Entertainment
Tea: Tap in the mood, process, variety
New Delhi, Dec 15 (IANS) Who doesn’t like a perfect cup of tea? But that experience can depend on a whole lot of factors — how it is made, who you sip it with and even the temperature of the water used, says tea sommelier Anamika Singh.
An addiction for many, tea as a beverage is a must-have for households the world over. While many like their tea with an infusion of milk and sugar, a number of individuals like it in its pure form be it black, green, white, oolong, pu’erh, herbal among others.
Singh held a tea appreciation session in partnership with Crowne Plaza Hotels and Resorts with a �Power – Up’ and �Power – Down’ approach here.
“When you drink tea, it depends on the environment, on who you are sitting down with and it depends on what you are sipping in — whichever sequence you go about. If who you are sipping with is not right, you will not feel good. If the way you make it is not right, then nothing is right,” said Singh.
There are a number of tea brands selling the beverage in boxes, but Singh says even if one invests in expensive tea but do not not know the right way of making it, the point is completely lost.
“It depends on how you infuse it, store it, the kind of water you use, the temperature of the water and the quantity of the tea used. Time plays a very crucial role when it comes to making tea and it is never a ‘guess work’. The amount of time it takes for a tea to get infused, the flavours and tastes, is all dependent on time,” said Singh.
Tea in India comes from a lot of regions and estates and the flavour of every tea is different, depending upon the soil, the water, the exposure to the sun. However, even those who claim themselves to be “tea lovers”, do not know their origins. This, as Singh believes, is wrong — especially when compared to how the good old wine’s history and geography is promoted even on its packaging.
She says the society has become such that people’s taste and attitude has become dependent and driven by price.
While the attendees sampled white tea — an exclusive, fancy tea which Singh said can cost upto Rs 20,000 a kg, she explained: “We live in a very funny society. Till the time you don’t tell people that the tea is white, they say ‘Oh my God, I don’t taste anything… It’s water”.
“And the moment you tell them that the tea is expensive and costs a bomb, it is when they say, ‘Oh, it’s very nice and I can get the subtlety, and then suddenly everything comes into perspective.”
Another fad fast catching up in the country is of the matcha tea. It is a Japanese tea, a finely ground powder of specially grown and processed green tea leaves.
Talking of that, Singh said: “If you see what matcha is, you cannot imagine the relevance this tea has. In India, unfortunately everything is a fad. We don’t know and understand the relevance of it, just like sushi. The weather, the soil all makes a difference… The Indian matcha cannot be the matcha that it originally is, and who really knows what matcha should originally taste like?
“Psychology plays such an important role.”
“When it comes on to Japanese tea, there is a certain bowl, certain whisk and foam that is to be created and a certain kind of silence that is there between the tea, you and the time… It is just so beautiful. But the fact is that because we are not exposed to it, we don’t know and we do not treat it with that kind of relevance.”
–IANS
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International online casino Casino Days has published a report sharing their internal data on what types and brands of devices are used to play on the platform by users from the South Asian region.
Such aggregate data analyses allow the operator to optimise their website for the brands and models of devices people are actually using.
The insights gained through the research also help Casino Days tailor their services based on the better understanding of their clients and their needs.
Desktops and Tablets Lose the Battle vs Mobile
The primary data samples analysed by Casino Days reveal that mobile connections dominate the market in South Asia and are responsible for a whopping 96.6% of gaming sessions, while computers and tablets have negligible shares of 2.9% and 0.5% respectively.
The authors of the study point out that historically, playing online casino was exclusively done on computers, and attribute thе major shift to mobile that has unfolded over time to the wide spread of cheaper smartphones and mobile data plans in South Asia.
“Some of the reasons behind this massive difference in device type are affordability, technical advantages, as well as cheaper and more obtainable internet plans for mobiles than those for computers,” the researchers comment.
Xiaomi and Vivo Outperform Samsung, Apple Way Down in Rankings
Chinese brands Xiaomi and Vivo were used by 21.9% and 20.79% of Casino Days players from South Asia respectively, and together with the positioned in third place with a 18.1% share South Korean brand Samsung dominate the market among real money gamers in the region.
Cupertino, California-based Apple is way down in seventh with a user share of just 2.29%, overshadowed by Chinese brands Realme (11.43%), OPPO (11.23%), and OnePlus (4.07%).
Huawei is at the very bottom of the chart with a tiny share just below the single percent mark, trailing behind mobile devices by Motorola, Google, and Infinix.
The data on actual phone usage provided by Casino Days, even though limited to the gaming parts of the population of South Asia, paints a different picture from global statistics on smartphone shipments by vendors.
Apple and Samsung have been sharing the worldwide lead for over a decade, while current regional leader Xiaomi secured their third position globally just a couple of years ago.
Striking Android Dominance among South Asian Real Money Gaming Communities
The shifted market share patterns of the world’s top smartphone brands in South Asia observed by the Casino Days research paper reveal a striking dominance of Android devices at the expense of iOS-powered phones.
On the global level, Android enjoys a comfortable lead with a sizable 68.79% share which grows to nearly 79% when we look at the whole continent of Asia. The data on South Asian real money gaming communities suggests that Android’s dominance grows even higher and is north of the 90% mark.
Among the major factors behind these figures, the authors of the study point to the relative affordability of and greater availability of Android devices in the region, especially when manufactured locally in countries like India and Vietnam.
“And, with influencers and tech reviews putting emphasis on Android devices, the choice of mobile phone brand and OS becomes easy; Android has a much wider range of products and caters to the Asian online casino market in ways that Apple can’t due to technical limitations,” the researchers add.
The far better integration achieved by Google Pay compared to its counterpart Apple Pay has also played a crucial role in shaping the existing smartphone market trends.
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