Kulhads: For That Taste of the Earth in your Chai
Ruchika Agarwal examines what makes these mud vessels such a unique source of flavour in chai, mithai and chaat
One of my core childhood memories is on the kulhad. Each summer, I visited my family in Kolkata. Late at night, my cousins and I would set out for Shibuji’s masala soda. We had our own tradition — when we finished drinking the tangy-sweet-spicy cumin beverage, we would take turns smashing the kulhads they were served in, onto the sidewalk. The kulhad did not just add to our joy to the experience, but also added to the flavour of my drink. It was only when I bought back Shibuji’s masala and tried to recreate the drink in steel cups did I realise how important the kulhad was to the experience of the drink.
This humble handle-free clay vessel is known ubiquitously as the kulhad, and sometimes, a shikora or bhaand. It is typically tapered at the bottom, curved around the middle, and sized perfectly to fit into one’s palm. While the beverage within could be chai or a savoury chaat or rich mithai, the kulhad adds another layer — a rich connection to the earth, adding a very discernable flavour to anything that touches it.
In Kolkata, every morning, the world pauses for a quick few minutes for those who stop and slurp hot kulhad-wali chai before starting their day. In the narrow alleyways of Varanasi, countless vendors churn out scrumptious tamatar chaat or light and creamy malaiyo (flavoured milk froth) to hungry customers. More recently, Instagram has been in a tizzy over the eye-catching (read: almost dangerous) visuals of brave flamethrowers who torch kulhads filled with traditional pizza toppings and call it kulhad pizza.
Malaiyo served in kulhads in Varanasi
In the busy-ness of our lives, we may stop to sip and savour chai or chaat (or pizza!) from kulhads. But how much do we know about the kulhad itseld, or the choice to use them over paper, plastic, glass or even steel tumblers? How do kulhads contribute to the flavour and experience of a dish?
I decided I needed to learn more.
Handmade with Care
My first stop is a kulhad production facility on the outskirts of Jaipur. Ganesh Prajapat, the proprietor of Mittikart, offered me kulhad chai as we talked about his business and craft. Prajapat comes from a family of potters that have passed down their skills for generations. He hopes to revive the tradition of this ‘eco-friendly product’ for its environmental and health benefits, and is seeing an increasing domestic and international demand. “Abhi plastic use kar rahe hai, kaafi beemariye phail rahi hai usse. Pehle aisi beemariya nahi hoti thi (Plastic is being used a lot these days, and it’s causing an increase in all kinds of disease that we never saw before).”
Kulhad Chai at the Mittikart production facility
Mittikart’s kulhad manufacturing facility outside Jaipur
The caretakers of these kulhads are those who hold it in their hands daily, but at the forefront lie the real custodians, the artisans who make them by hand.
“Hum bhi mitti se bane hue hai toh swaad toh jamega hi. We too are made of this earth, so it is natural the kulhads are special to us.” says Ramju Ali Mamad Kumbhar, of the Kumhar community who comes from a lineage of pottery artisans based out of Bhuj, Gujarat. Before he retired, Kumbhar would make up to 1,500 kulhads on his wheel every day. Over a call, he tells me of the kulhad-like vessels excavated from the Indus Valley civilization to explain the depth of the kulhad’s history.
Ramju Ali was one of the artisans who supplied kulhads to the Indian Railways under Lalu Prasad Yadav’s infamous scheme to revive the use of kulhads in the Indian Railways back in 2004. There’s no coating in the kulhad. It is made only with mud…it is why when you drink chai in it, you get the aroma of the earth,” I can hear him smile.
The Flavour of the Earth
As I sipped on chai at Mittikart, I tried to find a way to capture that distinct flavour with words. The word earthy does not do justice to it. On Wikipedia, I found saundhi khushboo — a rough translation for the word petrichor.
My quest to eat and drink from kulhads, to find the right words to describe the flavour and fragrance that seeps out of it, shall continue as long as artisans like Ganesh and Ramju continue to make them and chaiwaala’s like Arun continue to serve piping hot chai in them.
A promotional forward from Arun tea stall
Arun Kumar Yadav, the proprietor of Kolkata’s famous Arun Tea Stall, documents his popular tea on Instagram, which is followed by over 10,000 people. It is quite the show — heaps of kulhads form the background to skilled chaiwalas who toss tea from one vessel to another, to mildly aerate the drink, before serving it. “Apna Calcutta mein toh kulhad chai hi famous hai. Aur bohot door door se, national, international sab hi jagah se log bhi mere counter pe aake bolte hai ki ‘kulhad chai dijiyega’. Kulhad chai is famous in Calcutta, and we also get people from India and abroad who come to taste it,’' says Yadav.
Kulhad chai has fans beyond social media. People like Diti Raja Agarwal, for instance.
Diti did not grow up drinking chai. It was only upon moving to Kolkata after marriage did she get introduced to kulhad-wali chai. Today, her day is incomplete without some conversation with friends over kulhadwali chai from her neighbourhood’s chaiwala. “It is a different feeling altogether when you have chai from a kulhad and in the open. The taste hits different!”
Rekha Goyal, a Bombay-based ceramic artist and teacher, explains the science behind this change in taste. “Traditional kulhads are porous clay and not completely fired to maturing temperature. They give the fragrance of wet, unfired earth when they come in contact with the hot chai.”
Atulit Chokhani, founder of The Tea Shelf and director of his family’s tea production business, attributes this difference in taste to the clay. “The taste definitely does change because of the earthen clay; same for any dish cooked in clay too.” he says. Yash Keshari, the third generation owner of popular Varanasi joint, Kashi Chaat Bhandar, also consciously chooses to serve several of his savoury dishes in kulhads. “It gives a ‘desi’ taste to any food,” he explains, telling us that it is also called sonahat. Maybe sonahat is the reason behind the tandoori chai recipe that cleverly uses diyas to infuse the kulhad-chai flavour in the version made at home. A trick to bring that refreshing warmth of earth.
Ruchika Agarwal is a marketing professional, pottery student and trained belly dancer whose current hyperfixations include niche memes, community-oriented business practices, and preserving fast-dying food traditions.
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