Indian Beverages: A Guide to Traditional & Modern Indian Drinks

Indian beverages are not simply refreshments. They reflect climate, seasonality, regional ingredients, migration, ritual and the food served alongside them. In Dubai, where dining habits span cultures and non-alcoholic drinks are becoming more considered, these traditions have a particularly interesting place at the table. From Chaas and Aam Panna to Irani Chai and contemporary zero-proof serves, the glass can tell a story as clearly as the plate.

There is something wonderfully unbothered about a good Indian beverage. A glass of Chaas does not need a garnish tower to make its point. Jal Jeera arrives with enough cumin, mint, and spice to wake up the palate on its own. A lassi can be creamy, cool, and indulgent without trying to be anything else. And then there is chai: less a beverage than a standing invitation to sit down, stay a little longer, and have just one more conversation.

In Dubai, non-alcoholic beverages are increasingly being treated as a considered part of the meal rather than simply an alternative to alcohol. The MICHELIN Guide has documented the rise of thoughtful non-alcoholic pairings in the city, from tea infusions and botanicals to fermentation and low-intervention ferments.

At Khadak, that shift is visible in the way Indian ingredients, tea, herbs, and fermentation are used to build drinks with structure rather than sweetness alone.

Why Dubai Is an Interesting City for Indian Beverages

Dubai offers a particularly interesting setting for Indian beverages. Indian food is already part of the city's diverse dining culture, shaped by different cuisines, communities and habits. In a city where people regularly move between cuisines, a beverage can be both familiar and exploratory: Chai can belong to an everyday ritual, while a carefully constructed zero-proof serve can take the same ideas of tea, spice, fruit, or botanicals into a different setting.

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What Makes Indian Beverages Distinctive?

Indian beverages don’t follow a single flavour formula. Some lean creamy and comforting, like Lassi. Others are sharp, savoury, and refreshing, like Jal Jeera or Chaas. Fruit, yoghurt, tea, herbs, spices, citrus, floral ingredients, and regional produce can all take centre stage.

The balance is often what makes them memorable. Cumin can bring warmth to a cooling drink. Black salt can sharpen sweetness. Mint can lift spice. Cardamom can turn a simple cup of tea into something aromatic and deeply comforting.

But the more revealing way to understand Indian drinks is through what surrounds them. A beverage can tell you about the climate of a region, the ingredients that grow there, the foods it accompanies, the season in which it is made, or the communities that carried a recipe from one place to another.

Which Traditional Indian Drinks Should You Know?

The classics are classics for a reason. Rather than turning them into a list of the best Indian drinks, it makes more sense to look at them through their personalities.

1. Chaas, Jal Jeera, and the Art of Refreshment

Chaas is a light, savoury Indian drink made from yogurt, often seasoned with cumin, herbs, and salt. It makes an easy companion to richly spiced food, bringing a cool, clean contrast to the plate.

Jal Jeera takes refreshment in a livelier direction. Cumin, mint, citrus, black salt and spices come together for a drink that is tangy, savoury, and distinctly punchy.

Then there is Nimbu Paani, perhaps the ultimate reminder that simplicity can be seriously satisfying. Lime, water, sweetness or salt, and plenty of ice are all it takes to make one simple yet healthy Indian drink.

2. Lassi, in All Its Creamy Glory

Lassi needs little introduction, but there is more to it than the familiar mango version. Sweet Lassi is one of the most familiar Indian sweet drinks, offering a smooth, cooling richness, while rose, cardamom, saffron, and other ingredients shift the drink from everyday refreshment towards something altogether more indulgent.

For anyone searching for an Indian drink made from yogurt, Lassi and Chaas also show how the same broad ingredient can move in very different directions: one creamy and often sweet, the other light, savoury and designed to sit comfortably alongside food.

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3. Chai With a Side of Conversation

Chai (tea) is one of the most famous Indian drinks. Masala Chai combines black tea, milk, and warming spices, but regional variations give India’s tea culture plenty of personality. Hyderabadi Irani Chai, for instance, is richer and creamier, carrying the influence of the city’s historic Irani cafés.

The drink itself is only half the story. Chai is social. It belongs to breakfast tables, café counters, and long conversations that somehow always need another cup.

4. Indian Drinks Go Beyond Chai and Lassi

If Chai and Lassi are the celebrities of Indian beverages, there is an entire supporting cast waiting for its close-up.

• Kokum-based drinks bring a tart, fruity character from India’s western coast.
• Nannari, a fragrant root syrup, has long featured in cooling drinks in southern India.
• Panakam, traditionally made with jaggery, ginger and spices, offers another example of how simple ingredients can create surprising depth.
• Sol Kadhi, with its distinctive kokum and coconut profile, takes the idea of a refreshing drink somewhere completely different.

There are also regional sharbat traditions, Sattu-based drinks and countless family and community recipes that rarely make it onto international menus. Their value is not that they are obscure; it is that they reveal how many different answers Indian food cultures have developed to the simple question of what to drink.

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Why Indian Beverages Are About More Than Refreshment

The most interesting healthy Indian drinks are often tied to a particular need or moment. Some cool the palate alongside heavily spiced food. Some make use of seasonal produce. Some are built around ingredients that preserve well or thrive in a particular climate. Others become social rituals, where the act of serving the drink matters as much as its flavour.

This is also where Chef Naved Nasir’s philosophy becomes relevant. In an interview with Emirates Woman, he described food as going “beyond taste” to storytelling, nostalgia and bringing people together around a shared experience. His approach to Khadak is built around that same idea: recipes are connected to the people, places and memories from which they came.

What Are Dubai Diners Looking for in a Non-Alcoholic Drink?

At Khadak, the answer is not simply “something without alcohol”. General Manager Anoop Ravindran described a consistent preference among guests for bright, refreshing profiles, with citrus, herbs, and gentle bitterness taking precedence over excessive sweetness.

“Guests want clean, refreshing flavours that feel light but still exciting.”

Ravindran also explained that Khadak builds complexity through technique rather than alcohol: “Instead of relying on alcohol, we work with time, temperature and technique.” He points to cold pressing, maceration and gentle infusions as ways of developing acidity, bitterness and texture gradually.

This observation gives us a useful way to understand the current Dubai beverage conversation. The point is not to make a traditional drink look fashionable. It is to ask what happens when familiar ingredients are given more room to show their structure, aroma and relationship with food.

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Which Indian Beverage Should You Try with Your Meal?

The right choice depends on the food as much as the mood. Rather than treating drinks as an afterthought, consider what each profile can contribute to the meal.

How Are Traditional Indian Drinks Becoming Modern?

Dubai’s current beverage landscape gives traditional Indian ingredients another context. Across the city, restaurants are treating non-alcoholic pairings with greater care, using tea infusions, botanicals, fermentation, carbonation, and clarified serves.

The interesting question, however, is not whether an Indian drink can be made more “modern”. It is whether contemporary technique can reveal something already present in the original ingredient or tradition.

Chaas can be approached as a savoury cooler. Nannari can meet citrus or coconut. Kala Khatta can be translated into a sparkling serve. Tea can become a base for fermentation rather than simply a hot drink. These are not attempts to replace the original traditions; they are different ways of putting familiar Indian flavours into conversation with contemporary beverage technique.

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Discover Indian Beverages Through a Modern Lens at Khadak

This is where the non-alcoholic menu at Khadak Restaurant becomes a useful example rather than a simple menu plug. Its non-alcoholic cocktail menu is divided into two experiences: Unwind and Explore. Unwind works with familiar cocktail formats and gives them an alcohol-free identity; Explore moves further into clarification, fermentation, and less expected combinations.

Unwind

Includes serves such as Ann’s Lavender Persian Tales, where Persian tea meets lavender and vanilla, and Shazia’s Some Like It Hot, combining chilli-mango, lime, agave, and Tajín. Nandu’s Lazy Man Buck brings orange, cinnamon, lemon, and ginger ale into a tall serve, while Rajini’s Piña Colada combines coconut cream, mint, lime and pineapple.

Explore

Takes a more technical route. Clear Mary uses tomato water, pickle, tajin, and celery salt in a clarified savoury serve. Ginger & Lemongrass Kombucha uses fermented Chun Mee tea with ginger and lemongrass, while Gulkhand & Lychee Kombucha brings rose preserve and lychee into the same fermented format. The Berry Espresso Kombucha combines Assam tea, summer berries, and Khadak’s Monsoon Malabar coffee in a triple-fermented drink inspired by South India’s coffee plantations.

Indian beverages have never needed a makeover. They already contain character, contrast, seasonality, regional identity, and social ritual. What is changing is the context in which those qualities are being explored.

Dubai makes that conversation particularly relevant. Its dining culture brings together cuisines and communities from across the world, while its restaurants are increasingly treating non-alcoholic drinks as an intentional part of the meal. For Indian beverages, that creates room to be understood not simply as traditional drinks, but as expressions of place, memory, technique and food culture.

At Khadak, this exploration continues in the glass, where familiar Indian references can sit alongside tea, fermentation, botanicals, and contemporary technique.

Explore non-alcoholic cocktails at Khadak in Jumeirah, Dubai.