Tea, Toast and Turmoil

Peshawar, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan. August 2017

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A good cup of tea is not exactly rocket science. An urn with a constant stream of hot water, a container of tea, a jug of milk (optional of course along with sugar and cardamom), lots of pots and some chipped cups. Thas all that is really needed.

It is impossible to walk the streets of Pakistan as a foreigner and not be offered tea after tea, occasionally interspersed with a delicous mango lassi. It is their culture to make sure guests are welcomed with open arms and have their needs taken care of. This means drinking tea.

We spent numerous days in Peshawar just walking the streets and accepting this hospitality. With some we shared only a cup, with others we shared multiple drinking sessions over numerous days. We often didn’t share a language with our drinking mates but we were always happy to share a pot of tea. Pakistan hospitality means the locals wont take no for an answer when offering tea and they will always make sure that they, not the guest, pays. We had to sneakily order a few pots ourselves to share with our new friends. They would of course at first be annoyed that we paid. We let them know as best as we could that we appreciated their culture and hospitality but our culture dictated that we must ‘shout’ our friends a drink in return. It was then that we went from guests to friends; from tourists looking at the culture from the outer, to people sharing cultures from within.

“Another pot of tea please!”