Every layer is a different sweetness.

He pours from one tiny pot to another at impossible angles. The rickshaw bells never stop. You drink it standing up because there is nowhere to sit.

Seven-layer tea is a Sylheti invention — black tea, green tea, milk, sugar, lemon, condensed milk, spices — layered so the densities don't mix. The bottom is almost a dessert. The top is sharp. The middle is what the rest of the world calls tea. [^1]

The man at this stall, who is not Romesh Ram Gour, has done it ten thousand times this week. He charges thirty taka. He smiles when you photograph him because you are the seventh person today, but he smiles anyway.

You drink slowly so you taste each layer in turn. By the time you finish, the rickshaw bells are still ringing and you have not, somehow, moved an inch closer to the river.

[^1]: Romesh Ram Gour, who invented it in Srimangal, did so by accident. He never patented anything.