Pakistani Tea Culture: Doodh Patti, Kehwa and Noon Chai

Pakistani tea, for most of the country, means strong black tea boiled with milk and sugar: doodh patti when it is brewed in milk alone, plain chai when water goes in too. Travel north and west and the cup changes. In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa people drink kehwa, a light green tea with cardamom; in Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan the everyday tea is pink, salted noon chai. Knowing which is which, and where to drink each, tells you a lot about the place you are in.

This guide covers the main teas of Pakistan, the dhabas and tea houses where people drink them, and how to ask for your cup the way you like it.

How much tea does Pakistan drink?

A great deal, and nearly all of it imported. In the 2024-25 financial year Pakistan imported close to 250,000 tonnes of tea, worth more than USD 600 million, according to Pakistan Bureau of Statistics figures reported by the trade press. Kenya supplies the large majority of it. The country is consistently among the world's biggest tea importers.

Pakistan grows very little of its own. The one place you can see tea bushes is the research estate at Shinkiari near Mansehra, covered in our guide to the Shinkiari tea gardens. The bill is large enough that in 2022, during an economic crisis, the federal planning minister Ahsan Iqbal publicly asked people to drink a cup or two less a day.

For a traveller, that means tea is everywhere and is usually the first thing you are offered in a shop or a home.

What is doodh patti?

Doodh patti means "milk and leaf". Loose black tea, sugar and milk go into the pan together, with no water, and are boiled hard until the tea turns a deep brown and the milk thickens. It is richer and stronger than ordinary chai, and it is what most dhabas serve unless you ask for something else.

Ordinary chai at home or in a hotel is lighter: tea is brewed in water, then milk and sugar go in, either in the pan or at the table. Larger hotels often bring a tea bag, hot water and a jug of milk instead.

A few other words help:

• Kadak means strong, boiled longer.
• Malai is the skin of cream from the top of the milk pan, sometimes floated on top as a treat.
• Cheeni kam is less sugar, and cheeni ke baghair is no sugar at all. Dhaba tea is sweet by default, so say it when you order.

Where do Pakistanis drink tea? Dhabas and tea houses

The heart of Pakistani tea culture is the dhaba: an open-front café with plastic chairs or charpais, a big pan always on the boil, and parathas and omelettes coming off the tawa. In Karachi, writers in Dawn and elsewhere have traced how Pashtun-run dhabas, many of them called "Quetta hotels" after the city their owners came from, took over the space once held by the old Irani cafés. Quetta Alamgir Hotel on Alamgir Road is one of the best-known, busy late into the night.

On the highways, every rest stop and roadside café runs on tea. A cup of doodh patti and a paratha is the standard driver's breakfast on the GT Road and the motorways, and in the hills it is the reason to stop at almost every bend with a view.

What to expect at a dhaba:

• Tea comes in a small glass or thick cup, very hot and sweet.
• Parathas, fried eggs and rusks are the usual partners, and a few places do nothing else.
• Families are welcome at most, though the busiest late-night dhabas can be crowded with young men. Ask whether there is a family area.

Kehwa: the green tea of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

In Peshawar and across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the tea after a meal is kehwa (also written qehwa): green tea brewed light, with crushed green cardamom and usually sugar, served without milk in small cups. It is meant to settle a heavy meal of karahi or chapli kebab, and most restaurants in KP bring it without being asked.

The place most associated with it is Qissa Khwani Bazaar, the old "Storytellers' Bazaar" of Peshawar, where caravans from Central Asia once stopped and traders swapped news over green tea. Arab News reported in July 2025 on a tea house there, the Qehwa Khana, which oral tradition puts at 120 to 130 years old. The tea is brewed from a brass samovar, and a pot of about two cups cost around PKR 50 at the time. Our guide to Peshawar's famous food covers the rest of a day of eating in the city.

Outside Peshawar, kehwa turns up after meals in restaurants across KP, and many hotels in the northern valleys offer it alongside milk tea.

Kashmiri chai and noon chai: why is it pink?

Pink tea starts with green tea, usually the rolled "gunpowder" kind, boiled for a long time with a pinch of baking soda. The long boil and the soda turn the tea a deep red. Milk is added and the tea is aerated by pouring it from a height or ladling it repeatedly, which turns it pink and slightly frothy.

There are two versions, and they are not the same drink:

• Noon chai, from the word for salt, is the everyday tea of Kashmiri homes. It is salted, not sweet, and drunk with breads such as kulcha and bakarkhani. In Azad Kashmir you will find it in Muzaffarabad's bazaars and homes in the Neelum valley; our guide to the traditional food of Azad Kashmir covers what comes with it.
• Kashmiri chai as sold in Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad is the sweet, festive version, usually finished with crushed pistachios and almonds. It is a wedding and winter drink, sold from big pans at stalls on cold evenings.

AJK has had serious unrest in 2026, including protests in June that left dozens dead and long phone and internet shutdowns, and the UK advises against all travel within 10 miles of the Line of Control, which covers most of the Neelum valley. Check the current situation before you go.

Salt tea and butter tea in the north

In Gilgit-Baltistan the everyday tea is salted and often pink, much like Kashmiri noon chai, and in Baltistan you may be offered gur-gur chai, black tea churned with butter and salt in a tall wooden cylinder. Hunza also has tumoro, a wild herb tea with no tea leaves at all. All three are covered in our guide to the traditional teas of Gilgit-Baltistan. Ask for "sada" or sweet chai if salt tea is not for you; every hotel will make it.

How do you get the tea you want?

A few simple habits make life easier:

• Say the sugar first, before the pan goes on, not after.
• Ask for doodh patti by name if you want it strong and milky.
• Ask for kehwa in KP restaurants if it does not arrive on its own. It is almost always available.
• Accept a cup when offered. In homes and shops, tea is how hospitality is shown. A polite refusal is fine, but most people accept at least one.

Which tea should you try where?

You already know doodh patti, so try what changes as you travel. Drink kehwa after a meal anywhere in KP. Try salt tea once in Hunza or Skardu, even if you go back to sweet tea afterwards. Have a cup of sweet Kashmiri chai at a winter stall in Lahore or Islamabad. And on any road trip north, a dhaba stop for tea and a paratha is part of the drive.

People who cannot take much caffeine, or who need to avoid sugar, should know that tea arrives constantly and sweet by default; it is easier to say so at the start than to keep refusing. Our experiences page shows how food and stops like these fit into our trips.

Frequently asked questions