Like coffee, hold a tea festival too?
Summary
A festival celebrating Indian tea could showcase everything from our heritage teas to the modern ready-to-drink and cold brews, the trendy boba and matcha to the exotic ‘falap’, ‘dheki’, ‘khilang’ and other indigenous teas
A fortnight ago, I popped in at the India International Coffee Festival in Bengaluru. I am an occasional filter coffee drinker, but conversations with coffee folks have been as fascinating as tea.
Two years ago, India was the host country for the World Coffee Conference & Expo, and the coffee board decided to make that a larger celebration with a part of it open to the public. Bengaluru, thanks to its vicinity to the coffee belt of Coorg and Chikmagalur, played the host. People flocked to the coffee festival and more left aware of this beverage. This year’s festival, from 25-27 April, was on a smaller scale, but very well put together. The Chamara Vajra, part of the Palace Grounds, made for a great venue. The event was not so large that you got lost in a maze, but not too small that you beat a quick retreat. There was plenty of opportunity to discover fresh coffees, new estates, brewing equipment and brands. The coffee board’s stall showcased Indian coffee’s diversity wonderfully. Panel discussions and masterclasses were included to engage with current concerns.
My takeaway from the festival was that tea can learn a lot from coffee. To start with, how about a tea festival? Indulge my wishful thinking. A festival celebrating Indian tea could showcase everything from our heritage high-grown and river-fed black teas to the modern ready-to-drink and cold brews, the trendy boba and matcha to the exotic falap, dheki, khilang, and other indigenous teas. There could be seasonal specials like the muscatel and winter frost, and handmade artisanal offerings, and all the innovations we are seeing, like the bagless dips and tea pellets.
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Coffee enjoys the display and performance that doesn’t find a ready parallel in tea. The barista championships were no less than bartender events, with contestants trying to outdo each other with their creations. One associates tea with ceremony, which is performative but hardly as exciting as watching a barista concoct a brand new drink and present it with flourish. But tea mixology is catching up. Or tea blending, which calls for creativity and skill. Perhaps not visually stunning, but a talented blender can produce uncommon teas and flavours that can impress. I imagine we could have masterclasses on tea blending, and even baking and cooking with tea. Surely, with the roster of experts we have, this should not pose a problem.
And let’s not exclude chai. The chai map of India is a representation of both our diversity and similarity. A display of chai, from the sulaimani to the kahwa and everything in between, with a bit of storytelling thrown in will offer a familiar yet memorable tea journey.
And if one needs to retreat from the crowd, there can be tea meditation on offer or a bookstore. I missed that at the coffee festival—although Black Poetry coffee did have a small collection of books in their stall. There are as many books, fiction and non-fiction, inspired by coffee as there are on tea. So a bookstore that also carries some tea-themed souvenirs like tea-waste notebooks, tea-dyed stoles, tea-infused chocolate, and even a tea scent. What more can a tea head ask for?
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Tea Nanny is a fortnightly series on the world of tea. Aravinda Anantharaman is a tea drinker, writer and editor. She posts @AravindaAnanth1 on X.
