With a climate as varied and extreme as India, the people require a myriad options to keep their thirst appropriately quenched according to the weather conditions, varying from steaming hot drinks during winters to frosty cold drinks in summers. Different regions in the country serve drinks made with an eclectic assortment of ingredients including local spices, flavors and herbs. Available on the streets, as well as on the menus of posh hotels, these drinks add to the flavorful cuisine of India.
This is the consumption of drinks per capita per year in India in 2021 by drink type excluding water and juices. [1]
Drink type | Per capita consumption (liter) |
---|---|
Hot drinks | 70 |
Dairy drinks | 34 |
Soft drinks | 20 |
Bottled water | 6 |
Alcoholic drink | 4 |
Total | 134 |
Both tea and coffee contain caffeine and tannin. Comparatiely, coffee has more caffeine and less tannin than tea, whereas tea has more tannin and less caffeine than coffee.
The alphabetised list of native traditional drinks is as follows:
Alphabetised list of non-traditional drinks in India.
Ginger ale is a carbonated soft drink flavoured with ginger. It is consumed on its own or used as a mixer, often with spirit-based drinks. There are two main types of ginger ale. The golden style is credited to the Irish doctor Thomas Joseph Cantrell. The dry style, a paler drink with a much milder ginger flavour, was created by Canadian John McLaughlin.
Indian cuisine consists of a variety of regional and traditional cuisines native to the Indian subcontinent. Given the diversity in soil, climate, culture, ethnic groups, and occupations, these cuisines vary substantially and use locally available spices, herbs, vegetables, and fruits.
Pakistani cuisine can be characterized as a blend of regional cooking styles and flavours from across South, Central and West Asia. Pakistani cuisine is influenced by Persian, Indian, and Arab cuisine. The cuisine of Pakistan also maintains certain Mughal influences within its recipes and cooking techniques. Pakistan's ethnic and cultural diversity, diverse climates, geographical environments, and availability of different produce lead to diverse regional cuisines.
Punjabi cuisine is a culinary style originating in the Punjab, a region in the northern part of South Asia, which is now divided in an Indian part to the east and a Pakistani part to the west. This cuisine has a rich tradition of many distinct and local ways of cooking.
Assamese cuisine is the cuisine of the Indian state of Assam. It is a style of cooking that is a confluence of cooking habits of the hills that favour fermentation and drying as forms of preservation and those from the plains that provide extremely wide variety of fresh vegetables and greens, and an abundance of fish and meat. Both are centred on the main ingredient — rice. It is a mixture of different indigenous styles with considerable regional variations and some external influences. The traditional way of cooking and the cuisine of Assam is very similar to South-East Asian countries such as Thailand, Burma (Myanmar) and others. The cuisine is characterized by very little use of spices, little cooking over fire, and strong flavours due mainly to the use of endemic exotic fruits and vegetables that are either fresh, dried or fermented. Fish is widely used, and birds like duck, pigeon, squab, etc. are very popular, which are often paired with a main vegetable or ingredient; beef used to be eaten before British colonialism, and some continue to do so. Preparations are rarely elaborate. The practice of bhuna, the gentle frying of spices before the addition of the main ingredients so common in Indian cooking, is absent in the cuisine of Assam. The preferred oil for cooking is the pungent mustard oil.
Salvadoran cuisine is a style of cooking derived from the nation of El Salvador. The indigenous foods consist of a mix of Amerindian cuisine from groups such as the Lenca, Pipil, Maya Poqomam, Maya Chʼortiʼ, Alaguilac and Cacaopera peoples and some African influences. Many of the dishes are made with maize (corn). There is also heavy use of pork and seafood. European ingredients were incorporated after the Spanish conquest.
Bhojpuri cuisine is a style of food preparation common among the Bhojpuri people of Bihar, Jharkhand and eastern Uttar Pradesh in India, and also the Terai region of Nepal. Bhojpuri foods are mostly mild and tend to be less hot in terms of spices used. The cuisine consists of both vegetable and meat dishes.
Chaas is a curd-based drink popular across the Indian subcontinent. In Magahi and Bundeli, it is called Mattha. In Rajasthani it is called ghol, in Odia it is called Ghol/Chaash,moru in Tamil and Malayalam, taak in Marathi, majjiga in Telugu, majjige in Kannada, ale in Tulu and ghol in Bengali. In Indian English, it is often referred to as buttermilk.
The cuisine of Bahrain consists of dishes such as biryani, harees, khabeesa, machboos, mahyawa, quzi and zalabia. Arabic coffee (qahwah) is the national beverage.
Ginger tea is a herbal beverage that is made from ginger root. It has a long history as a traditional herbal medicine in East Asia, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and West Asia.
Doodh pati chai is a tea beverage, originating from the Indian subcontinent, consumed in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Nepal in which milk, together with sugar, is boiled with tea. Doodh pati is different from saada chai, in that it only uses milk and tea. This tea is quite common in South Asia. It is marginally costlier than the regular, water-based saada chai.
Malaysian Indian cuisine, or the cooking of the ethnic Indian communities in Malaysia, consists of adaptations of authentic dishes from India, as well as original creations inspired by the diverse food culture of Malaysia. Because the vast majority of Malaysia's Indian community are of South Indian descent, and are mostly ethnic Tamils who are descendants of immigrants from a historical region which consists of the modern Indian state of Tamil Nadu and Sri Lanka's Northern Province, much of Malaysian Indian cuisine is predominantly South Indian-inspired in character and taste. A typical Malaysian Indian dish is likely to be seasoned with curry leaves and whole and powdered spice, and to contain fresh coconut in various forms. Ghee is still widely used for cooking, although vegetable oils and refined palm oils are now commonplace in home kitchens. Before a meal it is customary to wash hands as cutlery is often not used while eating, with the exception of a serving spoon for each respective dish.
Masala chai is a popular beverage throughout South Asia, originating in India. It is made by brewing black tea in milk and water, and then by sweetening with sugar. Adding aromatic herbs and spices creates masala chai.
Sharbat is a drink prepared from fruit or flower petals. It is a sweet cordial, and usually served chilled. It can be served in concentrated form and eaten with a spoon or diluted with water to create the drink.
lassi is available at almost every other street shop from morning till wee hours of the night. It is served in a kulhad topped with Rabri and flavoured with rose essence