Anything for Tea: Budget Backpacking in Nilgiris

January 23, 2024

“Shall I surprise you with a cup of tea?” I accepted with a smile to a man with warm eyes. His welcoming demeanor shone through the winter jacket and black beanie he wore to reveal himself as the owner of Buddies Cafe. While I sipped a cup of black tea, Nirmal Raj shared one of his earliest memories: “My father was a tea maker, and my mom was a clerk in the same factory. She used to take stock at night, and I used to sleep over the tea bags. So that is how my journey started with a cup of

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Anesce Dremen

Anesce Dremen is a U.S. writer, travel blogger, poet, and aspiring novelist. A first generation college student and domestic violence survivor, she studied in four cities in China (Xi’an, Beijing, Chengdu, and Suzhou) with the support of the Critical Language Scholarship and the Benjamin A. Gilman Scholarship. Her bilingual work has been published in the Xi’an Daily, Shanghai Poetry Labs, T Ching, Global Tea Hut, Persephone’s Daughters, and Tiny Spoon, among others. She is a Fulbright ETA in India. Anesce is often found with a tea cup in hand, traveling between the U.S., China, and India. She is the international coordinator of The Quarantine Train. @WritersDremen