All the Tandoori Chai videos surfacing online had us intrigued, so we went to Mukherjee Nagar to check out the first tea shop serving it in Delhi. On an average day, around 400 people head to Alpha’ss Tandoori Chai to have a taste of the much-hyped (and very intriguing) new fad of this preparation of tea.
Here is how it’s done — a kulhad is heated in a tandoor and the tea is poured into it in such a way that it spills over into another kulhad. The process works because of the temperature retention property of all earthen utensils that keeps the original temperature of the beverage intact, regardless of how hot or cold it is. The making of the tea is interesting to watch, owing to how different this method is from what we’ve seen before. However, I do believe that if you can’t make good tea, the tandoor isn’t going to do any magic.
As a chai enthusiast who loves to try new flavours of tea and taste everything that the world has to offer, I honestly quite liked it. The tea had a different and earthen sort of flavour to it, definitely different from the average kulhad chai. What also helped, though, is the fact that the masala they use at Alpha’ss in their tea is just too perfect. It has the sweet taste of cinnamon and cardamom, and the milk-to-water ratio was just right, hitting all the sweet spots.
Here is how it’s done — a kulhad is heated in a tandoor and the tea is poured into it in such a way that it spills over into another kulhad. The process works because of the temperature retention property of all earthen utensils that keeps the original temperature of the beverage intact, regardless of how hot or cold it is. The making of the tea is interesting to watch, owing to how different this method is from what we’ve seen before. However, I do believe that if you can’t make good tea, the tandoor isn’t going to do any magic.
As a chai enthusiast who loves to try new flavours of tea and taste everything that the world has to offer, I honestly quite liked it. The tea had a different and earthen sort of flavour to it, definitely different from the average kulhad chai. What also helped, though, is the fact that the masala they use at Alpha’ss in their tea is just too perfect. It has the sweet taste of cinnamon and cardamom, and the milk-to-water ratio was just right, hitting all the sweet spots.