The Tea Ceremony - Afghan style

Old Blue's photo of Alexander The Great's Fortress

I think one of the very best things to come out of the Internet is the plethora of really good writers showing up on blogs.  Sometimes I think they tell us more than any current events program or sociology or psychology class.  I learn so much from them about so many things I'm sure their very existence will change things forever.  Not tomorrow, mind you, or next week or next year.  But they will change things. 

Thanks to membrain I've found a new "learning place" and since I always like to begin at the beginning I went back in Old Blue's archives to July 2008, where I found this career Army man's description of chi...

"Afghan chai has nothing to do with coffee shop spiced tea drinks.

“I’ll have a double mocha chai latte with just a hint of Madagascar cinnamon…”

But chai is more than the tea. If an Afghan ever offers you chai, take him up on it. Chai is an experience; a hospitable, civil experience that is done nearly the same way anyplace I went in Afghanistan. It’s a distinctively Afghan experience.

And they’re not supposed to kill you while you’re having chai with them."

His fascinating story, which takes place in a country "10 minutes out of the stone age" and "in the shadow of ruins built by Alexander The Great," begins here: http://afghanquest.com/?m=200807