With monsoon finally here, nothing could be more attractive than a cup of hot brewed tea along with a book or great company. The Mumbai cutting chai may be the ultimate drink between office and college hours, but nothing beats great ambience and finding solace in secret hideouts. Adding to that, this season is the time to enjoy your cup of tea beyond the company of your early morning newspaper and we’re here to help you out in doing so.
Featured below is a careful selection of Mumbai’s 7 most unmissable tea cafes that not only have the perfect vibe to sip your hot tea in but also provide you with numerous different flavours that will spoil yourself with, in all better ways. From fruity hints to the irresistible fragrances of darjeeling tea farms, these cafes will help you discover tea beyond the classic adhrak chai. Whether you’re meeting a group of friends or finding a table for yourself, scroll on to pick your perfect space for these cloudy days.
Where: 36/A, Sanatan Pereira Bungalow, St John Baptist Rd, General A.K.Vaidya Marg, Bandra West
Inspired by the Babington’s tea room, a traditional English tea shop in Rome, Brooke Bond Taj Mahal Tea House is a 3,500 sq feet space that will take you back into the streets of Agra with its charmingly antique vibe. It brings with it a subtle blend of South Mumbai’s colonial charm in the western suburb of Bandra, as the unique tea house aestheticizes the likes of colonial architecture and high tea. Still, even with its glorious sunlight patio, large archways, and colonial furniture designed to take you back in time, the menu promises plenty of contemporary goodness what with trendy options like metropolitan tea lattes and uber hip idli burgers.
The tea house specialises in 40 different types of teas, each served with complimentary raisins and oatmeal biscuits. Most of their teas are blended with spices and natural ingredients that ensure there’s a richness to them that’s rarely present in your regular chai. Kashmiri Saffron tea, Royal Jaipuri tea, Malabari tea and Parsi Mint tea are all worth including in your picks. And in fact, it should be noted that Hindustan Unilever, the brains behind this project, will also be using consumer insights from this café to develop new blends for the market. So if you come there often enough and drink enough of your favourite teas, you might just see it flying off the racks as well too. Additionally, the place also ensures that no one will go hungry with their all-day tea-pairing menu that includes Parsi Brun Maska with homemade jam, Arabic falafel chaat and muffins and biscuits baked in-house every day.
HG Suggests: Their Kashmir saffron tea will literally transport you to the state it’s from with a single sip.
Cost for 2: 1,500 for two people + taxes
Where: Kothari House, Allana Centre Lane, M.G. Road, Opp Mumbai University, Fort
For the love of vegetarian cuisine, this tea house specialises in all the many culinary and flavour delights from Burma and ensures that even the most carnivorous people around won’t miss their meat here. Whether its their starburst butter cookies served with sweetened sunflower seeds in your tea, the place is a portal into the minimalistic world of the country, right down to its interiors, which include exquisite prayer wheels and techotkers.
The space exudes a particularly personal charm as it is not merely inspired by a foreign land but is the owner’s way of reconciling with his shared history. Ankit Gupta, whose mother is originally from Myanmar, took four years to develop the recipe and menu of this tea room. He also received Validation came from Dolly Udani, a Marwari-Myanmar home-chef specializing in vegetarian khao suey, who was equally impressed by the flavours and authenticity of the menu.
HG Suggests: Lemon Iced Tea may seem like a strangely generic option but this takes ordinary flavours to a new height.
Cost for two: Rs. 1,500
Where: Shop 113, EMP 46, Evershine Insat CHS, Thakur Village, Kandivali East
What may seem like walking into an attic, High On Tea takes you into a space that is small and quite--the perfect combination to grab a book with some tea on your side. Popular amongst the youth, this tea house has garnered a lot of attention from college students who tend to make their way into this cafe to relax and catch up after college hours.
With small cushions and rugs, you may not even realise that you are in a cafe and not at your home. The wide range of choice is not only present on their bookshelf but also on their menu. The cafe also gives you a variety of choices from cold, brewed and hot teas--all available in a pot for you to share with your friends. Their adrak chai is a classic favorite picked by many, but their food menu is also where many prefer to spoil themselves.
HG Suggests: Cranberry Ice Tea (named as Hangover Cure on the menu) will do exactly as it promises.
Cost for two: Rs 600
Where: Plot No. 123, Jewel Arcade, Waterfield Rd, Bandra West
With fresh flowers centered on the table and tea cups placed upside down elegantly in front of each chair, The Tea Place is again a reminiscent of the classic English high tea gatherings. Best suited for breakfast or a mid afternoon break from your regular office hours, this space provides everything from the delicacies for your sweet tooth and the richness of classic English tea flavours. They are said to have the best flavours of tea that have suffixes ranging from vanilla, rose, royal chocolate, honey and cinnamon. Situated between the jewellery shops on Turner Road in Bandra, this house serves tea accompaniment like no other. Sandwiches that have the perfect amount of cheese, the menu also consists of muffins, scones and cakes that would inevitably make your table look high tea ready.
HG Suggests: Shou Mei white tea with litchee and watermelon is about as experimental you can get.
Cost for two: Rs 600
Where: Shop no.1, Darvesh Royale, Perry Road, Bandra West
We all know that the best tea in our country is sourced from the South and that is exactly where XVII gets their tea leaves from. Adding on to the flavour, XVII gets its royal and sophisticated style from the cafes in France. Inspired by the cafe culture in Paris, three friends got together and constructed this tea house, that according to its visitors looks like an elegant drawing room painted with purple hues. If not the classic filter coffee, you will find the flavours of Darjeeling, Assam, and Niligiri in your cups. Even though you may think you have walked into a posh tea house, the tea is diverse yet fairly inexpensive and pocket friendly for everyone. We highly recommend this quaint tea house in Bandra for anyone who is looking for experimenting with tea-tasting, as you will not walk out feeling light in your pocket.
HG Suggests: Spiced Guava Tea and Raspberry Cold Chocolate
Cost for two: Rs 450
Where: Food GE lll K,, Bharat Diamond Bourse, G Tower, Bandra Kurla Complex Rd, Phase 2, Bandra East
The Wagh Bakri Tea Lounge has a history that is 5 years old and has been operating in the cities of Mumbai, New Delhi and Aurangabad. As the name suggests, this is unlike any other tea cafes. It believes in nurturing a community of tea lovers from different walks of life, by letting them ‘come together’ and experiment with dense and rich tea flavours. The lounge serves 50 different varieties of tea that can be enjoyed with freshly baked cakes and cookies or soft sandwiches. If you wish to start a tea-tasting community, this is the place to begin and find like-minded people.
HG Suggests: Wagh Bakri Masala tea. The bun maska is great as well -- warmed and fruity with lots of butter.
Cost for two: Rs 300
Where: Shop No. 4,5 & 6, Everest Housing Society, Parsik Hill, Sector - 26 & 27, CBD Belapur, Navi Mumbai
Situated at the top of a hill, this has to be a tea lover’s perfect hideout during this rainy season. Nothing more can be more compelling that the artistic niche this cafe has managed to crave for their tea lovers. An ambience that opens up with a cluster of umbrellas, wali paintings across the walls, jute curtains that cover the windows and the minimalistic tea designs, this cafe has every vibe you would want while sipping the tea from the range of 170 different flavours. The cafe offers you with tastes ranging from minty, citric, peach, and fruity, giving you all the perks it has to be offer. It also spoils you by allowing you to buy the tea in pots, brewing in different kinds of cups and jars.
HG Suggests: Saffron Kahwa
Cost for two: Rs 300
Feature Image Courtesy: http://www.newzealanddesignblog.com
Researched by Tanya Maheshwari