Since coming to the UAE, I drink a lot of tea. Which is curious, because I have never liked it. Not hot and not cold.

Turns out, I learn from my reading of a story in The National about tea sales and production in India, that the world’s largest consumers of tea, on a per capita basis are …

People living in the UAE, at an average of 2,400 cups a year per person.

How much tea is that?

An average of 2,400 cups of tea per year works out to about seven cups of tea a day. Which is a lot.

I drink tea only at work, and for a couple of odd reasons.

One, we have guys roaming through the newsroom who are known as “chai wallahs” or “tea boys.”  They will carry out various tasks, if asked, but their main activity is delivering tea to your desk, and then bringing refills.

They practically insist that you drink tea. They bring the cups, they distribute bags if you don’t have your own leaves, they will give you milk and sugar, if you like it, they wash up the cups at the end of the day.

Second, I drink tea … because it’s something to do.

I don’t take milk or sugar, and just plain ol’ tea is basically just hot, bitter water.  But a cup of that in your hand is a drink that is not a soda or a bottle of juice. It’s zero calories and maybe it helps settle your stomach. No down side to it … aside from the mouth-puckering bitterness.

During a shift in the office, I’ll generally drink between three and four cups of tea. Though particularly long copy-editing shifts might prompt me to break out a second bag of leaves for a fresh round of hot and bitter.

I drink Sri Lankan tea, when I have it. Sri Lankans likes to say their tea is the “smoothest” in the world. My colleague, Amith Passela, brought me scads of Sri Lanka tea after his visits back to his home country.

The caffeine in the drink probably perks me up a bit, but it certainly is not habit-forming; on days off, I don’t drink a drop of tea.

The idea that some people (most people?) in the country are drinking seven cups of tea a day probably says something about 1) the availability of tea in the country, 2) the “chai wallah” culture and 3) a cultural preference here for “natural” drinks.

I can’t imagine I will drink tea regularly after I leave the UAE. But while I’m here, I’m trying to keep up the national tea-drinking average. I’m not at 2,400 cups a year, but 600 or so a year is more than a drop in the bucket.