Tea stall

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Tea stalls are small-time vendors who primarily sell tea, coffee and milk along small road-side shops in India. Tea stalls have a movable kitchen set up either with a kerosene or an LPG stove. Indians gather at tea stalls right from daybreak to have a fresh coffee or tea.

Some enterprising tea stalls sell soft drinks, cigars, betel leafs and betel nuts, gutka and newspapers too. Tea stalls generally have strong local knowledge and thus often become human Yellow Pages and discussion tables for the respective localities.

Hot drinks are traditionally served not in a cup-and-saucer but in a metal or glass drinkware called a "tumbler". In South India, a metal tumbler is usually placed inside a squatter, broader metal vessel called a "davaraa".

When a shop operator is asked to cool a cup of coffee or tea for the customer, a skilled server can pour the hot liquid from tumbler to davaraa and back with a flourish. The liquid stays stretched out almost horizontally as the vessels whiz past, collecting it in each direction. Not a drop is spilled, and the drink gathers an impressive froth.