.

And here’s a knock on the head for those claiming that filter coffee — yes, it was the jingle for an advertisement of Leo Coffee that brought an unheralded A R Rahman to movie director Mani Ratnam’s notice; the rest as the cliché goes, is history — bags the title. Such people would cite its intrinsic link with the city’s heritage by pointing out its availability in the canteens of the various Kacheri Sabhas -- the Narada and Krishna Gana Sabhas to name a few, since their inception. “After all, no meal can be deemed as proper unless it is washed down with a cup of filter/ degree coffee,” they’d add. Every restaurant, be it the new or the old, the Triplicane Ratna Café, the Saravana Bhavan or the newly-sprouted Madras Café outlets, have it on their menus.

This roadside tea stall selling filter coffee
proved to be an epiphany to this writer

However, no enumeration is needed to prove that nothing could be farther from the truth. In fact, tea, and not coffee, could rightfully stake claim to the title. This is, of course, under the premise that sales of the wares of the hordes of the city’s TASMAC shops (the government-owned liquor stores) are not considered.

Tea, teyilai, theneer…
The labyrinthine network that is the roads of Chennai abides by the dictum: “We may or may not be metalled or paved, but we would certainly have at least one tea stall in our midst.” Be it the roads in upmarket R A Puram or Besant Nagar or Royapuram — portrayed infamously by Kollywood, the portmanteau for the Tamil film industry, as the city's dark underbelly — the tea stall (theneer viduthi in Tamil) could be the city’s calling card to omnipresence.

These stalls are an Encycloapaedia Britannica unto themselves. From the road-side vendor with his cycle retro-fitted with a tray carrying flasks of tea (in some cases milk, coffee and Boost and Horlicks, too); to the ramshackle stall selling short-eats such as bajji, bonda and samosa, duly wrapped in paper; to those selling international magazines (Maxim and The Economist included!) and newspapers, we have proof of unity in diversity.

However, the element of homogeneity in this diversity is so striking that it may be safe to declare that a Vaastu-shastra, a set of laws and rules for construction, of tea stalls, is a treatise waiting to be authored. Here's why:
·         For one, the de-rigueur arrangement includes locating the stove at or near the entrance; you don't have a stove at the entrance, you don't have a tea-stall. Is it to lure customers? That could be an open-ended question
·         The cash counter is usually located to the left of the stove, and is about three-fourths the size of the stove counter. Tea-stall norms (TSN, from now on) dictate that currency and eatables jostle for space, with boxes containing currency and snacks being snug neighbours
·         The exhaust fan, for some inexplicable reason, is, in most cases, located at the eye-level of the tea master or ‘master’
·         Tables and chairs, if present, are usually inside, and visitors have to make their way past the counter and stove – doubtless a daunting task. This zone could be your place straight from heaven or hell depending on your affinity for tobacco set alight; non-smokers are, hence, advised to avoid the ‘s-zone’
·         Needless to say, TSN also dictates that kettles, stoves and boilers form part of most of tea stalls, as would other obvious ingredients such as sugar and cooking gas; add to the list vessels containing chutney and sambhar if it doles out snacks too.
·         Want your tea brewed a little stronger? Then wait for the vendor to extricate his swimming pool cleaner-like strainer from the kettle, containing tea dust used since the beginning of the day, and pour your brew through it multiple times, until the desired ‘strength’ is achieved. Black tea aficionado? Just ask for the kattan-chaaya.

Here’s one phenomenon that we may be able to beat the Chinese without breaking into a huff: tea pouring, in which Chennai’s vendors have transcended every fathomable barrier. You think the vendor’s standing arms akimbo, you think he has unsheathed a sword; everything happens in a flash that you close your eyes in fright; however, he hands you the cup of brimming hot tea humbly, like a temple elephant.

Tea may be downed in generous amounts in Chennai, but its brew masters, by tradition, hail from God’s own country with which Tamil Nadu has a long-standing water dispute. Exceptions to this rule exist, of course, which are few and far in between (the joke that Neil Armstrong was flabbergasted to encounter a Malayali tea vendor in the moon isn’t without its empirical evidence, after all!).