Kashmir's new cafés love to serve kahwa in curated cups with almond flakes and bright lights in the background. The drink looks beautiful in photos. It tastes fine too. Still, something feels different. Kahwa once belonged to living rooms, late-night conversations, and long winters. Today it has turned into a trend.

Kashmiri culture is becoming an accessory. Things that once sat in homes and shrines now sit in Instagram corners. The copper samovar is a prop. The pheran is a fashion piece. Folk music plays through speakers in cafés where hardly anyone understands the lyrics. Even handmade carpets appear on walls only for colour and not for meaning.

This shift has created a new image economy. Local businesses know that culture sells. Tourism numbers crossed two million visitors in 2024, and cafés multiplied fast. Many of them market themselves as“heritage spaces.” They use names from poetry, borrow motifs, and design their interiors around nostalgia. The result looks charming, though it often feels shallow. The symbols remain, while the stories behind them fade.

The kahwa served at an airport lounge carries none of the memory of the homes it came from. It has no link to the saffron farmer who works through erratic seasons or to the grandmother who taught the ritual of slow brewing. When culture becomes a product, it loses texture. It entertains without teaching. It pleases without connecting.

There is also a sharp divide between those who create culture and those who display it. A craftsman who makes a hand-carved samovar in downtown Srinagar earns very little. Meanwhile, cafés using his work sell tea at prices he cannot afford. The cultural economy rewards visibility more than skill. The makers remain unseen while the curators thrive.

Kashmir does not need to freeze its traditions, but it needs to carry them with care. Culture survives when people understand it, share it, and pass it on. Kahwa is more than tea. It is a gesture of warmth, a reason to sit together, and a link to many generations before us. When it turns into a photo-op, that bond weakens.

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