Aujla's is a recently relaunched Indian teahouse offering delicious food (Samosas! Daal! Fish sandwiches! Roti!) and drinks from inside of Bode Tailor Shop in the Lower East Side at 56 Hester Street.
The menu is delectably simple, highlighting Indian cuisine staples that work both as snacks and meals, but it's the cardamom-infused coffee that is endemic to the South Asian country that mostly excites us.
Aaron Aujla, the destination's owner and husband to Emily Bode—the owner of the above-mentioned tailor shop—inherited a coffee maker from Classic Coffee Shop, the previous tenant, which he now uses to make the Indian-style java drinks infused with ground cardamom, served both hot and cold.
When asked about the inspiration behind his unique cup of coffee, Aujla references his ancestors, who immigrated from Punjab to Canada in the 1930s. "Part of assimilating to Western culture was using [the ingredients] that were available," he says, explaining that his grandmother would use Folger's instant coffee and infuse it with the spice. "The whole point of it is that it is everyday coffee but it is spiced so it reminded my grandparents of home."
At Aujla's, the store owner uses a drip version of Folger's and, although the proper way to serve it would be to first heat it in a pot with milk and sugar, he offers it to patrons as-is. "People add oat milk to it and such," he says.
