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Can India’s 5,000-Year-Old Disposable Clay Tea Cups Compete With Single-Use Plastic?
Can India’s 5,000-Year-Old Disposable Clay Tea Cups Compete With Single-Use Plastic?
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0:09
Narrator: These little clay vessels might be the oldest
0:12
disposable cups in the world.
0:16
Evidence of their use in the Indian subcontinent goes back
0:19
5,000 years.
0:21
That's the end of the Stone Age.
0:25
Traditionally, they're meant
0:26
to be sipped from and tossed out.
0:30
The cups are called kulhads
0:31
or kulhars or bhar or shikora, depending on who you ask.
0:38
Whatever you call them, the convenient cups
0:40
have nearly always been the preferred vessel
0:43
for tea shops throughout the country.
0:46
Enter single-use plastic and paper.
0:49
Today, more and more tea shops are giving up
0:52
their traditional kulhad in favor of alternatives,
0:55
which means less income for kulhad craftsmen.
1:06
Narrator: Cheaper prices make plastic and paper appealing
1:09
to businesses that can end up going
1:11
through thousands of cups a day.
1:14
But proponents of the kulhad say
1:15
that plastic is bad for your health,
1:17
bad for the environment,
1:19
and bad for business.
1:21
The reality is a bit more nuanced than that.
1:26
Is the simple kulhad really better than a plastic cup?
1:30
And how long will it stick around?
1:33
We went to Kolkata, India, to see
1:35
how traditional clay teacups still stand
1:38
despite the rise of paper and plastic.
1:45
Jayaprakash Prajapati's workday lasts longer than the sun's.
1:50
From 4 a.m. to 10 p.m.,
1:52
he and his family make about 2,500 kulhads each day.
2:02
He estimates he's made over 10 million cups
2:05
since he started 25 years ago.
2:16
Narrator: Their design is deceptively simple.
2:19
Unpainted, handleless vessels for drinking tea.
2:27
Narrator: It's a design that's been perfected over thousands of years
2:31
by generations of craftsmen in India.
2:42
Narrator: It's hard, relentless work.
2:56
Narrator: After unloading the previous day's batch from the oven,
2:59
workers prepare the clay for today's array of kulhads.
3:07
Narrator: They use a wire and their feet
3:09
to slice and mix the clay, evening out its consistency
3:13
and making it easier to work with.
3:16
This clay, fresh from the ground,
3:17
is the only ingredient in Jayaprakash's kulhads.
3:22
And it gets more expensive year after year.
3:35
Narrator: He has no choice but to purchase from local sellers
3:38
at whatever price the potters union sets.
3:41
The cost of importing clay would eat into
3:43
what little profit he already makes,
3:45
and he can't use just any soil.
3:53
Narrator: Before it's ready to shape into kulhads,
3:55
bits of stone and grass need to be removed from the clay.
3:59
Pebbles could cause the cups to explode in the oven,
4:02
and grass could burn away and leave holes.
4:08
Narrator:Traditionally, it's men who make kulhads,
4:11
but everyone in Jayaprakash's household works
4:14
to keep up with demand.
4:26
Narrator: The tea shops he supplies expect deliveries daily.
4:39
Narrator: At its current size, Jayaprakash's workshop
4:42
can only manage to produce around 2,500 cups a day.
4:48
This makes it difficult to create any sort of back stock,
4:51
meaning the workshop has to be in perpetual production mode.
5:08
Narrator: The air-dried kulhads are laid out in a series
5:10
of tight concentric circles and fired overnight.
5:21
Narrator: This formation efficiently bakes
5:23
up to 10,000 kulhads at a time.
5:32
But right now, it's monsoon season,
5:34
which means even after a night in the oven,
5:37
the kulhads might not be dry.
5:51
Narrator: Setbacks like this make it even harder for Jayaprakash
5:54
to keep up with the already overwhelming demand.
6:14
Narrator: Paper and plastic cups are cheaper
6:16
and more convenient than kulhads,
6:19
making them an appealing alternative
6:21
to tea shops operating on razor-thin margins.
6:25
Vendors like Kashinath Kole buy cups from Jayaprakash
6:28
for about half a rupee apiece.
6:31
He can get paper cups for close to a fifth of a rupee apiece.
6:42
Despite the markup, most of the 100 to 150 cups
6:46
of tea he sells each day come in kulhads.
6:59
Narrator: Kulhad proponents are adamant
7:01
that tea sipped from clay tastes better.
7:16
Narrator: With plastic, it's more than flavor
7:18
that seeps into your tea.
7:20
Numerous studies have shown that hot liquids in plastic cups,
7:24
as well as paper cups coated with plastic,
7:27
can leach microplastics
7:29
and a chemical called bisphenol A from the container.
7:33
Even in fine amounts, bisphenol A, or BPA,
7:37
has been linked to cancer, reproductive issues,
7:40
problems with brain development,
7:42
and many other diseases and dysfunctions.
7:46
Research on microplastics is limited,
7:49
but they're associated with a similar laundry list
7:51
of potential issues.
7:53
There's no evidence
7:54
that drinking from a kulhad has any negative effect
7:57
on a person's health.
8:00
But what about making a kulhad?
8:39
Narrator: The kulhad might not be as eco-friendly
8:42
as it's chalked up to be, either.
8:44
Kulhad proponents claim that
8:46
because the cups are made from earth,
8:48
they are easily biodegradable.
8:50
But there haven't been any formal studies about this.
8:53
Adding moisture to air-dried clay easily dissolves it,
8:57
but fired clay is chemically changed into a more
9:00
durable material.
9:02
The reason we even know kulhads have been used
9:05
for 5,000 years is that modern archaeologists were able
9:08
to find surviving examples of them.
9:11
Some craftsmen will bake their kulhads
9:13
at lower temperatures
9:14
to make the final product more easily disposable.
9:17
But most kulhads aren't composted
9:19
or handled in any specific way.
9:23
When he's done drinking,
9:24
Sumit's kulhad will go into the trash.
9:37
Narrator: Despite the immense challenges,
9:39
Jayaprakash is determined to keep making kulhads.
9:44
He hopes to make more profit in order to improve conditions
9:47
and hire new craftsmen.
10:02
Narrator: Kulhad prices are set by a union,
10:05
so Jayaprakash has no control over them,
10:08
and if prices get too high,
10:10
tea shops might turn away from them completely.
10:22
The Indian government has made efforts
10:24
to support kulhad craftsmen in the past.
10:27
Like in 2020, when the railways minister announced
10:30
that all of India's trains
10:31
and 7,000 stations would serve tea exclusively in kulhads.
10:37
The initiative started with only 400 stations.
10:41
More joined over the years,
10:42
but progress appears to have stalled.
10:45
Despite initiatives like these,
10:47
kulhad craftsmen are dwindling.
10:59
Narrator: Jayaprakash says he doesn't feel
11:01
like he's competing with other craftsmen.
11:07
Narrator: Plastic has already taken out
11:08
a previous arm of his business.
11:30
Narrator: His family has relied on this workshop
11:32
for almost a hundred years,
11:35
but its future is uncertain.
