The cardamom hits before the heat does.

Power was out on the block. Candles on every table. The chiya came in a glass too hot to hold without folding the menu around it.

Masala chiya is the Nepali version of chai — black tea boiled with milk, cardamom, cinnamon, clove, sometimes ginger, always sugar. It is the national drink and the answer to most questions: cold, tired, sad, early, late, hungry. [^1]

The owner brought a second glass without my asking and a third before I had finished the second. He was not, he wanted me to know, trying to upsell me. He was trying to feed me.

The block came back on around nine. The candles went out. The chiya, by then, had done its work.

[^1]: Load-shedding was a fact of life in Kathmandu for decades. The candles are not, generally, romantic.