Sitting at the newly opened restaurant, Tea Trails in Koramangala, has the excitement of the first day, first show of a movie release for me.
The chairs and tables are arranged cosily while the white walls with a matt finish are adorned with images of tea in its various avatars.
Started by Kavitha and Uday Mathur, Sanjeev S. Potti and Ganesh Vishwanathan, Tea Trails offers you 80 to 100 varieties of tea. That is not all, they also have dishes made with tea leaves — be it mocktails, soups, salads or the main course. Not a tea person? Well, fret not, they do have a few dishes sans tea. But, for the tea freaks, this place is a heaven.
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Kavitha, who is a walking encyclopaedia on tea and a tea connoisseur, compares tea with wine. “Each variety has to be brewed at the right temperature for a particular time period.” As she serves us the meal – a lavish spread of tea and food, she gently asks us to rinse our mouth with water, in between the tasting of the tea, “else you will miss the subtle flavour.”
We start off our ceremony with the red Zen (a tangy hibiscus and mixed berries brew), which was downed with the Burmese tea salad with sesame dressing. The starters continued with a gulkand- based bun maska, which was downed with the subtle-flavoured white tea. “This is a delicately scented tea made from the buds of tea flowers. It is naturally sweet, hence we don’t need to add sugar,” explains Kavitha. “Just as a wine connoisseur wants to know everything about wine, we have created tiny cards to tell the customer all about the tea that they are having,” she adds.
The maacha and broccoli soup bowls you off your feet. This thick creamy soup has the strong taste of maacha, which is softened by the thick cream. A must have. Then it was the tangy tea-rubbed chicken salad. This came with juicy chicken pieces marinated in fermented Darjeeling tea. It was a perfect play of soft chicken pieces hidden amidst the green crisp salad.
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The cheese risotto, which was served next was loaded with cheese and tea butter, which was a treat with every bite. “The food is healthier just because of the kinds of tea we have used — herbal, green, Assam and Oolong tea in our dishes,” adds Kavitha.
The menu also has some whacky name such as Egg Kejriwal (nothing to do with the man behind AAP, but the dish is a tribute to a humble vegetarian named D.P. Kejriwal from Mumbai, explains Kavitha). This was flushed down with the lychee bubble tea, where the bubbles popped in your mouth, adding a fun element to your dining experience. Better Wife, a fruit-based tea was truly better in every way – in its presentation and taste.
As a perfect climax to a good film, Thai Curry with exotic vegetables and rice made for that perfect curtain call to a perfect meal.