Context

Last year's Aprisio ‘The Tea Odyssey’ experience took guests around the world through five teas from five countries. The second edition stays home: four Chais from the north, south, east and west of India, each with its story, its vessel and the snack that goes with it.

The idea

For all the noise around coffee - new artisanal brands, new cafes opening almost every week, and lately boba and matcha too - India is still overwhelmingly a tea-drinking country. Chai is as close as we have to a national drink. And yet we rarely stop to celebrate it.

What makes it interesting is that the cup we take for granted is younger than we think. Chai as most of us drink it is less than a hundred years old. It came out of a long marketing push by the East India Company, the invention of CTC machines, and the spread of CTC tea across the country.

The drink that brings the country together also looks completely different from one region to the next. Salty in Kashmir. Lemongrass and mint in a Parsi home. Roasted and milky in Kolkata. Lemon and cardamom on the Malabar coast. Most of us drink Chai every day, but we drink very different Chais. In that sense, a cup of tea is a small picture of India itself - one habit, many ways of doing it. This edition is about putting those cups on one table.

The four Chais

Between them, the four Chais cover salty, sweet, milky and plain - and each comes with its own vessel and its own snacks. The pairings are a mix of food made in-house and food bought in. The Chais and their pairings are the core of the experience. Post the core experience, guests can enjoy a curated, premium grazing table with fruits, vegetables, bakes, dips etc. 

The curator

Aravinda Anantharaman is a contributor at Mint Lounge - published every Saturday - where she writes ‘1001 Teas’, a fortnightly column on tea. She curated Aprisio’s first ‘The Tea Odyssey’ experience last November. She will lead this edition too, telling each Chai's story through photographs and video: where it came from, how it got its name, and how it came to taste the way it does.

How it flows

1. Welcome. Guests settle in; a short hello from Aprisio & Aravinda.
2. How Chai became Chai. Aravinda sets the context - the East India Company's push, CTC, and how a recent habit became a national one.
3. Four Chais, one at a time. North, west, east, south. For each: the story, the vessel it's poured from, a tasting, and the food that goes with it.
4. The tastings. Each of the 4 teas is served to guests along with the snack that accompanies it.
5. Your Chai. Guests share their own Chai stories and family recipes.
6. Grazing table. A limited-edition spread by Ritika S. Mishra in addition to the tea pairings. This isn't tied to any one Chai; it goes with the mood of the afternoon - winter, November, Chai.
7. Close. Guests leave with the secret goody bag, a nod to the Christmas season ahead.

Bring your Chai story

Everyone has a Chai of their own - a grandmother's masala mix, the cutting Chai from a college canteen, the way it's made at home on a Sunday morning. Guests are invited to bring a recipe or a story about the Chai they love. A few will be shared in the room, and with permission they could become a small recipe collection for the community afterwards.