A space that spotlights tea and its many stories

Walking through my Bengaluru neighbourhood, I was again struck by the number of roasteries and cafes that have come up in recent years. Spotting a tea lounge in its midst, I decided to try it. There was chai but also Darjeeling. As many coffees as teas. Indian snacks but also croissants and cookies. A shelf of assorted books. While the tea and food were good, I just couldn’t tell what the space was attempting to fully be.

I wonder if the confusion starts with what we call these spaces—a tea bar, tea room, tea lounge, a salon? It isn’t surprising. Tea spaces have always meant different things in different places. In China, the chayuan or chaguan (translates to tea garden), once popular as a rest stop for travellers, along with versions and variations like chatan, chaliao, chating. In Japan, the chashitsu became inseparable from the tea ceremony—ritual, stillness, a precise kind of attention. In Nepal, the tea house is a lodge for trekkers. In England, the tea room was domestic and feminine, built around occasion rather than the tea itself. Each culture, at some point, decided what its tea space was for.

I reach out to Saptarshi Roy Bardhan, writer and translator researching Kolkata’s tea culture. He begins with a coffee story. Between 1750 and 1850, landmark coffee houses opened in Kolkata, where the East India Company had arrived. William Parkes started one in his hotel, giving homesick Brits a familiar place to gather. Another iconic space was the Jerusalem Coffee House in Dalhousie Square—named after its more famous London namesake by the Thames, a regular haunt for travellers to and from the colonies. Among those who stopped there before sailing for India was a dance teacher named John MacDonald, who later started the Jerusalem in Kolkata. By 1800 it had given way to Fort William College. Kolkata’s most famous spot for adda, the India Coffee House, came up in 1942, occupying what was once the Albert Hall mansion, built in 1876 to mark a royal visit. Alongside these, local tea culture developed in the cabins (pronounced K-bin)—small spaces serving food and drink, valued more for conversation than cuisine.

The cabins, the roadside tea kadais in the south, Mumbai’s Irani cafes, chaiwallas in the north—these spaces gave Indian tea culture its social fabric. But they were never really about tea, and all have different reasons for being popular. What would it mean for a tea space to hero the tea? Like coffee has. That’s the space I’m looking for. One that introduces the teas of the season, where I can explore a selection or simply sit with several unhurried cups. Where the aroma, origin, craft are in their finest display. That holds space for solitude and conversation alike. A place where, whatever else is happening, the tea is always the thing.

1001 Teas is a fortnightly series about the many stories hidden in the world of tea.

Aravinda Anantharaman (@AravindaAnanth1) is a tea drinker, writer and editor.