KARACHI: The trend of enjoying tea outside home is now changing fast. New breeds of investors are gradually firming up their position against the decades-old tea stalls, mostly owned by Pakhtuns.

Consumers are paying high prices for the atmosphere and ambiance at these new tea outlets, which look more impressive than the old-fashioned tea stalls. From tables and chairs to the persons serving the tea, there appears to be considerable improvement where presentation is concerned.

Mostly young men, having graduated from various educational institutions, are the main investors in the new-age tea stalls.

These fresh-looking outlets are offering flavoured tea by using cardamom or other flavours like chocolate to cover up usage of loose tea instead of branded teas like Lipton and Tapal. Most of them are also procuring fresh milk from baras instead of regular loose milk shops or tetrapack milk of multinational companies.

Bilal Misbah, a graduate of Bahria University in marketing, joined hands with another colleague to set up a tea stall in F.B. Area eight months ago.

“I am using loose tea of Rs600 per kg and bara milk to develop a particular taste and aroma which is not possible by using branded tea,” he said adding “If I use branded tea then the consumers will avoid coming.”

He said this new hi-fi tea service had started some three years back in Karachi from a ‘posh’ locality with limited stalls.

Some one-and-a-half years back the number reached 50 stalls in entire Karachi. But now the city is estimated to have over 250 stalls and more investment is coming in this new venture.

However, the quantity of tea in a normal-size cup does not look at par with the price, hovering between Rs50 to Rs180 per cup depending on the areas. “Presentation, environment, new taste, quality and ambiance definitely have a price,” Bilal says.

He claimed he “he is not adding water in the milk in order to maintain good taste as against traditional practice of mixing seven to eight litres of water in 10 litres milk by old stall owners.”

Consumption of milk depends on the area and sales. “I am using 15-20 litres of milk a day while the stall owners in posh area must be consuming over 40 litres of milk in view of their thriving sales, high turnover of buyers and longer working hours,” he said.

However, new stall owners cannot compete with the usage of milk by Pakhtun stall owners as they use from 40 to over 100 litres of milk in a single day as they operate from early morning to late night while the timing of new stall owners usually starts after 5pm and lasts till 2am.

For making normal tea, one litre of milk is enough to make eight to nine teacups as compared to four to five cups for doodhpatti (full-milk tea).

The stall owners and tea importers said that these stalls have emerged mostly in Karachi instead of other cities of the country. High intake of tea by people of Karachi at fancy new stalls appears to have given extra boost to tea imports. However, chairman Pakistan Tea Association (PTA), Khalid Puri offered a different view.

“Legal tea imports are normal. The new craze has not made any difference on tea imports so far,” he said.

“DHA and Clifton have over 100 outlets and one can guess the rising numbers in other parts of the city,” he added.

He said the new tea stalls in Karachi are using loose tea of Rs700-800 per kg.

A taste for tea

Pakistanis sip 240,000 tonnes of black tea in which 200,000 arrive through legal channels while the rest is smuggled tea.

According to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), tea imports in July-October 2017 fell by eight per cent to 64,267 tonnes ($184 million) versus 70,048 tonnes ($172m), up by seven per cent in value. Mr Puri said imports have slightly fallen due to old stocks in the market.

Import bill of tea in 2016-2017 reached $524m (197,158 tonnes) from $513m (173,785 tonnes) in 2015-2016.

On the contrary, some Pakhtun tea-stall owners have started renovating their outlets with improved lighting and new furniture/tables to compete with the newcomers.

However, some Pakhtun tea-stall owners when contacted said they do not feel threatened over the surging numbers of new tea stalls.

“Our clientele is intact from morning till evening. Even during night-time our customers are coming at normal pace,” says one old-school proprietor.

“Many customers have become accustomed to the taste of our particular man making tea at our tea stalls and these customers do not go to new stalls,” he said confidently claiming that everything from tea to milk is same in both the new and old tea stalls. Only the environment is attracting the young generation at these new tea stalls, coupled with French fries and different varieties of parathas. Some have also started offering biryani at Rs100 per plate.

“We only offer cardamom tea and doodhpatti rather than flavoured tea or other snacks and meals,” said one traditional tea-stall owner.

Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2017