Still stuck in the morass of mass-choosing gifts for your favourite colleagues? Break out of the standardised trap with our curated gift guide, with each product not costing beyond Rs 3,500:
Beverages — from tea to spirits
Moving beyond handmade, 1868 by Tata Tea is a collection of gourmet tea blends infused with spices, flavours, fruits, and flowers that exhibit the diversity of the country’s produce. The flavours include Paan Cardamom, Caramel Green Chilli, Mango Mint, Spicy Guava, and Darjeeling Spring Blossom, Darjeeling Rare Wonder, among several others.
Price: Rs 350-1,500; visit: www.tatatea1868.com
Iśvara Herb Basket Tea hamper contains caffeine-free tisane with a floral base and hints of spices. The gift package includes tisane, which is a blend of hibiscus, lavender buds, rose, cardamom, cloves, and orange peel; handmade bronze Kāṃsya bronze tea strainer, Iśvara Himalayan forest honey, three petite candles, a Sheshan wood teaspoon, and a gift box.
Price: Rs 1,400; visit: www.isvara.in
Rage coffee is all the rage among millennials. Its gift hamper includes four different kinds of coffee, including Irish Hazelnut, Creme Caramel and Butterscotch Delight.
Price: Rs 1,699
Stranger and Son’s Four Pillars Gin — Spice Trade Gin and Trading Tides — are a collaboration between two contemporary distilleries. Spice Trade Gin has flavours of turmeric, lime, teppal, long peppers, red chilli, and black cardamom. Trading Tides is infused with Australian lemon myrtle, anise myrtle, and river mint along with the Indian flavours of mangosteen, kokum, and tamarind.
Price: Rs 3,500 each; visit: www.strangerandsons.com
Rock Paper Rum is made with locally sourced sugarcane and artfully blended with rare botanicals. It is refreshingly woody and sweet with a hint of vanilla.
Price: Rs 1,500
Sober & Co’s cocktail mixers are made with farm-sourced ingredients such as green apples and rosemary-spiced Australian Sour.
Price: A box of three costs Rs 297
Gourmet larder
Moonshine, the meads guys, have a honey project that which uses a ‘hive to table’ approach. The team has been working with farmers across India to help increase the population of bees. Their unifloral honey — Acacia Honey, Mustard Honey, Sidr Honey— is freshly sourced from their bee boxes
Price: Rs 1,050 each
Chef Vidushi Sharma and Tanya Anand’s Truffle & Co. put out a gourmet range of truffles — Mornings in Rome (Espresso-infused milk chocolate, Kahlua, Almond Biscotti); Asian Zing (White chocolate infused with Sichuan peppercorns and dusted with toasted walnuts), Vesper Martini Truffle (Dark chocolate infused with vodka, gin, and a twist of lime), and Single Malt (Dark chocolate infused with 18-year-old single malt dusted in cocoa powder).
Price: Up to Rs 1,000
Aged in a cheese cave in Victoria Layout in Bengaluru, Chef Manu Chandra’s artisanal cheese venture Begum Victoria is a brand of organic cheese that is handmade, using traditional methods and A2 milk—with high-fat content and beta-Carotene—from domestic cow breeds.
Price: Rs 240-350 per 200 gm
What is a larder without a cutting board? Netasia’s cutting boards are textured, in marble and wood, and come in black and whiteand more shades.
Price: Rs 599 onwards; visit: www.netasia.in
Handmade and handcrafted
Handmade is a luxury, not so much in terms of cost but in the very act of hand-crafting using ancient traditions for one-of-a-kind products. Haath ka Bana’s Noor Filigree tealight holders are a homage to Odisha’s delicate filigree art (Rs 749). Its vintage metal and wood bookends (Rs 2,450) are handcrafted by Morabad artisans.
Visit: www.haathkabana.com
Bulbuli India is a small handmade start-up with some great products. Its hand-painted wall plates mine motifs and colours from India’s design traditions.
Price: Rs 1,700; visit: www.bulbuli.in
Handmade macrame is the flavour of the season but there are a lot of tacky products in the market. My favourite is The Boho Bunaai, run by an architect-turned-artist whose intricate work gives her stuff an edge. From wall hangings to chandeliers, to my rank favourite, macrame leaves — this is what you need to add oomph to your walls.
Price: Rs 1,000 onwards; visit: @thebohobunaai on Instagram
Fashion accessories
Brune & Bareskin’s Croco print leather eyewear cover for men is trendy (Rs 2,499). For women, there are black pebbled leather AirPods-carrying cases and Croco print leather bags priced from Rs 1,499 onwards.
Visit: www.voganow.com
Beauty and wellness
Line & Lash is an adhesive liquid eyeliner that saves you the time when applying false eyelashes. It glides on smoothly to define the eyes and is waterproof.
Price: Rs 2,580
The Body Shop Men’s Shave Away Kit has shaving cream and other products such as an after-shave gel with ingredients such as Maca Root and Aloe Vera sourced from the brand’s community fair trade partners in Mexico.
Price: Rs 2,895: visit: In the stores
Recode Studio’s pigmented gel lip crayons are creamy and glide on effortlessly.
Price: Rs 598; visit: www.recodestudios.com
Discover the latest Business News, Sensex, and Nifty updates. Obtain Personal Finance insights, tax queries, and expert opinions on Moneycontrol or download the Moneycontrol App to stay updated!
