Chapter two
Teaplomacy
Building diplomacy and community over a cuppa tea
The tea is the easy part. The listening is the point. Obaid
Where I come from, every important conversation begins with tea. Every morning in Kabul, my mother poured me a glass of Al-Otuor tea before I walked to school. Tea was how she said what she could not say out loud.
When I came to the United States, I carried that habit with me. Today I have a collection of 251 different brews. I organize tea ceremonies, experiment with teas from around the world, and, as a hobby, I love taking photos of tea. And I have learned that a cup of tea does something a meeting agenda cannot. It slows people down. It gives their hands something to hold while they find the courage to say what they really think.
Teaplomacy is my name for that: building diplomacy and community over a cuppa tea. I set a table, pour tea for everyone, and invite people who might never otherwise sit together: newcomers and longtime neighbors, students and elders, and people who vote differently and pray differently.
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Chai & Chat
Chai & Chat is at the heart of Teaplomacy. I have run it in many Utah schools, including East High School in Salt Lake City. It brings refugee and immigrant students together over the tea and food of home, and then carries what they share all the way to the people who make policy.
How it works
A taste of home. We bring the tea and snacks the students grew up with. For Afghan students, that might be green tea with cardamom, dried fruit, and nuts. For Somali students, spiced shaah with cardamom and cinnamon, with sambusa or xalwo. Every group gets its own taste of home.
Stories over tea. Students drink tea and share their stories: their struggles, their journeys, and what school feels like for them now.
From stories to school policy. A school coordinator joins the table and helps translate those lived experiences into better and more inclusive school policies.
From school to district to state. We take that analysis to shape district policies, and then state policies, to ensure system-wide access and education equity.
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What changed at East High
The Afghan students at East High did not need a lecture. They needed someone to ask them what was hard, and then to carry their answers to the people who could fix it. Over chai, they told us.
Many were still learning to read in English, so instructions on the board went right past them. Some had failed classes without anyone knowing why. They told us they never asked their teachers for an extension, because they were afraid it would make them look like failures. As immigrants, they believed their job was to work hard and never ask for help.
Then the school listened.
Their stories, in their own hands
We also made sure their stories were seen. Students drew books of their own lives, painting memories of their journeys, from refugee camps to Utah today.
All of it started with a pot of tea and a few honest conversations.
What one cup can show
At one Chai & Chat session at a Salt Lake City high school, a Somali student told me that no teacher had ever asked her what language she spoke at home. Her school had a family engagement policy. It just never reached her.
That moment stays with me. Policies are written in offices, but they are felt at tables like this one. Teaplomacy is how I make sure the people at the table are heard by the people who write the policies.
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Tables I have poured for
I have led Teaplomacy sessions at Harvard, the University of Oxford, the University of St Andrews, Westminster University, the University of Utah, Salt Lake Community College, United Way of Salt Lake, and many other places around the world.
University of St Andrews, Scotland
At the Global Citizens Initiative fellowship, where I was a Teaching Assistant in 2023 and Head Teaching Assistant in 2024, high-achieving students from around the world gathered for tea ceremonies. Each shared what tea meant at home. One said it tasted like their grandmother's kitchen. Others asked for sugar, or even ice. Every cup told a different story.
UServe Utah
I facilitated two back-to-back UServe Utah civic engagement retreats, where people from every background in Utah shared their stories and talked about community organizing, activism, and taking part in civic life. Tea was part of every conversation.
United Way of Salt Lake
I brought Chai & Chat to the staff of United Way of Salt Lake, sharing the history of tea, how we drink it, and stories of immigrants and refugees.
Tea portraits, Salt Lake City
Sometimes the table is a sidewalk. I would offer a stranger in Salt Lake City a glass of tea, ask to hear their story of immigration, and take their portrait with the cup in their hand. Every glass came back with a story.
A glass for a stranger
A glass of tea is a small thing to offer a stranger. But almost everyone who took one stayed long enough to tell me how they came here, and who they left behind.
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Bring Chai & Chat to your school
If you work at a school and want to hear directly from your refugee and immigrant students, I would love to tell you more about the model and help you host it. Bring the students, and I will bring the tea.
Where Teaplomacy is going
As my capacity grows, I want to bring Teaplomacy to colleges and universities, to institutions working on refugee and immigrant rights, to nonprofit organizations, and to communities around the world. Wherever people are learning to live together, there is room for one more table.
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