Several years ago, I was in my grandmother’s house meeting the family of my cousin’s new husband. It was a rather traditional affair and my aunt nudged me to serve tea to the guests, noting that it was the responsibility of the next-in-line. It was a sign of hospitality, and vital that a woman of marriageable age knew how to make and serve a good cup of tea. Aware of my clumsiness, I managed to squirm my way out of this ritual expectation.
So here I am, spilling the tea instead.
Tea is one of the most consumed beverages worldwide and a huge part of Indian culture and tradition, or so we think. From ornate tea cups among your grandmother’s expensive china that only make an appearance at special occasions, to a steaming hot chai in a terracotta ‘kulhad’ by the side of the road, tea has made its way into all fragments of our society.
But this daily staple has a dark and vivid history from espionage and drug peddling, to capitalism and political control, to subliminal messaging and gendered ideology. So grab a cup of tea and hold it tight, you’re in for quite a ride.
Tea did not originally come from India as many of us believe. In fact, it was stolen from China and grown in India, by the East India Company.
They converted forested lands in India to the misnomer ‘Tea Gardens’ – where they used indentured labour of migrant families, especially women, paying extremely low wages to allow for mass production of the commodity.
Their systems created poverty cycles, transformed rich landscapes to monocropping lands, spread diseases, and kept workers on estates by violent means and set the stage for the gender inequality precedent, where women were required to do more (work) for less (pay).
Tea wasn’t about parched throats or the desire for caffeine, it was a thirst for power that could not be satiated. The income from tea alone covered all of the expenses of the British Royal Navy.
The East India Company used covert advertising to sell the peoples’ own exploitation to them in the form of a freshly brewed cuppa. They concocted the idea of tea being an intrinsically Indian ideal, a part of our everyday routines, proposing that it was a recreational drink.
Furthermore, their advertising contained subliminal messaging that domesticated women suggesting tea-making was for women, to provide a source of contentment in a home. Serving tea was a symbol of the civilised, the modernised and the cultured.
Like the residual leaves at the bottom of your cup that leave a bitter aftertaste, there are remnants of these practices that still exist today, from the plantation to the kitchen.
But tea is only one such example of an everyday commodity that is steeped in malpractice and brewed to perfection so you never know its secret. It’s important for us as consumers to ask the right questions and draw out the injustices in every cup, to choose to make a difference in our every day.
Branding, advertising, good copy and great design are still methods used today to help us participate in an economy of exploitation. However, it is important to examine these deeper issues to confront these systems of power.
There have simultaneously been so many positive outcomes to the advent of tea-time. Today, it is an opportunity to offer hospitality and spend time with others. Tea brings people together. In fact, in India, one of the benefits is that it has allowed people of every caste, class or background to come together at a tea-stall. True hospitality, however, is relationship. It is conversation – It is not brewed on a bed of exploitation and poor socio-economic conditions.
It is important for us to reinvent systems that are oppressive to be inclusive, diverse and welcoming. We could ask questions like, who is this system set up to benefit? What is the value system we believe in? Are there practices of exploitation? Is this only about economic growth or anything more?
Just like the Fashion Revolution that asks ‘Who Made My Clothes’, we could ask ‘Who picked my tea?’ and perhaps even ‘Who served it?’
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Written by Jerusha Isaac
