Anyone who ever drank a tea from a street side tea stall would have hardly missed this piece of equipment which prominently occupies its position on the working desk of tea master of the shop. It looks like a vertically positioned copper boiler, venting steam and smoke with coal ambers glowing in its belly.
From my childhood, I always used to watch with big eyes, the trained motions of the person brewing tea. To me, this equipment had lots of compartments – a tap to take out steaming hot water – a container kept on top with milk in it( heated by passing hot air draft) and a slot to keep the tea bag cum sieve. It was much later I knew it name – it was called a Samovar. In olden days, it was a source of perennial hot water – with low fuel inputs – for a tea maker.
Times have changed – now we got many options to get a continuous supply of hot water. Still, some like the traditional way ( at least partially).
Featured here is a Samovar at Thattukada. This is a chain fast food shop which is in many malls in Chennai as well. It fares all popular Malabar dishes – like puttu/kadala, idiyappam chicken curry etc. Also to give justice to the name Thattukada, they have installed a Samovar also ( albeit electric / LPG gas / cooking gas – not the original charcoal ones).
