Pulling tea

Wherever you are in Sri Lanka, India or the subcontinent, you’re never far from a tea vendor peddling tea or chai — a sweet, milky tea — from trays of steaming glasses. Tea is the second most consumed beverage worldwide, after water.

In the 1800s, the British established tea plantations across India to supply the United Kingdom. For decades, nearly all of India’s tea was exported, but in 1881, the Indian Tea Association was formed to promote tea drinking within the country, and Indians embraced it. Today tea is enjoyed extensively — some would say, intensively — across the entire subcontinent.