Biryani Chai, disco tea and Zafrani brew from the Al Hara cafe in Karama, Dubai
Photo credit: Stefan Lindeque / Gulf News photographer
Al Hara, a vintage tea shop in Karama Hamdan Colony, manned 24/7 with a group of die-hard tea addicts from across the city, fits the spirit of Dubai as the city that never sleeps.
Measure life in teaspoons
Al Hara cafe owners treat Biryani Chai as their trade secret
Photo credit: Stefan Lindeque / Gulf News photographer
Al Hara is the second hangout for this tribe looking for familiar flavors and with odd hours of service like courier boys, limo drivers, taxi drivers, vendors, and even neighborhood people, flavors that a single sip of tea recovers in their head.
An indispensable cup of energy
Indian expatriate Shrirang Jahagirdar, an executive at a healthcare company, has been visiting the tea shop for 12 years. “Since moving to Dubai from Mumbai, I’ve longed for a taste, an aroma, an ethos that reminded me of my place at home. Al Hara does that. I just need to have at least one cup of their special disco tea, which is a unique blend of ginger, some tea spices like cinnamon, cooked to a perfect consistency and mixed with milk. A sip of this tea will drive away tiredness all day long. I have it when I start my day or when I return home after a day at work. The staff is so good that they will treat you with so much respect and familiarity that it feels like I have come home. “
Mickey Bhatia and Himanshu Chopra, two friends from Jalandhar, India, are limo drivers for a car rental company who religiously meet at the tea shop to start their day
Photo credit: Stefan Lindeque / Gulf News photographer
Al Hara, a love work
At Al Hara, the secret of their lively business per hour lies in the eight types of tea
Stefan Lindeque / Gulf News photographer
Founded 23 years ago in 1998 by four Thandrapally cousins from Kozhikode, Kerala, India, Hara means hot or spicy in Arabic. It lives up to its name as it serves not just one, but a spectrum of 8 different types of beer, all of which were created by four brilliant cousins.
The South Asian cup of tea is not a slam dunk affair. As with fast food, making tea quickly these days means bringing the water to a boil in a kettle, pouring it into a mug, dipping it in a tea bag, stirring in milk and sugar, and that’s your mild, boiled, line-up tea. At Al Hara, the secret of their lively business per hour lies in the eight types of tea.
You can order a variety of teas – the regular Masala, Sada, Suleimani, Zafrani, and Karak, which are also available elsewhere. Beyond the regular varieties, the store is getting seriously creative and has three more outrageous varieties – biryani, disco and ginger sada on the menu. Each strain is really a studied genre, created with a little love, passion and creativity, tweaking the spices with different brewing times, resulting in strong or light tea leaves laced with honey, lemon or ginger that result in different flavors .
Usman Tharandapally Soofy and his son Afzal Thandrapally run the Al Hara cafeteria on a daily basis
Photo credit: Stefan Lindeque / Gulf News
Biryani tea
The owners have made tea brewing a sacrosanct art. For example, their biryani tea, which is an all-time favorite with many customers, is a flavorful, non-milky blend of well-boiled water soaked in chopped ginger. It has a hint of cinnamon and pepper in the taste, is garnished with fresh mint leaves and mixed with the juice of fresh lemons and a generous dash of honey. Of course, there is one secret ingredient that the tea store doesn’t want to reveal. The organic blend of all these ingredients creates a tea that is so invigorating that many swear by it. The taste has a sweet, sour and spicy taste and really a “pick-me-up” note that drives away tiredness.
The next time you need that little boost to your system, a boost in your mood, and a momentum in your stride, you may need to drive past Al Hara and have a cup of one of their invigorating teas
Photo credit: Stefan Lindeque / Gulf News photographer
In the Sada or Plain category, you can choose between ginger sada and plain sada, which are cooked to a strong potency where the brew with milk looks almost like a deep orange. The zafrani with a generous amount of aromatic saffron strands swirling in the teacup can warm the deepest cockles of every heart on a winter evening.
Go to the cafe every hour and it is full of raw energy
The early morning is busiest. Every morning during rush hour, Usman Tharandapally Soofy, one of the four brothers who own the company, comes in to help out his son Afzal Thandrapally and a group of 16 tea servers.
Biryani Chai is one of the many popular teas available at Al Hara Café
Photo credit: Stefan Lindeque / Gulf News photographer
Soofy, who has lived in the United Arab Emirates for 35 years, tells of the time he was a tea boy in his father’s shop at Meena Bazaar Abra Station. “As a tea boy, I knew exactly what people liked. I was in this job for seven years before I decided to open Al Hara with my cousin brothers Abdulla, Mahmood and Ahmed. Together we worked on the flavors and developed the varieties. Biryani Chai was my idea and it’s one of the most popular on our menu today. In all honesty, tea making is what I know and that’s why I still love coming to the store and being part of the daily thrill, ”said the old man with a mixture of pride and humility.
As a tea boy, I knew exactly what people liked. I was in this job for seven years before I decided to open Al Hara with my cousin brothers Abdulla, Mahmood and Ahmed. Together we worked on the flavors and developed the varieties. Biryani Chai was my idea and it’s one of the most popular on our menu today. Honestly, tea making is what I know and that’s why I still love coming into the store and being part of the daily thrill
– Usman Tharandapally Soofy, co-miracle of Al Hara Cafe
While he and his son oversee preparations in the tiny kitchen, they make sure that the place is swept and mopped perfectly. The mint leaves are crushed, the ginger peeled and washed along with whole lemons to prepare for the rush of orders that come in waves. In the meantime, the other hands in the kitchen are preparing the ingredients for other breakfast items. The club sandwich is very popular and in the evening the falafel is on request.
Club sandwich and falafel are great accompaniments
Mickey Bhatia and Himanshu Chopra, two friends from Jalandhar, India, are limo drivers for a car rental company who religiously meet at the tea shop to start their day. “We love the club sandwich and the disco tea. Just the best breakfast for us to keep going through the day. We meet here again in the evening for a quick snack when we finish our service and then return home, ”said Bhatia, who came to Dubai from Jalandhar, India seven years ago. “The Al Hara tea is just like what we had in Jalandhar and the club sandwich is the best in town. Sometimes we have a falafel in the evenings, ”said Chopra.
The Al Hara tea is just like what we had in Jalandhar and the club sandwich is the best in town. Sometimes we also have a falafel in the evening
– Himanshu Chopra, driver for rental cars
The tea servers Mohammad Rafique and Abdul Rahman from India and Mohammad Zeb from Bangladesh are among the 16 servers that work in shifts. They scurry around in the neighboring parking lot, taking orders and delivering tea and snacks at double the speed.
The art and science of tea brewing
Afzal Thandrapally prepares tea for a customer
Photo credit: Stefan Lindeque / Gulf News photographer
The two tea makers in the cafeteria are enthusiastic about the art and science of tea brewing. They clean and refill the samovar, which is never removed from the burner; They know the exact temperature at which their brew has to be cooked, the different strengths of the tea leaves from mild to moderate to pure thunder. The boys laboriously brew tea all day and patiently wait for the right aroma to flow through. The time to add milk or sugar is like being set in stone. The effect of all this concentration is the perfect cup of tea that people rush to hara for. The cafeteria is so popular that it now has four branches in Karama, said Soofy.
The next time you need that little boost to your system, an edge in your mood, and a momentum in your stride. You may need to drive past Al Hara and have a cup of one of their invigorating teas.