The Fine Things

Nothing quite beats the sheer tactile luxury of ink curving on paper under the gold-plated nib of a perfectly balanced handcrafted pen. An Indian brand making a mark in this niche is industry veteran Arun Singhi’s ‘Lotus’. Widely sought by collectors and enthusiasts, Lotus pens are custom made in materials like Japanese ebonite, buffalo horn, tortoise shell, steel, copper, titanium, and carbon fibre. Collector Sanjeev Prakash rates Lotus as one of the world’s top 5 handcrafted luxury pen brands. This September, Lotus produced nine handcrafted pens with miniature paintings of Ganesha, priced at Rs 63,000 each; they sold out in 45 minutes. Donesh Jain of Makoba, a chain of luxury pen stores, says this pen is the world’s first hand-carved and handpainted one, and the most expensive Indian one. This pen certainly speaks volumes before it writes.

The gasp that accompanies the unboxing of this sari is the best assertion of its exquisite craft. The subtle geometrical motifs of the Jamdani weave and the pure gold and silver zari work appear suspended on diaphanous muslin; the sari weighs a mere 500 gm (200 gm if you take out the weight of zari). The fabric is woven with single ply of 100-count cotton—a yarn so fine that a square inch of weave has 100 strands and can only be done by hand. Mohammad Shoaib, one the few skilled weavers of Banaras who can work with such fine yarn, took six months to handcraft this one-of-a-kind piece, designed by the Kolkata-based Swati and Sunaina, who are reviving the slow and extremely intricate weaving techniques of Banaras. Bearing the Persian name ‘Aks’, which means reflection, the sari, priced at Rs 6.8 lakh, is just that: a reflection of the sophisticated grandeur of the Banarasi weave.

Besides Indian single malts, another spirit is creating a buzz. A bunch of well-travelled hipsters are creating lively expressions of craft gins—which employ steeping of live botanicals in alcohol to give them a distinct flavour—out of Goa, using Indian ingredients. “It makes sense as India is home to many botanicals used for gins across the globe,” says Chicago-based master sommelier Fernando Beteta. For instance, Anand Virmani’s ‘Hapusa’ uses Himalayan juniper berries instead of Macedonian ones, the primary ingredient of gin. Aditya Aggarwal’s ‘Samsara’ uses rose petals, cardamom and hemp; and Stranger & Sons, set up by Sakshi Saigal, Rahul Mehra and Vidur Gupta, employs Gondhoraj lemon. Ansh Khanna, known for his distinct versions of Jin Jiji, a ‘for export’ gin, uses tulsi, cashew nuts, and even first-flush Darjeeling Tea. In 2020, the Jin Jiji India Dry Gin won a gold medal at the San Francisco World Spirits Competition which is like, well, the Golden Globes in the gin space. Clearly gin is India’s new genie.

There are premium flavours of tea, and then there is Teabox. During tea-plucking season—from March to June—Kausshal Dugarr and his team taste and pick the best of the produce directly from gardens all over India. The tea is then hand-sorted and the top grade leaves packed with all the bells and whistles—custom-designed boxes, specific steeping instructions and tasting notes. The best single-estate teas start from Rs 45,000 a kg. In 2019, Teabox crafted India’s most expensive tea at Rs 2 lakh a kg. Just 4 kg of the Badamtam Moonlight Heritage Spring White Tea was produced after tasting 241 teas from 20 tea estates. This year’s batch is priced at Rs 1.6 lakh a kg. The pale gold tea is redolent with floral exuberance and has a lingering fruity aftertaste. It has so much flavour that the leaves are good enough to be steeped four-six times, with certain flavours getting pronounced with each steeping. Teabox is also launching a special range of bottled spring water to steep the tea in. “This water, bottled at the sources of the springs at the Namring, Goomtee and Jungpana tea estates, has high oxygen levels and a balance of minerals, which help unravel the subtle notes of tea,” says A.K. Gomden, Chief Tea Taster at Teabox.