Tea & Wine – they are more similar than you thought.

Yes! You got it right. Tea is very similar to wine, though more complex, when it comes to the appreciation and food pairing process. As a good wine can be measured buy its ‘body’ and ‘aroma’, so is tea. The difference you need to keep in mind is that wines come from various varieties of […]

All Teas are good for Your Health!

You heard me right! All teas are good for your health, unless you kill them by adding loads of milk and sugar! Tea has the following health benefits, irrespective of its type  – that is, white, green, black or oolong : 1. Tea contains antioxidants 2. Tea has less caffeine than coffee 3. Tea may […]

“Love at first sip” – the story of her cuppa

“I was a coffee drinker all my love until I came to Smart iDeAS! Then something happened – an interesting and unexpected change that turned me into a tea lover. How I still remember the fights I used to have with my mom for fixing me tea instead of coffee as she was a tea […]

My Tea Workshop with Lloyd’s Tea House, Chennai

Lloyd’s Tea House is a well know tea room in Chennai –  you can say that this is the go-to place for all tea lovers in this land of coffee. Run by investment Banker Pavan Mahtani and his very accomplished baker wife, Lloyd’s Tea House, I found, is a buzzing joint filled with happy customers […]

Tasting the Avataa Tea

Avataa Tea is one of the leading tea brands of South India, and the distinguishing factor that I find about their teas, are the unique flavours and the freshness that each of their teas offer. Avataa comes from the Sanskrit word “fresh” as their website mentions and coming from an elevation of 6400 ft in […]

A brief history of Tea in India

The history of tea is as fascinating as the history of mankind. Some believe that tea was first ‘discovered’ some 4000 years ago in China when a king, who was sleeping under a tree had kept his hot cup of water, right next to him, to be taken when he woke up. The story goes […]

Tea Tasting and Evaluation for a Tea Startup

A new tea startup approached me sometimes back to help them with tea tastings and evaluation and help them with the right tea selection for their portfolio. I was happy to do so for them. I received 7 samples of tea –though I asked for only 4, and tried 5 of their teas. The teas […]

Tea – Trends for 2018

Tea takes you to places. Literally. So I ended up visiting Dubai to attend the Gulfood Festival and to witness what’s happening for our favourite drink all around the world. And what an experience it was! The Gulfood Festival was held at the Dubai Trade Center (18th to 22 February 2018) which with over 1.3 […]

Tea with TWG, Dubai

If you are in Dubai, and you love tea, you have to be at TWG. I was in Dubai to visit the #Gulfood 2018. On the last day when everyone was busy wrapping up their booths and giving way their displayed items to the visitors, I quickly took the metro from across the Dubai Trade […]

Why Indian Tea is Unique?

India is the world’s second largest tea producer and produces some of the best quality teas in the world. In fact our teas are so good, that our Darjeeling Tea is called the Champagne of Teas. Not only that, when a tea growing nation tries to market their tea globally they benchmark it against our […]