JUGMUG JAMURA

Disclaimer: Let me start the way I start all my articles with a disclaimer. I did not get paid for this article, doing it because I like this venture and I like the person behind it, Jiten, and I will call him Jamura for the rest of the article.

Disclaimer 2: Just because I did not get paid for this does not mean I don’t intend to charge for writing later on in life when my blog has a better Alexa rating (I know you won’t understand Alexa, all are not as bright after all, but you can continue reading as I am sure you can comprehend simple English).

Disclaimer 3: When I experienced Jugmug Thela at the Fashion week, I told him that I will write about you and here nineteen months later penning it down.

Jiten-Gujju-Jamura

Jiten is a simple hardworking person whose venture will become big soon, I am sure, I can spot future success. He has done a lot of right things and I will talk about it in my article below. In the next three paragraphs let us read verbatim what Jiten has to say and then I will share my version.

Jiten’s version starts:

“My Chai drinking career began in Ahmedabad – where the chai reigns supreme – and is not just a cuppa’, it’s at the heart of the street culture that the city if famous for. Kitli (Gujju for Kettle) – are small street corners with a chai shop where friends gather to talk and hang out. You could be pulling in a BMW or on Moped, you meet people at the street level and often engage with the many other strangers you’ll meet there. When I came to Delhi, I automatically felt a void in my routine by the absence of proper Masala Chai on the street sides – and more so the culture of all sorts of young and working people socialising at Chai shops.

Until my late twenties, I wasn’t really a coffee person – the coffee I knew had only three names – Nescafe from a click-button vending machine, South Indian Filter coffee and Wedding functions cocoa powder topped Expresso. None excited me, not even the trendy coffee shops that had been emerging in the city by that time. But my relationship with coffee changed on the during a break from cycling on the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. I discovered, quite by chance the unsurpassed joy of Ca Phe Su Da, or the Vitenamese Iced Coffee. What began with iced Coffee in Vietnam, ended with a fantastic trip from Asia into Europe with me downing straight espresso’s on the streets of Belem in Portugal and learning to properly brew fresh coffee at home in Paris. I had understood and developed a love for coffee from places where coffee is not a cup, it’s a religion.

So finally when I returned to Delhi in 2012, what I missed most was not so much the masala chai from Ahmedabad or espresso habit I picked up in Europe ~ What I really missed was the culture surrounding these daily cups – the passion that you see in people who make it, the obsession in people who drink it, the life and atmosphere that is unmissable in and around the streetside places that serve it.

Jugmug Thela is a very personal attempt to bring back the love, the passion, the obsession back into each cup. To remind people of the possibilities of open social experiences in an open public thela versus the privacy of staring at your laptop in an air conditioned glass walled wi-fi enabled coffee shops. To let people discover through our beverages the several different ways people drink Chai and Coffee around the country and the world.

Ultimately, Jugmug Thela is love letter to every street side chai shop I have ever had Chai at, It’s a homage to every passionate barista who has ever made a cup of coffee for me and it’s a note of gratitude to every stranger who has ever started a conversation with me at chai/coffee shop.”

Jiten’s version ends.

As an experienced marketer and a business person, I was pretty impressed by the strategy and as a foodie, I loved his stuff and the simplicity with which it is presented, in the good old fashioned way.

Jugmug Thela as he calls his venture is now a name that any event company, people in the party circuit, people from art, fashion or other walks of life would now know. I have had the privilege of using his services for all the event that happen at the pero studio and I can only say that I fall in love with the offerings every time I am at the Thela.

He has an innovative bent of mind, keeps adding simple and interesting things to his menu, keeps them organic and pricing very very affordable.

One recent encounter with Jiten revealed something which again shows how humble he is. His cafe- place of work had no air-conditioning (he also has a carpentry workshop there- does beautiful furniture as well) and hence he decided to do away with the air-conditioners at home as well so that he does not feel uncomfortable at work. He says that he loves to live the way he grew up; without air-conditioners.

So next time you are at Champa Gali, do visit Jugmug Thela (which now has air-conditioned seating). I am sure you would bump into him and have a nice chat with him over coffee or tea.

Sharing the google pin for the place: https://goo.gl/maps/bRAH8Dqmp8v

Adding some images from the visit last Sunday.