Society Tea is the packaged brand of Hasmukhrai & Co., a Mumbai tea-blending house that has traded out of the Masjid Bunder wholesale market since the 1920s and sold packets under the Society name since 1990–91. The core product is a strong Assam CTC black tea meant to be boiled with milk, and on the brand's own store it runs from ₹57 for 100 g to ₹550 for 1 kg (prices checked 13 August 2026).
That is the easy part. The harder question is whether a regional blender is still the better buy now that the national brands cut their blends state by state. This guide prices the entire Society lineup per 100 g, explains what the leaf, dust and premium grades genuinely differ on, and ends with a position rather than a shrug.
The company behind the packet, and the two founding dates that disagree
Society Tea belongs to Hasmukhrai & Co., still family-run and now into its fourth generation. Past that, the brand's own history and the trade press do not match, and it is worth knowing which figure to lean on.
The About Us page on societytea.com credits Amarshi Bhurabhai Shah with starting a tea business named Hiralal Pranjivandas at Masjid Bunder in 1915, and dates the packaged Society brand to 1990. Wikipedia and most press coverage instead name Hiravan Pranjivandas, put the wholesale start at 1924, and date the packet launch to 1991. The one milestone every source agrees on is 1933, when the firm was formally registered as Hasmukhrai & Co. and opened its first shop at Kalbadevi. Treat “blending since 1933” as the claim that holds up; the rest is brand storytelling that has drifted between retellings.
Scale is easier to pin down. Social Samosa reported in March 2026 that Society holds roughly 40% of Maharashtra's packaged tea market, with Gujarat as the second core state and distribution pushing north and south from there. That is a commanding share of one state rather than a thin share of the country, and it explains nearly everything about how the tea is blended.
What Society actually charges, per 100 g
Packaged tea is sold in pack sizes chosen to make comparison awkward. The table below takes every Society pack that carries a published weight on the brand's own store and reduces it to one honest number: rupees per 100 g.
| Pack | Size | Store price, 13 Aug 2026 | Cost per 100 g |
|---|---|---|---|
| Society Leaf Tea pouch | 100 g | ₹57 (MRP ₹60) | ₹57.00 |
| Society Leaf Tea pouch | 250 g | ₹144 | ₹57.60 |
| Society Leaf Tea pouch | 500 g | ₹287 | ₹57.40 |
| Society Leaf Tea pouch | 1 kg | ₹550 | ₹55.00 |
| Society Leaf Tea pouch | 1.25 kg | ₹650 | ₹52.00 |
| Society Premium Leaf Tea | 500 g | ₹318 (MRP ₹335) | ₹63.60 |
| Society Premium Leaf Tea | 1 kg | ₹680 | ₹68.00 |
| Society Masala Tea | 100 g | ₹70 | ₹70.00 |
| Society Masala Tea | 250 g | ₹178 | ₹71.20 |
| Society Masala Tea | 500 g | ₹340 | ₹68.00 |
| Society Masala Tea | 1 kg | ₹650 (MRP ₹740) | ₹65.00 |
| Society Dust Tea carton | 250 g | ₹99 (MRP ₹120) | ₹39.60 |
| Society Green Tea, Tulsi & Ginger, 25 bags | 50 g | ₹189 (MRP ₹210) | ₹378.00 |
Figures are the listed prices on societytea.com on 13 August 2026, inclusive of taxes; per-100 g values are our own calculation. Three things fall out of the arithmetic.
- Dust is the value grade by a wide margin. At ₹39.60 per 100 g the dust carton undercuts the same-size leaf pouch by about 31%. If your cup is a hard-boiled milk chai, you are paying a third more for leaf that gets pulverised in the pan anyway.
- Buying the sack barely pays. Moving from a 100 g pouch to the 1.25 kg pack saves roughly 9% per gram. That is a thin reward for committing to twelve times the tea, and tea stales once opened, so most households are better off with 250 g or 500 g.
- The Premium 1 kg is priced worse than its own 500 g. A kilo at ₹680 works out to ₹68 per 100 g, while two 500 g pouches at ₹318 each total ₹636. Same tea, ₹44 cheaper in two packs.
Leaf, dust and premium: what actually differs
All three are CTC (crush, tear, curl) black tea; the difference is particle size and blend grade, not processing style. Dust is the finest cut, extracts fastest and gives the deepest colour in the shortest boil. Standard leaf is a coarser granule that takes slightly longer and gives a rounder cup. Society Premium Leaf Tea is described by the company as premium-grade Assam CTC blended for fuller body and a deeper finish, which is a strength claim rather than an origin claim. If the leaf-versus-dust distinction is new to you, our explainer on tea leaves versus tea powder covers how the grades are made.
Masala, elaichi and the One Minute premixes
Society Masala Tea is the same Assam CTC base carrying a five-spice mix — cardamom, ginger, clove, black pepper and lemongrass, added both ground and as natural spice oils, per the product listing. At 1 kg it costs ₹650 against ₹550 for plain leaf, so the spice adds about ₹10 per 100 g. That is cheap against buying whole cardamom and cloves separately, and it is the reason the masala pack outsells home-mixed chai masala in most kitchens.
The Elaichi-Adrak pouch sits at ₹220 (MRP ₹250) and the One Minute Tea premix line runs from about ₹90 for a small jar to ₹440 for the large masala premix pouch, with a lower-sugar masala premix at ₹725.
Green tea and the Hasmukhrai trade line
The green range is a separate business rather than an extension of the chai one: Tulsi and Ginger bags at ₹189 for 50 g, a Premium Green Tea jar at ₹209, Lemon and Honey bags at ₹119. At roughly ₹378 per 100 g the bagged green tea costs seven times the black leaf, which is normal for tea bags but worth knowing before you switch. On value against the specialists, see our roundup of green tea brands in India.
More interesting is the sibling Hasmukhrai label sold alongside Society: Special Hotel Mixture at ₹220, Hotel Mixture No 2 at ₹130, Special HG Dust at ₹110 and Supreme CTC Leaf from ₹115. These are the trade grades — blends cut for cafes, canteens and tea stalls that need colour and strength to survive a huge milk load. The fact that the company still runs a HoReCa book under the founder's name, ninety years on, is the clearest evidence of where its blending judgement comes from.
What “Mumbai's tea” actually means
Cutting chai is an economic format before it is a flavour: a half-glass serving, brewed in a pan that has been on the flame since morning, carrying a heavy milk-and-sugar load and priced so a stall can still make money at ten or fifteen rupees. A delicate tea disappears in that pan. What survives is fine-cut CTC with a hard, brisk edge and enough colour to still read as tea through the milk. That is the profile Hasmukhrai spent decades learning to hit for Mumbai's stalls before it ever printed a consumer packet, and it is what the Society dust and standard leaf grades are still tuned for. Our guide to karak chai covers the brewing style itself, and the piece on Irani and Parsi cafes in Mumbai and Pune covers the room it is usually drunk in.
The practical consequence: Society rewards a proper decoction and punishes a gentle steep. Boiled hard with milk it holds colour and bite; steeped briefly in plain water it reads as flat and one-note, because it was never blended for that.
Society against Tata Tea Premium and Wagh Bakri
The comparison that matters is not Society against a boutique orthodox tea. It is Society against the two brands most likely to be on the shelf next to it.
| Brand | Home market | How the blend is decided | Typical 1 kg listed price, Aug 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Society Leaf Tea | Mumbai; Hasmukhrai & Co., registered 1933 | One house style, built for the Mumbai milk-chai palate | ₹550 on societytea.com |
| Tata Tea Premium | National; Tata Consumer Products, packet tea since 1985 | Re-cut state by state since the 2019 hyperlocal relaunch, including a Mumbai Cutting Chai variant | ₹336–₹533 depending on retailer and state pack |
| Wagh Bakri Premium Leaf | Ahmedabad; Gujarat Tea Processors & Packers, Gujarat Tea Depot opened 1919 | Gujarat house style, aromatic-forward leaf | ₹554–₹619 across e-grocery listings |
Tata Consumer is explicit that Tata Tea Premium is blended differently for each state, and it sells a Mumbai Cutting Chai pack with ginger and lemongrass notes as part of its Street Chais collection. That is the honest challenge to Society: a national brand with far deeper buying power now aims a dedicated SKU at exactly the palate Society was built on, and usually undercuts it. Where Society still differs is that this is not a variant for it — the whole book is blended that way, and the consistency across pack sizes and years is what the 40% Maharashtra share is actually buying. For how Tata's tiers stack against each other before you compare across brands, see our Tata Tea range guide.
Wagh Bakri is the closer philosophical match — another family blender, another regional stronghold, roughly 70% of Gujarat — but its house style leans more aromatic and it prices at or above Society per kilo, so there is no value argument for switching unless you prefer that profile.
The verdict
Buy Society if you drink milk chai daily and want the same cup every month without thinking about it — and buy the 250 g dust carton, not the leaf. At about ₹40 per 100 g it is the cheapest tea in the range, it is the grade the company's Mumbai trade was built on, and in a pan with milk and sugar it beats the leaf pouch that costs 31% more. Step up to Society Masala Tea only if you would otherwise be buying whole spices, and to Premium Leaf only if you drink your black tea comparatively lightly brewed; if you do take Premium, buy two 500 g pouches instead of the 1 kg.
Do not buy Society if price per gram is your only criterion. Tata Tea Premium's Maharashtra pack frequently lands below it and is blended for the same palate, and Tata's shelf presence means you will find it everywhere. Do not buy the Society green range for value either; the bagged green teas are priced like a different category and the specialists do it better.
The short version: Society is not the cheapest chai on the shelf and does not need to be. It is the most consistent expression of one specific, regional idea of what strong tea should taste like, from a blender that has been solving for that cup since well before it printed a packet. If that is your cup, no national brand's regional variant quite replaces it. If you are still deciding what base to use at all, our comparison of the best black teas for chai is the wider view.