Everywhere we have gone in Nepal, we have been given cup after cup after cup of tea. Without fail, a few minutes into each meeting, someone will come into the room carefully balancing a huge tray of tiny teacups. The meeting will derail for a few minutes as we all gather a cup. We are offered tea so much, in fact, that when we had meetings back to back all day, we were sometimes forced to be slightly rude and turn down that fifth cup of tea.

This is why, when we were in Rolpa, one of the reasons (albeit one of the less important reasons) why we perceived a cold welcome and high tensions is that we weren’t offered a single cup of tea. In four different meetings in the town, we did not see a single cup of tea. We were bemused and took it as another sign that the local inhabitants were not particularly comfortable with our presence.

However, at dinner the other night, a Nepalese man with whom we were sitting offered some information that significantly changed this perception. Because of its location and inaccessibility, when trade with east Asia brought tea to the rest of what is now Nepal, Rolpa and some of the surrounding areas missed out. To this day, people in Rolpa do not drink as much tea as their countrymen, preferring instead a type of locally or home brewed alcohol. Thus, the lack of tea that we took as bordering on a slight actually has cultural roots going back hundreds of years. This example was just a reminder to keep an open mind and remember that there may be a very simple, though unexpected, explanation behind these types of awkward moments and misunderstandings.

And now we can move on to complaining that we weren’t offered any of their locally brewed drinks.