Date:14/02/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/14/stories/2006021404300200.htm

New Delhi

Check Mate at Cha Bar

Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar

NEW DELHI: The Capital's first "Cha Bar", located within the Oxford Bookstore, has expanded its menu to include a wider range of teas and eats to cater to the Delhi's appetite. For the first time, the Cha Bar has introduced a cultural drink that is popular in the South American countries, a health tea called Mate. It has also enriched the menu with new herbal teas such as Liquorice, Tulsi, and a very special milk-based ayurvedic tea called Masala Herbal.

Speaking about the revised menu, Rajiv Chowdhry of Apeejay Oxford Bookstores at Statesman House explains: "It was a conscious decision to expand the offering to cater to the diverse tastes of Delhiites. By widening the menu, we are offering our customers a wider range of teas and small eats to choose from. Keeping health in mind, we have introduced health drinks and herbal teas."

The new menu brings forth a perfect blend of the old favourites like Cha Hindustani and the chocolate truffle pastry with the new arrivals such as crunchy almond meringues and black forest pastries. The new menu has added to the 67 varieties of teas that Cha Bar has, including the top and exotic teas like Darjeeling Spring Champagne, Kangra Spring, Silver Needle (white tea), Golden Bud, Taipei, Chinese Yunan Red and Pu-erh.

With the new menu, the Cha Bar has sought to move tea drinking from a dry page in history to a contemporary urban living experience and brings alive the romance of tea and positions it as the chosen beverage of today. It proposes to educate and expose the consumer to the lost world of tea with all its possibilities and quality -- not merely as a beverage but as a healthy lifestyle drink.

At this tea joint, the change is all about re-introducing tea as a trendy social health beverage and to make it an urban contemporary experience away from the dhabas and out of the home and bring it to a `third space'. Spread over 1,000 square feet with an extremely modern, contemporary styling, the Cha bar brings to New Delhi the distinctive experience of relaxed tea drinking in a friendly atmosphere.

Both stylish and relaxing, the Cha Bar is a place where a person can unwind with a hot cup of tea in the company of books. There is a wide selection of Indian and international teas to choose from -- from the more traditional hand-picked varieties from Assam, Darjeeling, Nilgiri and Sikkim to the best in Chinese, Japanese, Russian, Moroccan, Sri Lankan, Thai and African teas.