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What is your favorite drink?
The text discusses the evolution of drinks in India, emphasising traditional beverages like sugarcane juice, lassi, and nimboo-paani, which were common before tea and coffee gained popularity. The introduction of tea by the British, especially through the CTC method, made it widely accessible, leading to the emergence of masala chai. Despite this, the text critiques the modern trend toward unhealthy packaged foods and aerated drinks, highlighting their detrimental health effects and environmental impact. It advocates for a return to healthier, traditional drinking options that reflect India’s cultural heritage and nutritional needs, urging a conscious shift in dietary preferences for better health.
Table of contents
Key Takeaways
- The article discusses the evolution of beverages in India, emphasizing traditional drinks like sugarcane juice, lassi, and nimboo-paani before the rise of tea and coffee.
- Tea became popular in India thanks to the British, who introduced the CTC method, making it accessible to the masses, and leading to the creation of masala chai.
- The text critiques modern unhealthy packaged foods and aerated drinks for their health risks and environmental impact while advocating for a return to traditional beverages.
- Indian drinks provide essential nutrients and reflect the country’s cultural heritage, encouraging a shift towards healthier dietary preferences.
- The article highlights the adverse effects of aerated drinks and emphasises the importance of choosing nutritious, traditional drinks for better health.
Rural landscape
Amidst verdant, campestral scenery, a traversing road insinuated a huge, slithering serpent. People working in fields and women folks busy with household chores were the usual but beautiful sight. A few bullock carts and some pedestrians were all that were on the road. Growling of diesel driven vehicles occasionally were disturbing the silence. Six decades ago, this used to be the common rustic ambience.
Rustic Indian drinks: sugarcane and jaggery
Travelling on highways and expressways feels elevated. The intermittent sight of jaggery preparation, with the intoxicating aroma of boiling sugarcane juice in huge pans over a makeshift furnace, adds to the rustic beauty and feel. The fragrance of boiling syrup is tempting. In olden days. Swarming children around the oxen-driven cane crusher would receive freshly extracted sugarcane juice in saucers and tumblers they held in their hands. They would get it without cost, as they were children of the village and hence considered family members. Sometimes they added curd to it to add variety.
Popular drinks and beverages
The drinks refresh and energise an individual. India is a tropical country with a hot and humid climate. Winters are not so harsh in the plains of northern and Southern India. Drinks are aplenty; people enjoy drinking them to get a refreshing break. Besides being refreshing, drinks provide micronutrients and minerals that help with skin, gum and teeth care, improving eyes and overall health. (Amazing food & Drinks)
Tea: A popular beverage
Tea was not common. People in the Gangetic plains of Northern India. Tea, which used to be a drink of elites, gradually started making inroads into people’s lives. It was becoming frequent in urban areas, but in rural areas, it was still not in vogue. In cities, small grocery shops used to display small paper sachets of tea. The sachets contained one-time-useable tea leaves enough for four to five people. It was cheap and the best choice. Sherbet making started taking a back seat, considered “backward”. Tea was insidiously encroaching on the lives of people. Those who were not capable of bearing the sting of alkaloids contained in tea started adapting to it and later became addicted to it.
Journey of tea
Tea is native to China. Legends have it that in 2737 BC, while boiling water in a forest, Shen Nung, the emperor, saw the change in colour and flavour of the water as some wild leaves fell into it. The concoction tasted good and energising. Later, he researched and found some medicinal properties in tea leaves.
The seeds of tea leaves taken to Japan, and centuries later, they became a monopoly item of the British East India Company. Tea in an Indian Avatar has now occupied a prominent place.
Indian drinks: Tea
British East India Company introduced tea in India. Large tea plantations established in Assam and Darjeeling.
Tea became accessible to common people with the introduction of CTC (Crush, Tear, Curl). The street tea vendors, popularly known as “Chai Wala” in vernacular language, made it common. Keeping Indian taste in mind, they added crushed ginger, cloves, and cinnamon, brewed them with tea leaves and mixed some milk to make “Masala Chai”. Nowadays, it is most common in India.
Coffee
Like tea, Coffee is a widely consumed beverage in India, especially in South India. Similar to tea, coffee also has foreign roots. Believed to have originated in Ethiopia, coffee stimulates the senses because of its caffeine content.
Other Indian drinks
Before the popularisation of these beverages, several other drinks were popular in India. The list below is not comprehensive but gives a glimps of variety and richness of Indian drinks.
“Lassi”
“Lassi” (Sweetened smoothie of curd served with garnished dry fruits and crushed ice) is one among others. Prepared by churning curd and sugar into a thick, runny consistency, garnished with dry fruits and sprinkled with rose or Kewra water. “Lassi” is a refreshing drink. It is widely consumed in Northern India, especially in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh during summer. Drinks prepared from curd include buttermilk and Chhachh. They are good for the stomach and have a cooling effect.
“Pana”
Besides these, “Pana” is prepared in running consistency from the pulp of boiled raw mango mixed with spices consisting of black salt and roasted and ground cumin. Soothing, tasty and healthy, “Pana” is consumed during the summer season. It helps ward off the effects of “Looh“, the hot, westerly wind that lashes the plains of India.
“Nimboo-Paani”
One such popular drink is “Nimboo-Paani” (Lemon water). It is prepared by adding lime juice to cold water, mixing it with digestive spices and is consumed both salty and sweet. It is also good for health and is taken in the summer.
“Sattu” drink
Considered fast food of past, “Sattu” is ready to consume food. Speciality of Eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it is prepared by grinding roasted gram or barley into a flour like consistency. “Sattu” was popular food in olden times when people on soujourn used to carry it with them. They would kneed it, add a pinch of salt and enjoy it with green chillies.
It forms a good and fulfilling drink that contains a lot of fiber and goodness of gram or barley. It is nutritious and satisfying drink which keep hydrated and help fighting ill effects of Looh in summer.
Coconut water
The drinks, including those that have not been described above, are used in India according to the weather conditions and their soothing effects on the stomach. They are healthy, tasty and easily available at a reasonable price. One drink that needs to be mentioned is coconut water which quenches thirst and gives nourishment. It is often seen in coastal areas of India, including Tamilnadu, Kerala, Goa, and Maharastra. It is now available in cities of North India as well.
Cultural tradition and Beverages
India has a rich cultural tradition of giving water to the thirsty. We believe in “Atithi Devo Bhavah” (Guest is like God). Feeding the hungry and providing shelter to the needy has been our convention. Popular monarchs constructed roads, planted fruiting trees along them, and rest houses with wells at regular intervals to ease the difficulties of travellers. Indian ethos looked upon these charitable deeds with high esteem. Water was never a saleable commodity.
Aerated drinks: not Indian
Aerated drinks are beverages that are prepared by dissolving carbon dioxide gas in water under pressure. The gas reacts with water to form carbonic acid, which gives it a fizzy texture. With artificial sweeteners, colour and flavour, these beverages lure people with their aggressive marketing.
Harmful side effects
Water is now a saleable item because of market expansion and growth of cupidity, . Multinational companies flooded the Indian market with unhealthy packaged food items and drinks. Wafer chips, Finger fries, Burgers, and lots of aerated drinks also called cold drinks. High in sugar and salt contents packaged food items and aerated drinks are not only unhealthy but potentially dangerous as well. Their carcinogenic effect instigates pernicious health problems. Riding on the waves of aggressive advertisement campaigns and marketing, they are selling unhealthy products for excessive human consumption. Ironically, people feel elevated consuming them and gulping “cold drinks”.
Aerated drinks and depletion of ground water
Companies manufacturing beverages like aerated drinks or “cold drinks” rely heavily on groundwater. This causes a fast depletion of groundwater. Paradoxically, in a region where water is scarce, “cold drink” is easily available. The ubiquitous cold drinks and hanging packs of wafers are usual sight along highways.
Losing nutritious foods
In the mad race of minting money under the veil of “Value addition”, edible products are losing their nutritious value that too at a higher cost. Adding the cost of health hazards and their treatment, the cost soares even more high. This is the type of economy that promotes unhealthy consumerism.
Preserved foods and beverages have limited shelf life because of the chemicals they use as preservatives. Besides, it loses its natural consistency, texture and colour. Added colour, flavour and sugar made them unhealthy. Labour intensive and time-consuming natural ways of preserving food, like sun drying and smoking, are less economical.
Dietary preferences
People need to shift their dietary preferences from unhealthy to healthy food and drink. India is a gifted nation. It has plenty of fresh fruits, grains and seeds to consume. Indian drinks are time-tested and are consistent with the physical condition of the nation. Prudent thinking helps choose healthy food and drink, the best and only options to lead a healthy life.
Food is life; it is its essence. For a healthy, agile and fit body, healthy food is essential not junk foods. It is rightly said that a healthy mind resides in a healthy body. Our food and drinks should be healthy and balanced, not guided by the aggressive advertisements of multinational companies. We need to be conscious not only for us but for our children as well.
Shouldn’t we?
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Kamal Kishore Srivastava
A retired government officer turned writer and photographer, Kamal Kishore Srivastava is a regular blogger and essayist who explores life’s deeper meanings through immersive reflections on nature, impermanence, and happiness. On his blog Nature’s Narrative, he blends philosophical storytelling with practical insights. Writing 1,200–1,500 words or more regularly, Kamal is committed to refining his craft, expanding his audience, and building a sustainable space where thought and feeling intersect.
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