Tea Bungalow

The house at 1/1901 Kunumpuram went up in 1912 as the workshop and office of United Carpets, a UK company that made and exported coir and spices from Cochin. In 1956 the Brooke Bond tea company bought it, renamed it Brooke Bond Bungalow and moved its top management in. It now belongs to the Dempo family of Goa, coconut exporters for three centuries and hoteliers in Goa, who run it as Tea Bungalow. The name carries both trades, spice and tea, that the building has housed.

It stands in the heritage area of Fort Cochin, the part of the city the Portuguese, Dutch and British built. The hotel's own list of neighbours starts with St. Francis Church, one of the oldest European-built churches in India, and Santa Cruz Cathedral Basilica, the Portuguese-founded Catholic church now run by the Diocese of Cochin and open to visitors when no service is on. Both are walkable from the door.

There are two grades of room, all air-conditioned and all furnished with wooden heritage pieces. Heritage Deluxe Rooms have a private garden of their own, an open balcony, and bathrooms with pebbled floors. Heritage Premium Rooms add a larger balcony looking over the property, a compact garden, bathrooms with glass shower cubicles over pebble-paved floors, a heritage-style bed, and a door straight out to the swimming pool. The pool sits in the courtyard between the ochre wings of the house, with loungers and umbrellas along its edge and planting up to the water. Upstairs balconies have built-in timber seats and cane recliners looking down into the garden.

The restaurant, Cafe du Mahe, is named after Bertrand-Francois Mahe de La Bourdonnais, the eighteenth-century French governor of Mauritius. It seats 50 at tables of four and six, serves Indian, Kerala and Continental dishes, and opens onto the garden; a few tables are also laid outside by the pool. At Onam the kitchen puts on a sadya, the Kerala feast served on a banana leaf. Elsewhere in the house there is a library, a business lounge, an open-air dining area and a lawn set with iron tables and chairs under the palms. The public rooms are hung with the owners' collection of model ships and carved figures.

The hotel keeps a 24-hour front desk, a travel desk, a doctor on call, on-site security round the clock and parking. Its address is 1/1901 Kunumpuram, Fort Kochi, Kerala 682001; the site does not state distances to the airport or Ernakulam, and we will confirm transfers when you enquire. Rates are not published on the hotel's site; we quote on enquiry.