The DIY Tea-Taster

Dolly’s Tea Shop
Dakshinapan Shopping Complex, Gariahat, Kolkata.
Tel: 24237838
For two: Rs 80

o Indian city knows its cup of tea better than Calcutta. Understandable, given its proximity to Darjeeling, and its tea company culture. Take, for example, our tea-lover friend Gautam, who is extremely particular about his teas: in the afternoons he obviously has a fragrant Darjeeling (without milk and sugar, of course), but for a morning pick-me-up he prefers a sinewy Assam orthodox tea (with milk and sugar). And for monsoon days he recommends a robust Assam CTC. By way of explanation, he likens Darjeeling teas to Scotch, Assam orthodox teas to vodkas and CTC teas to rums.

Dolly’s is for aficionados like him. It sells a selection of teas by the kilo, from a very basic Darjeeling at Rs 450 per kg to Makaibari Silver Tips at Rs 12,000. But what’s interesting is that it’s one of those rare places that also serves these teas by the cup, allowing you to play the tea-taster and experiment with different varieties before you buy. It’s a tiny joint, with walls panelled with old tea chests, which squeezes in just about a dozen people. In the course of a leisurely tasting session, we tried a variety of Darjeelings: the sparkling Darjeeling Autumn, the smoky Makaibari Oolong, the wonderfully mellow Muscatel and the perhaps over-hyped Makaibari Silver Tips (it’s considered a sin to add milk and sugar to a Darjeeling, by the way). They also serve about thirty different types of iced tea, from orange-mint to watermelon. But those are just kid-stuff.