Cutting chai and filter kaapi: India’s two great street drinks
Cutting chai is Mumbai’s small, inexpensive cup of tea. Filter kaapi is Indian filter coffee. How each is made, and where to try both on Bell Street.
Cutting chai is Mumbai’s small, inexpensive cup of tea, so called because it is a full-size cup “cut” in half. Filter kaapi is Indian filter coffee: a brew mixed with hot milk and sugar, then poured back and forth between two vessels to cool it and create froth. At Nukkad Café on Bell Street, cutting chai is £4 and filter kaapi is £4.
Cutting chai: Mumbai’s small cup
Wikipedia explains that in Mumbai, roadside tea stalls serve small, inexpensive cups of tea called “cutting chai”. They are so called for being a full-size, full-price cup of tea “cut” in half.
On our menu it is listed as cutting chai, £4, and described as kadak masala chai. “Kadak” means strong. There is a sugar-free option available, so ask if you prefer your tea without sugar.
How masala chai is made
Cutting chai is a style of masala chai, so it helps to know how masala chai is put together. Wikipedia says it is composed of three major components: masala, chai (or tea) and milk, and that recipes and methods vary by geography and family.
One way to prepare it is to simmer spices in a pot of water, then add tea and brew it to preference. After brewing, the tea and spice mixture is strained, and milk or cream is added.
Wikipedia also describes a common Maharashtrian method for one cup. Half a cup of water and half a cup of milk go into a pot over heat, and sugar may be added at this point or after. Ginger is grated in, followed by tea masala, typically crushed ginger, crushed cardamom, lemongrass, cloves and cinnamon. The mixture is brought to a boil, and a teaspoon of loose black tea is added.
The ingredients, according to Wikipedia:
- Tea. Black tea is typically the base. The most common type is from Assam, though a blend of different teas may be used. Assam, Darjeeling and Nilgiri are the three most common types of tea used in chai in India.
- Spices. The spices used most often include cardamom, grated ginger and cinnamon. Masala chai in western India often excludes cloves and black peppercorns.
- Milk. Traditionally in India, milk from water buffalo is used.
- Sweetener. White sugar, brown sugar, demerara sugar, honey and jaggery are all used.
Filter kaapi: Indian filter coffee
Wikipedia defines Indian filter coffee as a coffee drink made by mixing hot milk and sugar with the infusion obtained by percolation brewing of finely ground coffee powder with chicory in a traditional Indian filter. It is known as filter kaapi in India, and has been described as “hot, strong, sweet and topped with bubbly froth”. On our menu it is listed as filter kaapi, £4, described as South Indian filter coffee.
The method, as Wikipedia describes it, starts with boiling water. The coffee powder goes into the upper cup on top of a perforated chamber and is compressed with a pressing disc. The boiled water is poured over the disc, the lid goes on, and the coffee is left to brew. This lets the water extract more flavour from the coffee, giving a more robust and stronger flavour than Western drip coffee. The brew can then be combined with hot milk, and sugar may be added.
Traditionally, Wikipedia says, the coffee is made with Plantation A washed arabica or peaberry beans. The beans are dark roasted, ground and blended with chicory, with the coffee making up 80-90% of the mixture and the chicory 10-20%. The chicory’s slight bitterness contributes to the flavour. Traditionally jaggery or honey were used as sweeteners, and white sugar has been used since the mid-1900s.
The tumbler and the dabarah
Filter coffee is traditionally served in a stainless steel tumbler, with the coffee poured back and forth between the two vessels to cool it and create froth. The second vessel is the dabarah, the saucer the tumbler sits in, which is sometimes written “davara”. A photograph on Wikipedia shows filter kaapi served in a metal tumbler, inside the dabarah saucer in which it can be cooled.
Where to drink them on Bell Street
You will find both drinks at Nukkad Café, 51 Bell Street, in Glasgow’s Merchant City. Our bar page has more on the drinks. Cutting chai is £4 and filter kaapi is £4.
Both drinks can start a meal or close one, so order them whenever suits you.
What to pair them with
A few simple pairings are worth trying:
- Chai with chaat. Try cutting chai with Nukkad ki chaat at £7.50 or Avocado chaat at £8, and read our beginner’s guide to chaat if you want to know what is in them.
- Kaapi with something sweet. A good way to end a meal.
- Chai with dabeli. If you want something to eat with your tea, our dabeli is £8: spiced mashed potato in a soft pav, layered with tamarind chutney, pomegranate seeds, roasted peanuts and sev. We explain it in what is dabeli.
If you are not sure which to choose, order one of each and compare. They come from Mumbai and South India, and they are made in completely different ways.
Seeing the whole menu
Both drinks are listed on our menu with the full range of food and drinks, and you can read about the street food they pair with on our Indian street food in Glasgow page.