चायबाज़ श्रीविद्या (Chaibaaz Srividya)

Srividya is a fellow photographer based out of Mumbai, and I know her through the online world of Flickr, and Facebook for a while now! Its great to have Sri pouring her heart out to the Chaitalk questions!

Enjoy!

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Why Tea?

- The aroma of the tea and and that refreshing taste of tea .

- The fact the you can have tea without milk also

- and a lame one : I always do spelling mistakes while spelling Coffee ,Tea is simple ..even if i dont use 'e' and 'a' it still would mean T

- What if you had to make a flavor of tea, what would you have in it, other than Tea leaves?

A tinge of the heavenly smell of cocoa ( i was staying close to the cadbury factory and that smell of cocoa was sheer madness )

- What would you do if you were given two days in a tea estate?

Okay,Now this a tricky question. a confession here :I love photography more than i love .So the first thing i would do is click photos and then i would try picking up Tea leaves the way they do it in the estate!

- Tea in a cup? or Tea in a steel glass? or Tea in a kulhad (earthen cups) or tea in a paper cup? or tea in a glass? and why?

Never a paper cup or plastic cup .The below in the following order of preference

Tea in a Kulhad : the rustic feel of Kulhad..i jusst love it and the taste is different in Kulhad

Tea in a steel glass: reminds me of home

Tea in a cup:Now this would be just for the love of drinking tea in different kind of cups and its comfortable to hold

Tea in a glass: Tapri Chai...with friends

- What is your earliest memory of Tea?

My earliest memory of Tea is Mom Dad drinking Tea in the hall and we getting to drink Bournvita or Complan or plain Milk and being told that "Chai peeyoge to kaale ho jaoge!"

- Do you remember when you had tea for the first time? Is it related to why you like tea so much?

I dont remember exactly but yes i do remember drinking tea was an achievement because only adults used to drink as stated above .He he he.

- What would you tell someone who does not drink tea, about what they are missing?

I will not tell them but i will prepare an garam ginger tea and make them drink and then they will tell ...

- Your favorite brand of tea and why?

Red Label ,because this is what i have been seeing from childhood and have been addicted to this although in a recent home function when the chefs made the tea,it was just awesome and i had 4 cups of it in a steel glass. When i enquired ,it was Kanandevan Tea . I havent tried it yet ..will surely do soon .

- Your favorite website related to Tea and why?

Jab se pata chal hai ki chai ki bhi websites hothi hain tabse Archana Srinivas's Blog and Chai Ki Dukaan and sometime Kshitz's Chai photos with the desciptions he writes.

- If Tea was a person, what would that mean to you? What would that person be like?

I would not be able to drink it . He would be a mixture of water and milk.. water indicating the mildness and milk indicating the correct amount of boldness to take decisions . Sugar would obviously mean sweetness in the nature of the person . A small peice of smashed Ginger would indicate the adventurous nature. Cardamom would indicate the love.

- Your favorite T-picture please...

- Your favorite T-quote

"ek masala chai" "Ek garma garam chai de do bhaiya"