Chai cafés get an urbane, modern makeover

Coffee may not be everybody’s cup of tea, entrepreneurs have realised. And though the jury is still out on whether elders have moved on from their home brewed ‘kadak adrak’ (strong ginger) chai, the young certainly are looking beyond coffee dates. Outlets such as Chaayos, Chai Stop, Chai Story and Chai Thela are giving stiff competition to coffee biggies like Starbucks and Cafe Coffee Day.

“There was this impression that chai is something you get only at home. You had good places for coffee, but for chai there was either a thela or the substandard chai available in five-star hotels. We wanted to create a premium place for our customers… with chai just the way they like it,” Raghav Verma, co-founder of Chaayos said. When Chaayos started in 2012, there were some 100 tea places against the 2,0002,500 cafes serving coffee in India. But growth has been swift. In the last five years, Chaayos already has 40 outlets in Delhi, Chandigarh and Mumbai. 

Kaushal Dugar, the founder of Teabox, an online direct-to-consumer tea brand, suggests Indians are on their way to being part of the ultimate tea experience – which is not just concoction of water, sugar and milk. “Tea places will be taking away people away from coffee. But then sooner or later people will also migrate to pure tea such as Chamomile, Darjeeling or Assam,” Dugar said. Elite hotel brands are also reading the tea leaves, realising that Indians are already learning to choose between Assam and Darjeeling, first flush and second flush. 

The Courtyard by Marriott is one of those catching on to the tea trend. It has set up a new counter -- Masala Chai Specialist – at the Mumbai International Airport. “Cafes and restaurants across India are enhancing the variety of their chai offerings. After this counter was set up, many of our regular visitors have switched from coffee to tea,” said chef and counter in-charge Rajeev Dhuri. “On a normal day, I end up making 20 litres of tea for customers,” said Dhuri.