Spiced With Happiness

Someone in America asked me last night if I was happy. At the time, I thought it an odd question. I'd given no hints of my state being otherwise, and I'm generally a happy guy. To me, the question usually stems from a concern of the opposite being true, or at least a possibility, as in, “...but are you happy?” I don't know if that means that I see the world as such a positive (at least potentially) thing that the question doesn't need to be posed, or that I'm secretly a pessimist, but I hate to use the filled-cup metaphor. However, you know it's coming...

I like a nice spiced chai. There, I said it. It's public now in case it was ever a secret to be kept. Never much the coffee fan, I haven't shed too many tears for the quality of coffee offered in my town. For those curious, it comes from a single-serving bag that has sugar and cream pre-mixed with the instant coffee grounds. However, the downside of having a lack of artisan coffee houses is that the same stands true for teas. Mongolia is truly a tea-drinking culture, but it generally comes in teabags or bricks and doesn't offer much variety beyond straight, with cream/sugar, or as the traditional suutei tsai (salted milk tea).

Yesterday, I went for my first solo venture in the capital city, Ulaanbaatar, on a quest for some new flavors in my diet. One of the more important bounties from my successful mission sits next to my computer as I write this. The container suggests that I “try our other spices and eat more tastefully” which I greatly appreciate even though I find it a bit sad that here I am so close to what used to be a spice trade region and I'm enjoying cinnamon that is distributed by a company in Bayonne, New Jersey. The front of the label has images of San Francisco, Japan, India, Egypt, Greece, and Turkey. Where's the New Jersey representation?!

Spiced irony aside, this colder season(ing!) calls for more hot beverages, and a selection of new spices and a creative streak (a.k.a. I'm pretending to know what I'm doing) led me to try to emulate a homemade chai that a friend once made for me. Fresh ginger, cardamon, cinnamon, and black tea isn't quite right, but it made me a happy guy and got me writing this. The cup empties itself quickly, for the tea cools swiftly in this environment, but hot water can be plentiful and it is sometimes too easy to find that my cup hath runneth over.