In Bangladesh, tea is the most popular drink (far more popular than Coke, Pepsi and coffee). Thousand of ordinary people earn their livelihood by selling tea. In every part of Bangladesh, you can find a small tea stall beside the street. Animesh Chandra Bain (the photographer) took the pictures in a small tea stall in Dhaka city. You can find many female shopkeepers in Dhaka and this is the story of one of them. Now, I am describing you the process of making a cup of tea in the easiest and quickest way with pictures:
1. The shopkeeper is cleaning her used cups with normal water. It is just making the cup clean of dirt.
2. Now, she is making the cup germ free by pouring some hot water. This is a very important thing. This destroys most of the germs.
3. A customer has come and you can see him in the picture. The shopkeeper is adding condensed milk and sugar in the cup. She has good idea about it and most of the customers remain satisfied with the amount of milk and sugar.
4. Now, she is pouring the boiling tea from the kettle to the cup. Don't forget that the cup already contains milk and sugar.
5. In the end, she is stirring the tea with a spoon and the tea is ready to be served. I don’t know where the customer has gone. Most probably he has gone to call his friend as you can see that there are two cups of tea ready now to be server.
This is the beauty of blogging. I could write about something that the traditional media would frown upon. This lady (the shopkeeper) is not a model or an actress. She makes dozens of cups of tea everyday for survival. Making a cup of tea is not a rosy work for her. She has to excel in it and presents a delicious cup of tea for just 4.5 US cent. She can make maximum 1 or 1.5 US cent of profit with each cup of tea.
Did you enjoy this entry? I have a plan to present you more of this kind of feature in this blog. Blogging is for participation and I am happy that I could ensure the participation of one ordinary tea seller.
We are all ordinary people leading extra-ordinary lives. (Some just appeal more to the masses that's why they become too popular.) It's enjoyable as long as it's interesting.
Posted by: nepspeed82 | August 14, 2006 1:22 PM | Permalink to Comment