In Cashmere a beverage called “Cha Tulch” is prepared from tea by boiling the leaves in a tin-lined copper pot to a strong, dark decoction, and while boiling briskly phule (red potash), anise-seed and a little salt is added, after which it is poured into a kettle and finally served in porcelain tea-cups. It is also prepared there in a vessel termed a Chajos—kettle and tea-pot combined—and poured direct into the cups, but is used only after meals, more particularly after the morning repast. The morning meal, consisting of this decoction and some plain biscuit served hot. Another preparation, known as “churned tea,” made in a similar manner, but afterwards regularly churned like milk, is highly prized among them, being used exclusively for entertaining visitors. And there is no doubt that the Cashmere ladies talk scandal, vent their grievances and discuss their bonnets and their babies over this peculiar beverage in the same manner as do their more civilized sisters in America at their “five o’clock teas.”
Vumah cha or “Cream tea” is the favorite form in Turkestan in the preparation of which only Black tea is used, but is a much stronger decoction than that ordinarily made. The leaves are boiled in a copper pot and the color heightened by lifting spoonfuls up and letting them fall back again into the vessel while boiling, cream being added to it meantime and bread soaked in it, after which it is eaten. Another preparation termed Seen cha or “bitter tea” is made from Green tea infused in the regular way, but drawn for a shorter time, as the lighter the color the higher it is valued.
The Persians boil the leaves in a pot or kettle until the water assumes a blackish color and bitter taste, after which they add fennel, anise-seed, cloves and sugar to it, while the Hindoos and Cingalese simply put the leaves in seething water and use the liquor only without the addition of any other ingredient. In Chinese-Tartary tea is prepared in the customary manner as with us, but the liquor and leaves are swallowed together. The Mongols generally add milk, but make a much stronger decoction and use only the infusion, while the Bokharis use only Black tea mixed with camel’s milk or suet, breaking up their bread in it, always carrying a bag of it with them when traveling, giving it to their innkeepers to brew as they need it.
In Siam when the water is well boiled they pour it on the leaves which have been put in an earthen pot proportional to the quantity they intend to make, the ordinary amount being as much as they can take up with the finger and thumb to a pint of water. They cover the pot until the leaves have sunk to the bottom and then serve it up in china dishes to be drank as hot as can be endured without sugar or milk.
A preparation called Shamma or “residue” is made from the spent or exhausted leaves—that is, leaves once used—in Beloochistan, and chewed like the pan or betel-leaf is in India and the coca in South America, and is claimed to have the same exhilarating effect in enabling them to stand fatigue and long journeys.