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Tea drinking around the world
Tea is most consumed drink in the world after water. It is a refreshing, thirst-quenching beverage. Tea is a natural product and is virtually calorie free when drunk without milk and sugar.
Tea is served and drunk in a number of different ways in India. Sometimes it is brewed and served with milk and sugar, or leaves are boiled with milk, water, spices, and sugar. On railway stations and trains, street, corner, sweet milky tea is poured from hot kettles into disposable cups or mugs.
Tea is always serves to guests in modern Chinese homes as a sign of welcome and hospitality. They serve a range of different tea which is brewed in glasses, covered mugs or little Chinese tea pots and bowls. The love of tea spread to Japan from China with Buddhist monks who traveled to and from China. The modern Japanese society has kept alive the famous Cha-no-yu or the tea ceremony from the early days of the Zen Buddhist monks. The tea served in the tea ceremony is called matcha (pronounced mahcha) and is powdered tea of the highest quality. Matcha is beaten with lukewarm water with a whisk in a small porcelain bowl and served. The Japanese believe that tea is more than an idealization of the form of drinking and it is a religion of the art of life. Today, Japanese mostly drink green tea but there is a noticeable trend to turn to black tea among certain sections of the Japanese.
In Tibet, green tea is broken up and boiled in water then strained into a churn and mixed with goats or yaks milk, salt, and butter.
In Iran and Afghanistan, drink green tea as a thirst quencher and black tea as satisfying warming refreshment from little porcelain bowls. In Egypt, without milk tea is brewed strong and served in glasses, and sometimes flavoured with sugar or mint leaves. And in Morocco, black tea is brewed with sugar and mint in a long-spouted pot and is then poured in a thin stream into tall glasses.
In Turkey, black tea served in curved glasses and offered it on trays to visitors throughout the day. Russians drink both black and green teas usually from glasses. They in general take sugar cube or a spoonful of jam before sipping the tea.
Like British and Indian, most of the African drink strong tea with milk. Tea is also widely consumed beverage in America. Iced teas comprise about 80 percent of all teas consumed in United States. But the fashion drinking hot black tea with milk is now growing. The Gourmet or Speciality Teas is getting popularity among the elite classes of Americans. A wide variety of speciality shops and mail order companies are offering a carefully chosen range of teas from all over the world.