Culinary Chronicles
By Yasmin Rahul Bakshi
“The Warmth in Our Hands, the Warming of Our Planet.”
Tea is the quiet heartbeat of our daily routines, stitching together a universal rhythm of comfort across the globe. Picture the scene – just as the morning mist begins to clear, a roadside tapri in India comes alive with the spirited hiss of boiling milk, ginger and cardamom. Creating a steaming cup of spiced chai that sparks our favourite morning conversations. Step across borders and that same devotion simply shifts its shape. Britons reach for a comforting, full bodied brew with a dash of milk to weather any afternoon storm. Moroccans pour sweet, frothy mint tea high from silver pots as a warm hug of hospitality. The East Asian tea masters find profound peace in a bowl of ceremonial green tea. No matter where you go in the world, we all share this deeply human romance with the leaf, relying on it to soothe, energise and ground us.
Yet, every single one of those comforting sips carries a hidden environmental cost tied right back to how our tea is made. Globally, the world burns through millions of tonnes of wood each year because traditional processing factories rely heavily on heat rather than electricity. They depend on massive amounts of firewood. In fact, the global tea industry’s thermal processing footprint pumps millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, matching the yearly impact of multiple coal-fired power plants running non-stop.
Zooming into a single cup reveals a surprising story. Brewing just one teaspoon of loose tea leaves requires about twice its weight in wood to process them. Meaning the energy behind your single cup is roughly equal to burning a few wooden pencils or a handful of matchsticks. If you are a dedicated two-cups-a-day tea lover, your personal routine uses a few kilograms of firewood each year. Over a lifetime, that cozy habit accumulates into thousands of cups. A small backyard swimming pool’s worth of brewed tea and a few hundred kilograms of processed carbon footprint.
When multiplied across a massive tea loving nation like India, those numbers soar into millions of tonnes of wood burned and millions of mature trees harvested annually to feed the domestic market. Fortunately, this doesn’t spell out unchecked deforestation. Through mindful social forestry programs, many estates carefully plant dedicated blocks of fast-growing trees like eucalyptus and practice rotational harvesting – cutting branches on a healthy cycle while immediately planting fresh saplings to keep the wood supply entirely renewable.
Ultimately, while our favourite daily ritual feels like a gentle, grounding moment of peace, understanding the journey from soil to cup helps us appreciate the delicate balance between our deepest cultural comforts and the earth we love.
Ingredients:
- Darjeeling tea leaves – 2 teaspoons or 2 teabags
- Ginger – 1 inch (peeled and crushed)
- Lemongrass – 2 stalks (outer tough layers removed)
- Water – 3 to 4 cups
- Sweetener – as per taste
Method:
- Boil the ginger and lemongrass with water on medium heat and reduce the heat. Cover and let it simmer for 8 to 10 minutes.
- Switch off the flame and add the tea leaves. Cover.
- Let the tea leaves brew for 3 minutes.
- Add sweetener to the cups and strain the tea over it. Stir and serve hot.
- For a cold brew, pour the tea over a glass full of ice and serve chilled.
(Yasmin Rahul Bakshi is an accomplished senior consultant Chef and a food historian. A widely travelled Army wife from the Mussoorie hills with exposure to international cuisines & preserving recipes with the medium of food photography and digital content creation in the form of stories.)
