Tea-Infused Dinner at Ceylon Tea Trails, Sri Lanka

 

(This article first appeared online on 16th March 2023 in Mint Lounge, India https://lifestyle.livemint.com/food/discover/when-tea-makes-its-presence-felt-on-a-plate-111678937771383.html)

5 Eastern High Teas Across India

 

(This article first appeared online on 15th February 2023 in Mint Lounge, India https://lifestyle.livemint.com/food/drink/5-places-that-offer-high-teas-with-an-eastern-twist-111676430241675.html)

Munnar--God's Own (Tea) Country

 

(This article first appeared online on 1st February 2023 on ZeeZest https://zeezest.com/travel/kochi-to-munnar-a-weekend-getaway-amid-lush-greenery-3045)

Notes From a Tea Estate

 

 (This column first appeared in the 13th March 2022 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 7 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/travel/notes-from-a-tea-estate/article65214069.ece)

Book Review: A Sip In Time by Pallavi Nigam Sahay

 

This book review first appeared in the BLink section of The Hindu Business Line newspaper on 4th March 2022 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/books/a-sip-in-time-indias-finest-teas-and-tea-time-treats/article65189948.ece

Agrotourism at Attabarrie Tea Estate, Assam

 

(This article first appeared online on 16th November 2021 on ZeeZest https://zeezest.com/travel/visit-assam-s-bucolic-tea-estates-to-soak-in-50-shades-of-green-1025)

In Assam's Tea Country

 

(This article was published on 8th October 2021 online on NDTV Food https://food.ndtv.com/food-drinks/in-assams-tea-country-where-tea-and-history-make-for-that-perfect-blend-2568715)

A serving of 2020

From cakes made of sushi to frog bread and other wacky additions, the food and beverage trends that defined 2020 were as interesting as they could possibly get.

By Raul Dias

With barely a couple of days left for the year to end, I think that it is high time for us to move past the very obvious fact that 2020 was an unmitigated catastrophe of a year. But then, there was that proverbial ‘silver lining’ too. If we were to reach deep down into the depths of our remaining dregs of optimism, we would come to the realisation that there was perhaps no other year in our recollection, when creativity in all aspects of our lives was at its optimal best, as we navigated our way around the new normal. 

Thanks in large part to the social media blitzkrieg that seems to amplify things beyond control, trends abounded in the food and beverage space. A realm that somehow always manages to take a “sow's ear” of a situation and transform it into a “silk purse”. 

So, here’s my list of the most popular food and beverage trends that tried their best to take the edge off those pandemic blues.

Cloudy with a chance of frogs!

Baking bread in its myriad iterations was truly the big ticket trend of 2020. With the first half of the year dominated by an overwhelming amount of sourdough, banana and focaccia art breads holding sway in almost every home baker’s kitchen and social media accounts. However, things got a tad outré in the latter part of 2020 with the emergence of two very interesting bakery items. Resembling a fluffy, egg white meringue, no points for guessing how cloud bread got its name. Keeping the keto crowd happy, this low-carbohydrate 'bread' is a flourless confection made with stiffly beaten egg whites and cream cheese that results in a white bread-like, light-n-airy flat bun that can be coloured and flavoured either sweet (with vanilla or almond extract) or left savoury. Frog bread, on the other hand is exactly as it sounds: a bread roll fashioned in the likeness of the monsoon-loving amphibian.

Better butters?

While other nut butters like almond and cashew have become almost as passé as boring old peanut butter, 2020 saw the invasion of other, more unique preparations like watermelon seed, macadamia, soy nut and hemp seed butters that one cloud slather upon sourdough toast. But perhaps none more significant than the phenomenal rise of cookie butter—Lotus Biscoff to be more precise. Easily the 'new Nutella' this Belgian invention--that’s also known as speculoos spread--found itself in every kind of confectionery item be it cheesecakes or brownies from Mumbai to Madurai.

Sushi cakes

With over 100,000 posts on Instagram and Pinterest combined, there was no way the visually attractive sushi cake wouldn’t make this list. These quirky cakes are basically upturned versions of a rare-to-find-outside-Japan type of sushi called chirashi zushi. Roughly translated as “scattered sushi”, chirashi zushi is served in a bowl wherein a base of vinegared sushi rice is layered with raw seafood or vegetables along with the sweeter, creamier Kewpie Japanese mayonnaise and topped with blobs of wasabi, pickled gari (pink ginger) and dusted with furikake seasoning along with strips of nori seaweed. Besides home chefs, several restaurants in both Mumbai and Delhi have cottoned onto this trend with their own colourful versions (even Jain!) of the sushi cake.

Ghosting galore

Cloud kitchens, ghost kitchens or virtual restaurants—call them what you may, the lockdown showed us that in 2020, these specimens could easily replace their brick and mortar counterparts. A whole slew of delivery- and pick up-only restaurants sprung up across the country, offering diners everything from boxed, gourmet meals to DIY food and cocktail kits sent over to be enjoyed in the comfort of one’s home. What this also resulted in is the much-needed democratisation of 'fancy' food. We saw upmarket, five star hotels willing to send their chefs over to cook up a feast in your home’s kitchen. While snooty, fine dining restaurants didn’t think twice before hosting American tailgate-style, weekend only dining experiences in their parking lots. These entailing diners enjoying a multi-course, socially distant meal laid out in the boot of their own vehicles.

Foods that heal

Riding on the coattails of 2019’s biggest food and beverage trend of fermentation and probiotics--that saw the dominance of the 'triple threat' of kombucha, kefir and kimchi—is 2020’s ‘food as medicine' trend aimed at promoting digestive wellness. Ubiquitous turmeric-imbued drinks like golden lattes (a fancy term for good old haldi doodh!) and herbal teas laced with ashwagandha (Indian ginseng) and mulethi (liquorice root) upped their status as alleged immunity boosters in the war against Covid-19.

Plant milk

To put it in millennialspeak, the ‘takedown’ of milk as we know it, has been going on for a while now in hipster circles with the rise of plant-based substitutes like soy, oat, almond, rice and coconut milks. But speaking of coconut milk, 2020 saw not one, but three Indian companies launch their own brands of coconut milk yogurt that’s a boon to the lactose intolerant and vegans among us. However, the latest salvo comes to us in the form of the nutrient-rich milk derived from the split yellow pea. Yes, pea milk, anyone?

(A differently edited version of this article first appeared in the 27th December issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 8 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/food/food-and-beverage-trends-of-2020/article33411350.ece)

Short and Sweet

Exuding an easy, laid-back vibe with a menu featuring a few simple, yet delicious offerings, this tiny new Juhu café has a lot going for it.

By Raul Dias

We’ve always been firm believers that serendipitous discoveries are the best of their kind. And My Cafe, Juhu with its non-descript façade—further exacerbated by bare minimal signage—is just that kind of place. With no proper address or location available online, all we had to guide us to this brand-new café was a couple of pics taken by a colleague who’d chanced upon this charming, if a tad tiny, space a few days ago.
Cosily perched atop a dance studio and sitting cheek-by-jowl to a beauty salon in a bylane dominated by the iconic Prithvi Theatre and its equally famous and eponymous café, there’s a lot about this diminutive, three-table first-floor space that made us smile. Surrounded by potted plants and fairy lights, with comfortable bench-style seating, the almost-by-the-sea café is perfect for grabbing a late afternoon tea and snack.
Speaking of which, the menu here is a modest-sized one featuring a variety of short eats and mini meals along with a number of hot and cold beverages, including a range of teas and tisanes. Though they take a good half-an-hour post ordering to make an appearance at our table, our iced mocha (Rs 220) and fresh watermelon blossom mocktail (Rs 250) hit that sweet spot. While the former is imbued with the aroma and taste of freshly ground Arabica coffee beans with a swirl of chocolate sauce giving it some additional heft, the watermelon drink has a hint of tart cranberry that cuts through the melon’s sweetness perfectly.
Served with a small bowl of fried potato salli sticks, the duo of tomato-basil crostini (Rs 150) is generously portioned with meaty chunks of tomato and torn basil leaves. They taste scrumptious with the unexpected schmear of cream cheese applied to the toasted sourdough base in lieu of olive oil. Another open-faced preparation, i.e. the BBQ chicken subway sandwich (Rs 200) is the perfect blend of juicy morsels of roast chicken and onions, all enrobed in a tangy barbeque sauce sitting atop a huge focaccia bread slab.
Still peckish and craving something more substantial, we call for the recommended warm chicken burrito bowl (Rs 350). This turns out to be one of the best iterations of the Tex-Mex staple we’ve tried out in a very long time. With a toothsome base of plump red rice which is topped with loads of chicken, perfectly al dente kidney beans, yellow corn kernels and sweet bell peppers, all drizzled with a creamy cheese sauce, we know this one’s a winner with our very first bite.
Sadly, the over-spiced herbed baby potatoes with a yogurt dip (Rs 180) disappoint with the punishing, almost searing heat of fresh red chillies dominating every mouthful. Even the cooling hung curd dip does very little to calm things down. With just a single dessert of an outsourced (our server herself volunteered this information) chocolate brownie on the menu, coupled with the fact that it wasn’t even available that day, we decide to end things here a wee bit differently…with a spot of tea! 
While we wish that we’d been served the milk on the side instead of it being premixed into the hot beverage, our final order of the fragrant and soothing lemongrass chai (Rs 120) is the perfect curtain call to an afternoon (and money!) well-spent.             

AT: My Cafe, Jankidas House, 1st floor Janki Kutir, near Prithvi Theatre, Juhu.
TIME: 12 pm to 9 pm
CALL: 66756622/23

(An edited version of this review appeared in the 17th December 2019 issue of the Mid-Day newspaper, India on page 22 https://m.mid-day.com/articles/short-and-sweet/22281162)

Notes from Switzerland

By Raul Dias

Fronted by the magnificent views of the hills of the city of Ascona on its Northwestern shoreline, Lake Maggiore—or ‘Lago Maggiore’ to use the lingua franca of Switzerland’s Italian speaking region of Ticino—is a rather unique waterbody. Not only is it the largest lake in Southern Switzerland, with its shoreline divided between the Italian regions of Piedmont and Lombardy and the Swiss canton of Ticino, but Lake Maggiore also holds within its placid waters a little secret. Tea.

Down to the Tea
Yes, around one hundred tea plants can be found on the Isola Grande, the larger of the lake’s two islands, close to the Ascona shoreline. But with these planted as mere sample crops, Ascona’s true claim to fame as home to mainland Europe’s (there is another on the mid-Atlantic Azores Islands of Portugal) first and only tea plantation, however, lies a little farther up a hill. Aptly called Monte Verità or ‘Mountain of Truth’, it was on this hill, perched precariously above the city of Ascona, where revolutionists, artists and philosophers once used to experiment new ways of life, all thanks to one man.
In 1964, Baron Eduard von der Heydt bequeathed the Monte Verità complex to the Swiss Republic and Canton of Ticino with the request that “Monte Verità be used for international artistic and cultural activities at the highest level”. So, in the mid-90s, taking this request seriously, Peter Oppliger an expert in medicinal plants and self-confessed ‘tea philosopher’ started experimenting with cultivating tea plant saplings brought in from India, China, Sri Lanka and Japan.
However, it was only in the autumn of 2005 that this botanic miracle of cultivating tea in Europe became a reality, thanks to Oppliger’s efforts and because of Ascona’s unique microclimate. It was then that the first harvest of the Camellia Sinensis variety of tea could successfully be made into a small amount of green tea.

Japan in Switzerland!
Today, in-keeping with the Monte Verità communal philosophy, combined with Oppliger’s aim of non-commercial cultivation, the modest-sized plantation is open for free to all those who are interested in understanding tea cultivation and production. Set up to resemble a bucolic Japanese tea garden, replete with gurgling streams, a zen garden and a gazebo, it is here where volunteers take guests on a tea quest of sorts.
“Il sentiero del tè” or “The Tea Way” is a course which has been built according to Japanese philosophy. Along this path, tea enthusiasts get to experience every aspect of the culture of tea from around the world. With everything from our very own desi chai deconstructed, to the modern-day trend of cold brewing explained to the, well…T!
However, it is at the last station, where the most intense of all tea experiences takes place. In a purpose-built Japanese style log cabin called a chashitsu, guests are taken through a ritual chanoyu Japanese tea ceremony.

Add Ons…
But it’s not all about tea atop Monte Verità. For architectural style enthusiasts like myself, the Monte Verità Hotel next to the tea plantation with its large communal balconies and wide corridors presented itself as a perfect specimen of the languid, rather fluid lines of the Bauhaus architectural movement of the mid-20^th century. A style that itself was born out of the post-WWII need for austerity by embracing utilitarianism and community, while vehemently condemning ornamentation of any kind and thus a continuation of Baron Eduard von der Heydt’s ideology of fostering artistic and communal expression.

(An edited version of this article first appeared in the 22nd July 2018 issue of The Hindu newspaper's Sunday Magazine section on page 7 https://www.thehindu.com/life-and-style/travel/notes-from-switzerland/article24481825.ece)