Picnic spots from school days. Store keepers that feel like family. Trees that have watched you grow. So many little worlds unfold when you stroll down a street in Delhi. 🌟 Through #BlueTokaiCommunityStories, we love seeing the city the way you do. The next time you’re in our cafes in Malviya Nagar, Hauz Khas, Vasant Vihar, GK II, or Defence Colony, look out for the maps we’ve put up there. See what others have shared, and leave a photo or a note of your own. And if there’s a story from your gali you wish more people knew about or a landmark from your neighbourhood that makes it feel more like home, we’d love to hear about it. Our DMs are always open!👀 [neighbourhood stories, blue tokai brews, community stories, stories over coffee] #BlueTokaiCommunityStories
If you’ve ever visited our Sikanderpur cafe, you’re sure to have met Sheba. She joined us in 2021 as a senior barista and is now the first woman to manage one of our 24x7 cafés. A little known fact is that she makes delicious seviyan and is the reason so many of our customers stick to visiting the Sikanderpur cafe even if it’s out of their way. Did we mention she’s also an exceptional barista? We love this video of hers for a number of reasons but also as a reminder that baristas work hard to ensure customers have a good day even if they may be having a tough one. 💙 #teambluetokai #peopleofbluetokai #teambluetokai #peopleofbluetokai
Our journey of celebrating stories close to home brings us to Khirki Extension and to Pooja at Khoj Studios. 💙 What began in 1997 as a small gathering of artists has grown into a home for experimentation, curiosity, and ideas that don’t always arrive fully formed. Since 2002, Khoj has lived inside an old industrial building. People here are drawn not just by the art, but also the architecture. Inside, five studios open into a courtyard where performances, screenings, and discussions are a regular sight. Visiting artists stay for weeks at a time, sharing work that often spills into the lane and draws in curious neighbours. So, the next time you’re at our Malviya Nagar café, walk around. You might just stumble onto a rehearsal, a mural-in-progress, or a moment becoming art. ✨ P.S. Know a place in your neighbourhood with a story worth telling? DM us a photo and tell us why it matters. 💛
Tried our new cakes, cookies, and rolls yet? 👀 You'll taste the warmth of cinnamon and nutmeg in one bake and the richness of sesame and fennel in another. Some bear the comforting zing of ginger; others carry the sweetness of fresh carrots and green apples. The range brings together the season's most comforting flavours. Tell us your favourites in the comments! 💙
This week at the Blue Tokai Book Club, we’re curling up with ‘Volcano’- The Collected Poems of Eunice de Souza, handpicked for us by the lovely folks at Trilogy Bookshop & Library. A beloved professor at St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai, De Souza writes with unflinching clarity, mining her own life for truths that singe. The opening poem, “Catholic Mother”, strikes with quiet force. “Marriages Are Made” exposes societal expectations of women with wry, unsparing precision. “Sweet Sixteen” and “Feeding the Poor at Christmas” cut with humour like a scalpel, playful, pointed, and piercing. With “Bequest”, De Souza confronts herself with startling honesty. She longs to be a “wise woman”, smiling endlessly and emptily like a plastic flower. In that candour, she reveals that self-love is radical and necessary, a gift we give ourselves and even our enemies. The real reckoning, she reminds us, begins within. Reading Volcano feels like holding a mirror to all the silences: literary, personal, and inherited, we let persist. Her work makes us think about faith, womanhood, and the unsaid. You leave her poems a little scorched but also a little more awake. Reading along? Tell us your favourite excerpts in the comments. #btbookclub #bookrecommendations #bluetokaibrews #btbookclub #bookrecommendations #bluetokaibrews
#BlueTokaiCommunityStories Continuing our series celebrating stories close to home, this one belongs to Mohit and Seema. 🌟 In 1978, their father, Prem Ji, cycled through the lanes of Hauz Khas with nothing but a basket of cauliflowers balanced on the back of his bicycle. That basket grew into what is now known as Prem Vegetable Stand, a familiar corner that has fed the neighbourhood for nearly five decades. Nothing here ever goes to waste; unsold greens find their way into the hands of friends or the compost pit at home. The scraps return to the soil, becoming fertiliser for the trees that shade the very street they sit on. So, the next time you’re at our Hauz Khas café, follow the scent of fresh produce and say hi to them. P.S. Got a neighbourhood story you love? DM us a photo and tell us what makes it special.💙 #BlueTokaiCommunityStories
