fabulous tea

[howler]

i'm having outrageously good tea here in pune. its the ordinary lipton red thats sold in india, but it is transformed to an emperors drink by just mixing in a few cardamom pods in the tea jar.

try it!

[magnolia]

IS the tea itself any different from what's sold in UK or US?

By the way, is saffron sold in India and if so, is it any less costly than in London? If so, would you mind bringing some back? Sorry to use this board as a 'shopping request' board but I don't know if you have access to your other email while away...I'd really appreciate it. Saffron is outrageously expensive in London for some reason.

[wrayb]

The only difference in the tea might be the freshness.

[howler]

the tea commercially available here is well below londons top quality, but you can do better here than tetleys. easily.

this trick of storing the tea with cardamom pods, though, should work just as well with whatever store bought tea you have, just as long as its leaf tea and not in the bag. a cupla three cardamom pods per tea packet ought to do the trick.

as for saffron, its available here readily but i don't imagine its that much cheaper. whats the london price? if theres any significant difference i'll be glad to pick some up for you.

[zim]

the lipton red label sold commercially is available in indian stores in the the us. Another nice thing to add is a clove. Saffron is cheaper there as well too (I just got back, but it is getting more expensive due to the difficulties in kashmir).

hey howler,
thanks for the tip on nilgiri tea, had quite a lot while i was around mysore and brought some back as gifts. Didn't get all the way to ooty but did get to bandipur national park and whatever its continuation in kerala is called - great place. By the way, i had some great home cooked parsi food by a friend of my grandmother's while there. My grandmother said parsi spicing reminded her of kashmiri. did you ever get any kashmiri?

while i was in delhi i was force fed by my kashmiri relatives there (kabergha, kalya, yakhni, rajma with turnips, lotus root and greens, morels and peas, eggplant and green apples, paneer, rogan josh,and that was only part of one meal)

have fun

[howler]

"My grandmother said parsi spicing reminded her of kashmiri."

the closest i've found in spirit to parsi is goanese - some curries are almost identical, and great goan cooks can be often found lurking in parsi households. but the parsis have that whole sweet/sour balance thing going tha the goans don't have - probably inspired by the gujarathi cooking they grew up with when they came to india.

what did you get, d'you remember? dhansaak (almost surely), perhaps patra, kitchri kheema, sali boti, bida per ida anything like that?

finally, if you are ever in bombay, i have an awesome tip for parsi food thats actually delivered.

"did you ever get any kashmiri?"
alas, i haven't been able to get a date going with yaseen, i MUST do it when i get back to london. whats the rajma with turnips like? the same as punjabi rajma or different? (for eg, i can't tell the difference between sindhi rajma and punjabi rajma)

[Deven Black]

From time to time I grind a cardamon pod in with the coffee beans to give the brew a bit different flavor. Now I'll have to try it with tea. I'm not a milk drinker, but I understand that some freshly ground cardamon stirred into milk is very good. I think for lunch I'll have some cardamon ground into plain youhurt.

[zim]

also good with warm milk and cardamom that they do in india is to add some almonds

[Melanie Wong]

Green or black cardamom? Toasted or untoasted?

[howler]

hey melanie, happy new year.

you open the green cardamom pods and mix the black seeds (untoasted) into the tea. swell stuff.

p.s. you are a wine expert in my book too, despite a worrying tendency to salt your fish to make the cabernet come out right. (vbg)

[Melanie Wong]

Thank you for the clarification. I asked because NYE I learned that there is black cardamom, in addition to the green cardamom that I was already familiar with. It is not a "true" cardamom and has a very smoky aroma similar to Lapsang Souchong tea.

Were your ears burning? Jon and I were talking about you on the SF board.