When I visiting India several months ago, one of the fun things I got to see and do was meet this talented potter at his home.  Watching him throw pots on his simple but more than adequate potter’s wheel made all my attempts to throw a pot seem ridiculous!  But, I would expect that.  I’m just an amateur.  This man is the real thing.

Below is a rack of small cups the potter had thrown the day of my visit. You can see that the little clay cups are still wet. Once they are dry, they will be fired in the kiln.

Here are a group of similar cups in the kiln after firing.

Here is another batch of the cups after they’ve been removed from the kiln.

Each of these cups will be used for a serving of chai, as here

and, after one use, they will be discarded or even smashed.  That is the traditional Indian custom.  You could call this the original disposal vessel, way before the cardboard cups used at Starbuck’s today.

and then….

when you drink tea as much as I do, you start to wonder…

Which came first? the Brits in India or tea in India?

I used to think that tea drinking was introduced to the British when they arrived in India. I mean, for goodness sake, India produces a lot of the world’s tea, so I just made the assumption.

Boy, was I ever wrong!  In fact, it was exactly the reverse: the British brought the tea drinking habit to India.  Check this info from Wiki out:

Commercial production of tea in India began after the conquest of large areas by the British East India Company at which point large tracts of land were converted for mass tea production. The widespread popularity of tea as a recreational drink began in earnest in the 1950s, after a successful advertising campaign.

Amazing!

More info from Wiki:

Today, India is one of the largest tea producers in the world, although over 70 per cent of its tea is consumed within India itself. A number of renowned teas, such as Assam and Darjeeling, also grow exclusively in India.

The Indian tea industry has grown to own many global tea brands and has evolved into one of the most technologically equipped tea industries in the world.

Well, from what I saw in India, the country is almost unimaginable without tea!  Check out these images.

I rest my case!

Are you getting thirsty?  I gotta go get a chai.