A proud tea drinker since my first spoonfuls at age two, I started dunking early on.
Growing up in a Gujju household, my forays into dunking started with crisp round whole wheat khakras, lightly spread with pure homemade ghee. I was taught by my father to fold them evenly in half with a snap - breaking them into semicircles, quarters and then eighths; then dunking just long enough to end up with a crunchy delicacy, juicy and flavorful from the tea and yet not soggy. I can still associate that taste with the large and chaotic eat-in kitchen, my grandfather and father reading the Times, my mother and Gangaram bustling around the morning cooking.
As a Bombay kid, my next forays into dunking came from Parsi bakeries. Khari biscuits - light, flaky and rich, held pockets of tea in their delicious maida layers. And jeera butter biscuits, dipped appropriately, ended up spongy from the inside and crisp from the outside with the additional interesting bite of cumin.
Those early experiences resulted in my most important lesson about dunking - timing. Dunking should improve texture and consistency, deliciously alter it, but not too much, and certainly not beyond recognition. It's a bit like breakfast cereal, really. And dunking too long results in a disgusting mush that disintegrates into the cup.
Years passed, and favorites got added on. Rusks, that stodgy staple of the Empire, and labeled "toast" by Bombay's baniya stores, were a natural addition to the category - hard, dry and mildly sweet - barely palatable on their own, but wonderfully enhanced by the hot liquid.
Sunday mornings at my grandmother's house evoke waking up to kadak pav - fresh, yeasty, crusty-hard-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside bread, slathered with salty Amul butter and dipped into a bracingly spicy adrak chai.
The green lawns of the Hindu gymkhana bring to mind sea breeze, middle-aged men in white shorts with their badminton rackets, and piles of buttery crisp toast to dip into mint flavored milk tea, thick and sweet, served in glasses.
Walking over to the canteen in my Indian office, we often had 4 PM snack breaks, with spongy white Wibs bread, edges cut off, buttered half an inch thick and dipped into the strong sugary office chai served in thick brown stoneware mugs.
And for all the Parle-G dunkers - it's not really my ... cup of tea, should I say? Sweet with sweet just doesn't do it for me, I want salty/fatty/spicy flavors with my sweet Indian tea.
Growing up in a Gujju household, my forays into dunking started with crisp round whole wheat khakras, lightly spread with pure homemade ghee. I was taught by my father to fold them evenly in half with a snap - breaking them into semicircles, quarters and then eighths; then dunking just long enough to end up with a crunchy delicacy, juicy and flavorful from the tea and yet not soggy. I can still associate that taste with the large and chaotic eat-in kitchen, my grandfather and father reading the Times, my mother and Gangaram bustling around the morning cooking.
As a Bombay kid, my next forays into dunking came from Parsi bakeries. Khari biscuits - light, flaky and rich, held pockets of tea in their delicious maida layers. And jeera butter biscuits, dipped appropriately, ended up spongy from the inside and crisp from the outside with the additional interesting bite of cumin.
Those early experiences resulted in my most important lesson about dunking - timing. Dunking should improve texture and consistency, deliciously alter it, but not too much, and certainly not beyond recognition. It's a bit like breakfast cereal, really. And dunking too long results in a disgusting mush that disintegrates into the cup.
Years passed, and favorites got added on. Rusks, that stodgy staple of the Empire, and labeled "toast" by Bombay's baniya stores, were a natural addition to the category - hard, dry and mildly sweet - barely palatable on their own, but wonderfully enhanced by the hot liquid.
Sunday mornings at my grandmother's house evoke waking up to kadak pav - fresh, yeasty, crusty-hard-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside bread, slathered with salty Amul butter and dipped into a bracingly spicy adrak chai.
The green lawns of the Hindu gymkhana bring to mind sea breeze, middle-aged men in white shorts with their badminton rackets, and piles of buttery crisp toast to dip into mint flavored milk tea, thick and sweet, served in glasses.
Walking over to the canteen in my Indian office, we often had 4 PM snack breaks, with spongy white Wibs bread, edges cut off, buttered half an inch thick and dipped into the strong sugary office chai served in thick brown stoneware mugs.
And for all the Parle-G dunkers - it's not really my ... cup of tea, should I say? Sweet with sweet just doesn't do it for me, I want salty/fatty/spicy flavors with my sweet Indian tea.
