Taste 20+ Kangra Tea Flavours at The Lodge at Wah

traditional architecture

tea estate tour

Curated & Hosted By

The Lodge at Wah, Palampur

Location

Himachal Pradesh

India

Duration

4 Days/3 Nights

Price Starts At

$921 Per Room

About The Journey

Set among the tea gardens of Himachal Pradesh's Kangra Valley, The Lodge at Wah began as a family home and remains strongly connected to the landscape that surrounds it. Built from locally sourced mud, wood and stone by regional craftsmen, the lodge reflects a considered way of living with nature rather than apart from it. Staying here offers an opportunity to experience Kangra beyond its mountain views – to understand its tea, food, craftsmanship, stories and the people who have shaped life in the valley.

The experiences that follow open up this world through encounters with the surroundings and its traditions, from exploring the tea gardens and discovering local flavours to meeting artisans and learning the stories that give the valley its character. Each is an invitation to experience Himachal Pradesh at a gentler pace, guided by people who are local to this region.

We look forward to welcoming you to Wah and sharing the flavours and stories that make the Kangra Valley so special.

CURATED & HOSTED BY

The Lodge at Wah, Palampur

Himachal Pradesh, India

Set within the historic Wah Tea Estate in Palampur, The Lodge at Wah is an intimate retreat shaped by its landscape, local craftsmanship and generations of tea-making heritage. Born from Deepak Prakash’s vision of creating a home immersed in the estate, the lodge is built almost entirely from locally sourced mud, stone, slate and reclaimed wood, crafted by regional artisans. The estate itself dates back to 1857 and has been part of the Chaiwala family’s tea legacy for generations.

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STANDARD PRICE

$921

Per Room

3 Nights / 4 Days, Double occupancy

STARLIFE MEMBER PRICE

$801

Per Room

Save $120 | Members Only

Pricing is based on double occupancy and the starting room category. Rates may vary for higher room categories, seasonal travel periods, and special requests. Group booking benefits and solo traveller discounts are available.

5 EXPERIENCES | ALL INCLUSIVE

The moments that make

this journey

STAR PARTNER

Himachal Pradesh, India

Sleep in a House of Reclaimed Wood

Traditional Architecture

The Lodge at Wah, Palampur

The Lodge at Wah grew out of Deepak Prakash's idea of a family house on the tea estate his family has run since 1953, and it was built the way the valley has always built: walls of mud dug from the ground it stands on, with stone, slate and timber. The wood carries a history of its own — much of the cedar and pine was salvaged from a Palampur courthouse as it was pulled down, so the bannisters were once witness stands and some of the doors and windows sat in a working court. The estate around it has grown tea without pesticide for over a decade. Ask where a beam or a door came from; most have a second life behind them.

STAR PARTNER

Himachal Pradesh, India

Walk the Tea From Leaf to Cup

Tea Estate Tour

The Lodge at Wah, Palampur

The estate is named Wah after a town near Rawalpindi, now in Pakistan — the birthplace of a pre-Partition owner who named it for home; it has nothing to do with the Hindi word. It was planted in 1857, as Kangra tea climbed: by the 1880s it was sold in Kabul and across Central Asia, and it took gold and silver at London and Amsterdam in 1886 and 1895. Then the 1905 earthquake flattened the factories, the British sold up and left, and families like the Prakashes eventually took the gardens on. You walk the estate to the factory and museum and taste twenty-odd teas — the green with its woody aroma and pale cup. Ask why Kangra tea nearly vanished; the answer is 1905.

STAR PARTNER

Himachal Pradesh, India

Drive Up to the White Wall

Jeep Tour

The Lodge at Wah, Palampur

The wall of rock and snow above Palampur is the Dhauladhar — the ‘white range’ — and its trick is how fast it climbs: from a valley floor at around twelve hundred metres it stands up past four thousand in almost no horizontal distance, one of the most abrupt rises in the Himalaya. The jeep track takes you up through villages and pine to the points where the whole wall is in front of you. This is Gaddi country, too — the shepherd community who still drive flocks of sheep and goats over the high passes to the far side each summer. Go on a clear morning; by afternoon the cloud usually takes the tops.

STAR PARTNER

Himachal Pradesh, India

Learn the Feast Only Botis Cook

Local Food Cooking Class

The Lodge at Wah, Palampur

The dish the chef shows you belongs to dham, the festival meal of the Kangra valley, and there is a rule about it worth knowing: a true dham is cooked only by botis, a caste of Brahmin cooks who inherit the work and start the night before. It is eaten the old way — seated on the floor, off pattal, plates stitched from leaves — course by course: madra of chickpeas simmered in yoghurt, mash dal under a sweet-and-sour khatta, sweet rice to finish. The demo is a window onto that rather than the full feast, but the flavours are the real Kangri ones. Ask what makes a dham a dham; the answer is the botis, not the recipe.

STAR PARTNER

Himachal Pradesh, India

Picnic Where the Snowmelt Runs

Picnic

The Lodge at Wah, Palampur

Palampur takes its name from pulum, a local word for plenty of water, and the water is the point of the place: the snow on the Dhauladhar melts into a web of streams — the Neugal the best known — that run down through the pine and made this good tea country in the first place. The ridge picnic at Kandbari sits in that landscape, pine forest on one side and a rivulet on the other, the white range filling the skyline behind. You take tea and snacks on the grass with nowhere in particular to be. Come in the late afternoon, when the Dhauladhar catches the last of the sun.

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$921

Per Room

Starlife Rate $801