Tea Time Snacks

Tea Rusks, Toasts, and some other Indian Snacks for Tea.

For me, Tea Drinking is a passion, and having certain snacks along with it is an added pleasure. Here when I refer to my tea drinking passion, I refer mostly to what some refer to as Chai.

See Chai is actually Hindi for Tea. But as what I witnessed in the States and now have come to notice in Starbucks and Coffee Bean, many non-Asians construe Chai as either Tea with Milk or Spicy Milk Tea, i.e. Masala Chai. So Chai Tea is actually a tautological term, i.e. a repetitive word. Similar to terms we use here like Pintu Gate, Tolong Cuba Try (where Cuba is Try in Malay)

One of the best Masala Tea in Malaysia (according to me and my dearest) can be found at the Bharat Tea Plantation in Cameron Highlands. You can read more about it here. The best Masala Tea? Well for me it's at home. My dearest makes the best Masala Tea. :) Too bad the Masalah is not for sale.... yet.

So back here in Malaysia, Tea is commonly know as Teh. If you want the famous acrobatic hot milk Tea which the person 'pulls / tarik', and comes with the bubbly foam, it is Teh Tarik. It you want just normal hot milk Tea, it would be Teh Panas. (Panas for Hot). Now usually English Tea, is Black Tea, i.e Tea Bags dipped in hot water., so English tea would be Black Tea, and Milk and Sugar served separately. I always wondered why Tea Bags never tasted as rich as Chai (more later). Here, if you want just black Tea (with Sugar), you'd say Teh O. If you want Strong (Dark?) Tea, you add the Kau / Gau in the end. 

Ok so why doesn't Tea Bag taste that good? Especially if you're planning to have Milk Tea i.e. Chai. Here's what Wikipedia says;

"The traditional chai-brewing process actively boils the tea leaves over sustained heat. Chai prepared in this manner has a caffeine level comparable to coffee, as the prolonged boiling produces a more robust beverage than quiescently steeping the tea leaves in hot (but not boiling) water. "

So why do people prefer Tea Bags? I guess convenience of preparation and cleaning. Hmmm, no wasn't my blog entry supposed to be about Tea Time Snacks and not Tea. Well, just proves how passionate I am about tea.

Ok back to the snacks. Toast and Tea Rusks are common snacks, with different varieties and fusions around places and cultures.

Most of the products we found were from the Zyka Brand which we bought from Mustafa in Singapore. Sorry no Mustafa in Penang yet. Let's start with Tea Rusks. This were really good. Now I'm not sure what's the difference between toast and rusk. Eventhough Wikipedia describes it as "A rusk is a rectangular, hard, dry biscuit or a twice-baked bread (zwieback)." This we're more semi-sphere (semifera) than rectangular. Baked twice? Not sure.

Zyka Tea Rusks

And yes, it tastes fabulous with tea. We're those that like to dip the toasts into our tea. And it being rusks, don't soften up too much but suck up the tea, making a succulent toast.

The Tea Rusk

And above is how the Tea Rusk looks like. Yes somehow the graphics for the above picture is intriguing to say the least. It's an aerial view of the toast which has been placed in one of those plastic containers. If you remember, some time back I blogged about another good Toast found locally; Azan Toast. Somehow I don't see it in the stores anymore though. How sad.

Next is the Suji Toast. This toast are 'slimmer'. Why does that matter? It's easier to dip into your tea of course. Especially if your tea cup is not wide. Suji is Semolina per Wikipedia, i.e the purified middlings of Durum wheat used in making pasta; also, the coarse middlings used for breakfast cereals and puddings.

Suji / Semolina Toast

The taste was really good. I'm not sure how distinctively I recognized the Semolina taste, as I'm not sure how it should taste and since it's dipped into tea, you get a whole new and nice concoction.

Ok, now to more exotic Indian Snacks. This is Gathiya. Personally I don't agree with the English desciption they have as you can see. Savoury Gram Flour Noodles. When you say Noodles, something like mee, Maggi or those kinds of 'noodles' comes to mind. 

Ghatiya - I'll pass

FYI, the Gram in Gram Flour is actually pronounced using the Malay pronounciation style, and not pronounced how you'd pronounce Kilogram in English. Here's some info on the Gram Flour I'm referring to from Wikipedia. 

Agriculture and horticulture

• Gram, from Latin granum (seed) via Portuguese and then languages of the Indian subcontinent, is sometimes used to refer to chickpeas and other pulses
  • Green gram = Mung bean
  • Bengal gram = Chickpea
  • Red gram = Pigeon pea
  • Black gram = urad
  • Horse gram
• It may also refer to a lentil

Gathiya - How the Look

Above is how the Ghatiya looked like. Frankly, it wasn't what I expected. Usually the home made ones, are really crunchy, alot thinner and rich in taste. This one tasted more like just Gram Flour! That was a dissappointment as Haldiram's other products have been really satisfactory as you can read on my Indian Sweet's Blog Entry by clicking here. 

Khakhra is next. Basically Khakhra is a pretty good tea time snack. It is very light, and crispy and not that oily. We bought two different brands. As you can see, the below one is Jeera Khakhra. Jeera is cumin, so the Khakra is peppered with Cumin Seed. 

Jeera Khakhra

Here's the Masala Khakhra. Different supplier, so different packing. 

Masala Khahkra

And here's the last of the snack time food. Methi Khari. Methi is Fenugreek. Well you would have noticed that the additions / spices used together with these snacks have really good health properties. Indian culture is very rich with spices and appreciate its health properties as well. And this has been recognized by time. I'll try to share a story about Turmeric (Kunyit) in the future. Anyway back to the Methi Khari. It is very brittle and crunchy. Wouldn't be my favourite, but was a decent snack. Zyka has a good assortment of snacks and the quality is above average. 

Methi Khari

Did you notice the Green Circle in a white square in the above packing. Yes, like indicated in my previous post, this would suggest it is vegetarian friendly. 

Ok, that's all for Tea Time Snacks. My apologies as most of this is not avaiable in Penang, but it'll make a good shopping list when you travel abroad. Also hopefully some entreprenueering chap tries to import this.