Padma Lakshmi Shares Her Indian Heritage With Relatable Tea Video
TV personality, author, model, and actress Padma Lakshmi has an interesting confession to make. As she revealed in her memoir, "Love, Loss, and What We Ate" (via Fast Company), Lakshmi has never felt like she completely identifies with a particular place. Lakshmi moved to the U.S. when she was just four years old to be with her mom in New York, who raised her on her own. Because of this, Lakshmi had difficulty aligning her identity with either her Indian or American background, feeling like a bit of an outsider in both communities.
Luckily, food was always a big part of her life, and it definitely influenced her from the beginning. Being an immigrant gave her the advantage of experiencing the best of both worlds in terms of food, and she would get to enjoy fusion food such as spaghetti with Indian porridge. Lakshmi said, "Immigrant foods are really interesting, because they're this third thing: They're not traditionally like the food in the countries of origin, but they're not totally Westernized" (per NPR).
But despite her blended, unique upbringing, there's one specific habit that makes Lakshmi feel really Indian, which she revealed to her fans in a fun Instagram video recently.
She loves a cup of tea
Padma Lakshmi took to her personal Instagram to share a quirky video to make one thing clear: she really loves sipping on tea at all times of the day and isn't shy about it. She revealed that she consumes quite a lot of tea in the span of a single day — approximately 12 cups. Wow! As Lakshmi implied with the video and her caption, which said "Just Desi things...", it's definitely an Indian quirk to have lots of tea.
Her followers also had a lot to say about this video clip. Comedian Hasan Minhaj wrote, "Accurate." Others wondered what kind of tea makes it to the top of Lakshmi's list, asking her in the comments. Her answer was simple: the quintessential Masala chai, a milky tea flavored with spices such as cardamom and cinnamon (via Foodess). Lakshmi also mentioned that she likes to use a bit of honey in her tea. A fan commented that they love their cup of chai as well and can definitely relate to her, while another commentator wrote that drinking lots of tea sounds like an Irish trait as well.