chai....Mr Waitrose you are having a laugh!

Whilst mooching in Mr Waitrose's shop today, I spied this on the shelves in the tea and coffee isle. 

You may wonder why I felt compelled to take a pic?

A few years ago when Mum & I travelled in Northern India & Nepal, we had a couple of chai incidents.

After a few days in Delhi we travelled to Kathmandu where having been hit by extraordinary sights & incredible (ugh!) smells we decided that a little reminder of home was in order, tiffin of course.

Sitting on squashy sofa's in the foyer of a hotel we ordered "afternoon tea", a waiter brought a lovely silver (white metal) tea service, china cups & saucers, with a little plate of biscuits. Oh to have a lovely well brewed cuppa.

Some of you may already be giggling as you know what came next, however on pouring the longed for tea, it came out of the pot looking like watery coloured milk, which infact is what it was! My Mum just refused to try it, I did and it was vile! We were so disappointed.

Move back to India, Varanassi in fact, we had gone to the river ghats to watch the display put on for tourists, highly commercialised and not a patch on the small private ceremonies that we were fortunate to witness in Kathmandu. We were given seats on the roof of a shop, prime position!

As we waited for the spectacle to begin I looked down to the stall directly below, it was serving chai!

I was looking down into a huge saucepan that was boiling away with a frothy scum on the top, it was the most disgusting thing that I can remember seeing for a while and it made my stomach churn. 

If travelling in the Middle East/Sinai/North Africa do try the local tea, it is usually beautifully refreshing, however do not try chai it is disgusting & vile! I understand that the W brand will not be authentic and may be much better, but the memory was just too much.