Teas

Tea is a very important part of this culture. When you meet someone, often the first request from them is to have tea. There are also different types of tea in different parts. In the south we mostly drink milky tea (black tea with milk and sugar), in the east we drink green tea (with sugar), and in the north on our vacation we drank tumuro tea (I heard it is made with thyme). In northeast apparently the tea is pink, but I haven't had that yet.

On vacation we were always wanting the native experience. A local widow invited us in for tea. She asked how we wanted it fixed. Joe promptly said, "just like the locals". She poured us some tumuro tea into a large cup (looked like a bowl). Took a couple of sips- delicious. After this though she proceeded to put in salt. I took a couple sips and thought, "I can handle this. I like salt." But then she put fresh butter. And then broke up pieces of fresh bread. Two large bowls of salty, fatty tea with bread chunks sat in front of us. The first couple of sips/bites were okay, but then it became quite obnoxious to our taste buds. About 50% down, when our host wasn't looking, we began pleading with the other to finish each other's tea. We gulped down another 25%, but then had to call it quits. Our host seemed to understand.

The next tea time we were more careful in our request of how we wanted it fixed.