Copyright: Aske Munck
"Ah, your timing is impeccable. We're just about to have a small tea tasting", says Mr. Mittal, the owner of Mittal Stores, as he greets us in his small tea shop, hidden behind wooden boxes and crates in the middle of the bustling Sunder Nagar Market in New Delhi.
Outside people are chatting and browsing through antiques, snacking on tasty fastfood or even getting a haircut. But inside Mittal's shop you enter a realm of calm, tranquility and tea, of course.
The soft spoken shopkeeper corrects his spectacles, and shuffles around the wooden desk. Behind him the shelves are packed with neat stacks of Indian teas, porcelain pots and all sorts of teamaking paraphernalia.
Copyright: Aske Munck
A couple of Japanese businessmen regulars, it would appear fill their shopping bags with their favourite flavours. And Mittal does have a wide although personally picked selection: from masala and Assam tea, to green tea and even some mango and Japanese teas.
"Let me serve you a nice white tea with a deep character", Mr. Mittal says, reaching for at large glass jar. "It's from Darjeeling. They make such wonderful teas up there", he mutters as he prepares the tea in a couple of shiny white handleless cups.
Copyright: Aske Munck
"Not many people know this by the way, but the white tea actually has three times more anti-oxidants than green tea". Very healthy for your digestion, he emphasizes with a serious air.
Mr. Mittal took over the shop from his father, and ever since he was a child he has been interested in tea and teamaking, and he has plowed through numerous tomes of erudite tea-theory and tasted teas from everywhere across the globe. But even though it's probably never wise for an expert to reveal his personal penchant he quickly admits to a soft spot for the Himalayan teas.
"It's a combination of a unique climate, the fresh mountain air and their unsurpassable teamaking skills, acquired through generations. You simply don't find teas as rich and full in body as the Darjeelings", he insists.
Behind the softspoken voice hangs a small framed picture. It's a greeting card from the US president's airplane Air Force One, and is living proof that his customers truly come from all over the world.
Copyright: Aske Munck
Whilst we sip our delicious white tea he lets us in on some of his infinite knowledge from the leafy realm of teamaking. How Indians used old medicinal plants that they knew before, and how the ancient Chinese in all probability used tea both as a means to give taste to stale water and to make sure the servants boiled the water thoroughly to avoid disease, as the water would only acquire the right colour if it was steaming hot when poured over the leaves.
We listen and sip our tea and completely forget the time, while he pours both tea as well as anecdotes from a seemingly bottomless well of knowledge.
MITTAL STORES, 12 Sunder Nagar Market, 110003 New Delhi.
