Hyderabad has one of the most distinctive chai cultures in India — and its origins are not Indian at all. Irani café culture arrived in the city in the early twentieth century, brought by Zoroastrian (Parsi) merchants from Iran via Mumbai. The cafes they established — with their marble-topped tables, bentwood chairs, and unhurried atmosphere — became the intellectual and social meeting places of the Nizam's city. The tea they served became Hyderabadi.
Irani chai is prepared using a double-vessel system: tea brews separately from the milk, and the two are combined to order. The milk used is not fresh — it is khoya (reduced, slow-cooked milk solids dissolved back into water), which gives Irani chai a thick, almost creamy sweetness impossible to replicate with regular milk. The result is unlike anything you will drink in Delhi or Mumbai.
The Osmania Biscuit: Born to Be Dunked
Hyderabad's other great contribution to chai culture is the Osmania biscuit — named after the last Nizam, Mir Osman Ali Khan. It is a crisp, slightly sweet, slightly salty biscuit with a hint of milk-fat richness. It was specifically designed, according to local oral history, to complement and survive dunking in Irani chai without immediately disintegrating.
This is not mythology: the ratio of fat to flour in Osmania biscuits gives them a structural integrity that holds for several seconds in hot liquid — long enough to absorb flavour without losing form. They are available from bakeries throughout Hyderabad's Old City and at every Irani café.
The Irani Cafes of the Old City
The original Irani cafes cluster around Charminar, the 16th-century mosque-and-minaret that is Hyderabad's most recognisable landmark. The most celebrated is Nimrah Café, directly adjacent to the Charminar — its Irani chai is Hyderabad's unofficial civic beverage.
Nimrah opens at 5am and operates through breakfast rush with extraordinary efficiency: a constant flow of Irani chai poured into glasses, Osmania biscuits dispensed from large tins, the café filling and emptying in twenty-minute cycles of locals who have been coming here for decades.
Café Bahar (Himayatnagar) and Shadab Hotel (Ghansi Bazaar) represent the second tradition — more substantial café-restaurants that serve Irani chai alongside Hyderabadi biryani, haleem, and kebabs.
The Double-Decoction Method
Watching an experienced Irani chai maker work is instructive. The tea is brewed in one vessel — strong, long, with low-grade Assam CTC — until it is almost black. In a second vessel, the khoya milk has been dissolving slowly over low heat. When the order comes, a small quantity of the black tea concentrate is combined with the white khoya mixture, the proportions adjusted to the customer's preference.
The result is a beverage with a body and sweetness that standard chai cannot replicate. First-time visitors often describe it as closer to hot condensed milk than to tea — which is not inaccurate, and entirely the point.
“📍 South IndiaHyderabad's Irani chai is a 100-year-old immigrant who has become more local than anything in the city. The Nizam never tasted it. His great-grandchildren drink nothing else.