Also known as: Chayakkada, Tea-snack
The Malabar tea-and-snack ritual - the late-afternoon habit of strong sweet tea served with savoury and sweet snacks.
Chaya kadi literally means "tea-snack." It refers both to the late-afternoon ritual of drinking strong, sweet, milky tea (chaya) with a plate of snacks, and to the tea shop (chayakkada) where it traditionally happens.
Most Malabar tea-time snacks - Kozhi Ada, Pazham Pori, Unnakaya, Sukhiyan - were designed around this ritual, eaten hot between roughly 4 and 6 pm. The chayakkada is also a long-standing social institution on the Malabar coast.