Mughal food is usually described by what was on the plate. What was in the cup gets less attention, and it should not: in a north Indian summer, a cold drink was a serious matter, and the court treated it as one. Several of the drinks of that table are still the ones you will be offered in Agra today.
In this article
The Word Sherbet
Sharbat is a Persian word built on an Arabic root meaning “to drink”. It names a sweetened drink made by diluting a syrup of fruit, flowers or herbs with cold water. The English words sherbet, sorbet and syrup all descend from the same root, which tells you how far the idea travelled.
The drink came to India with the Persian-speaking courts, and it belongs to the same movement of cooks and tastes that we have described in From Persia to Agra.
Babur and the Missing Ice
Babur, who founded the dynasty, wrote his own memoirs, and they contain a well-known list of what he found lacking in Hindustan. Good fruit is on it. So are ice and cold water. He had come from Central Asia, where snow and mountain streams were ordinary, to a plain where summer water was warm.
By his grandson's reign the court had organised an answer. The Ain-i-Akbari describes ice and snow being brought down from the mountains to the court, and water being cooled with saltpetre. It also records that Akbar drank water from the Ganges, which was carried to him wherever the court happened to be. Like the rest of the Mughal kitchen, drinking water was administered.
What a Sherbet Is Made Of
The traditional north Indian sherbets are made from what cools and what perfumes. Rose is the best known. Khus, made from the roots of vetiver grass, is green and faintly earthy. Bel sherbet is made from the pulp of the wood apple and is a summer drink across the northern plains. Sandalwood, lemon and the small purple falsa berry are all used the same way.
Roses have a particular place in the Mughal story. Jahangir's memoirs credit the mother of his wife Nur Jahan with discovering rose attar, the concentrated oil, while making rosewater. Whatever the exact truth of a story an emperor told about his own family, it shows how closely the court attended to scent — the same rose and saffron that perfume the Mughal desserts.
Lassi and Chaas
Lassi is not a court invention. It is a curd drink of the Punjab and the north Indian countryside: curd churned with water, served either salted or sweetened, and traditionally thick enough to be closer to food than to a drink. Chaas, or buttermilk, is the thinner, salted relative, often finished with roasted cumin.
Fruit lassis are a modern development of the sweet version, and mango lassi is the one that has travelled furthest outside India.
Thandai
The name comes from thanda, cold. Thandai is milk flavoured with a ground paste of almonds, fennel and melon seeds, pepper, cardamom and rose petals, often with saffron. It is rich and spiced rather than simply sweet, and it is most closely associated with two festivals, Holi and Mahashivratri, when it is made in quantity across north India.
The spices in it are the aromatic, cooling end of the Mughal spice box rather than the hot end.
What to Order in Agra
In the hot months, roughly April to June, cold drinks stop being optional; our guide to when to visit Agra covers the seasons. The usual travel advice applies to anything sold by the glass on the street: the concern is the water and the ice, not the drink itself, so choose places that use filtered water or drink from sealed bottles.
At Tajnuma the drinks list is called Jaam-e-Tajnuma. It includes three lassis — Mango Lassi, Blueberry Lassi and a Nutty Punjabi Lassi — along with Fresh Lime Soda, mocktails, smoothies and shakes. It is a modern list rather than a historical one, but the lassi and the lime soda are the two that a traveller from any earlier century would recognise. The full list is on the menu.
