Badaga food from the tea-growing Nilgiri mountains is distinctive from all other Indian tea-inspired cuisines. Tourists drawn to South India are fascinated by the stories of this indigenous tribe that has lived in the Blue Mountains for centuries.
Buddies Cafe in Ooty. This cafe is the largest tea room in India, which features over 220 varieties of tea: artisanal and hand-crafted single-origin teas, orthodox blends, tisanes, and CTC dust. When I first entered the cafe, Nirmal Raj stood next to a wall of transparent glass tea canisters and opened them enthusiastically to allow customers to inhale as he spoke animatedly about each tea. After leaving my non-heated hostel, I chanced upon the cafe, searching for a warmer place to write from. As a shoestring budget backpacker, I had traveled to the Nilgiris tea-growing region on an overnight bus from Bengaluru, India, and soon found myself returning daily to Buddies Cafe.