7-Layer Tea

On our way to the train station in Srimongal we stopped for 7 layer tea. It was a whopping ten Taka per layer which brought the price of each cup up to about one USD. What I want to know is how many layers you see. Sometimes when I look at it I see eleven and sometimes six. Needless to say the top layer tasted like dirty dishwater but the penultimate amber layer was an exquisite blend of cane syrup, ginger root, and Srimongalese tea dust infusion. (black tea, ginger and sugar basically) You pay thaaaat much for a cup of tea and you want it to at least sound exquisite. For you Americans who pay over three bucks for your Starbucks: This is Bangladesh's answer to Starbucks, they just don't have oversized disposable cups yet. By the way, a normal cup of tea costs about 5 Taka.







I dig this sign out in front of the tea stall. Unfortunately I do not dig the vehicle mirror sticking its ugliness into the picture plane. Above, the words "FIVE COLOUR TEA" the transliteration says, "Pach color cha". Why didn't they use the Bangla word "rong" for color? It doesn't flow out of the mouth. I have been told and have found it to be true that if an English word "sounds" better people will stick it in there. I mean it sounds better poetically, rhythmically, causing it to flow. Of course throwing in foreign words into your spoken language is proof of "sophistication and education". Think of how it sounds when people throw French words into their American English, it really jazzes it up.