Ahmedabad received UNESCO World Heritage City status in 2017 — the first Indian city to do so — on the strength of its extraordinary pol system (the ancient neighbourhood clusters of carved wooden havelis that line its old city lanes) and its layered Hindu, Jain, and Muslim architectural heritage.
It also has one of the most distinctive breakfast cultures in India, anchored by a pairing that Gujaratis treat as practically a constitutional right: fafda-jalebi-chai.
The Fafda-Jalebi-Chai Breakfast
Fafda is a crisp, golden chickpea-flour snack fried in ghee, sold in long strips from flat pans at dawn. Jalebi — spirals of fermented batter fried and dipped in saffron sugar syrup — is the sweet counterpoint. The chai is the mediating third element, slightly sweeter than standard masala chai, with more fennel than ginger, and a softness that bridges the salty crunch of the fafda and the overwhelming sweetness of the jalebi.
This breakfast is eaten standing up, from paper plates, in the streets of the pol neighbourhoods between 7am and 10am. By 10am the fafda stalls are gone.
Where to find it: The old city pols — particularly around Kavi Dalpatram Chowk and near the Jama Masjid — have the oldest and most authentic stalls. Chandulal Fafda on Relief Road has been operating since 1951 and is the most famous individual vendor.
The Pol Neighbourhoods at Dawn
Ahmedabad's pol system — interlocking private residential neighbourhoods entered through a single arched gateway — creates a pattern of urban intimacy unlike anything else in India's cities. Within the pols, the lanes are too narrow for cars, the havelis press together at their upper storeys, and the morning activity — chai wallahs, vegetable vendors, the call to prayer from the nearby mosque — moves through the enclosed space with an echo that feels centuries old.
Walking the old city between 6am and 8am, with a cup of Gujarati chai, before the tourist crowds arrive, is one of India's most quietly extraordinary urban experiences.
The Sabarmati Connection
Ahmedabad was the base of Mahatma Gandhi's independence campaigns — his Sabarmati Ashram sits on the riverbank 7km from the old city, and it was from here that he began the famous Dandi Salt March of 1930.
Gandhi himself was a chai drinker (weak, without sugar — consistent with everything else about him). The ashram's small canteen serves a simple chai made in the tradition he preferred: light, honest, without performance. Sitting in the ashram gardens with this cup, looking across the Sabarmati river, is one of the more historically resonant chai experiences in India.
“📍 West IndiaAhmedabad's chai is Gujarati in its restraint — not overwhelming, not assertive, doing exactly what it needs to do and nothing more. Like the city, it rewards patience and attention.