Small Business Spotlight: Chai Affairs

Being a first generation Iranian American was an interesting experience. While there were other Iranians in Maryland where I grew up, there were not a lot. It was quite normal for me to be the only Iranian kid in any given school I attended. When I was younger I didn’t understand why other kids didn’t eat the same foods, or speak farsi or celebrate Nowruz. At times It felt very isolating. Whenever I met another person who shared my same culture and experience it was so exciting. This still holds true and so I was overjoyed to connect with Mona and be able to relate to her!

Mona, like me grew up drinking tea and while I’ve chosen to share this passion through Tea Thoughts, she has started Chai Affairs! I was really excited to purchase some ingredients from her because she had things that reminded me so much of my childhood like limoo amani! This is also something I cook with and had never really tried brewing but loved make a tea with it! I also love that she is sharing this and some not as well known ingredients to non-Iranians!

Learn more about Mona and Chai Affairs!
Make sure to check out the Chai Affairs shop as well!

Can you introduce yourself and Chai Affairs? 
With pleasure! My name is Mona, and I'm the creator and face behind Chai Affairs. 

At Chai Affairs, I sell a variety of herbal ingredients that are quite popular in Iranian households but still unique for non-Iranians. The concept of my brand is to allow customers to experience these unique ingredients with all their senses, experiment in creating their personalized Tea blends, and share it with their loved one's. It's really an experience in a Box! Customers can choose to purchase our pre-designed Tea sets and also individual ingredients.

When was your first experience with tea?
Tea has been at the center of everyday life and every memory for me since childhood. It's been in my blood since infancy! In Persian culture, Tea is the first thing we offer to anyone visiting our home. When you wake up, your morning breakfast starts with Tea. If you're a guest, you're offered Tea before anything else. If you're in a stressful state, Tea is the first offering to relieve your stress…It's safe to say that if you enter a Persian household, no matter the circumstance, you will not leave without drinking a cup of Tea!

What is your daily tea ritual like?
I generally drink between 3-4 cups of Tea per day (but let's be honest, it can definitely go beyond that on some days!)

I always start my morning sipping on a hot cup of Black Tea, a habit that's stuck with me since childhood. I'm usually sitting on the floor in my work room, soaking up the morning sunlight. My morning Tea ritual is only a couple minutes long, but that time to myself allows me to be present, reflect, and set my intentions for the day. It makes all the difference in how I start my day.

I then prepare another cup of Tea before noon, usually a new Green Tea that I'm eager to try. This is often during a short work break, so it's more of a quick preparation and sipping away while working again.
I always end my work day with a cup of Tea, and my choice of Tea depends on how my day passed. I find that last cup so soothing and an appropriate transition into my personal time.

What was the inspiration to start Chai Affairs?
Chai Affairs was born from my love for Tea, a desire to build connections with people and cultures across the globe over Tea, and a yearning to explore a creative medium where I can connect to my Persian roots.

I'm definitely not a Tea expert and every day is a journey in learning something new about Tea. At Chai Affairs I want people to feel free in familiarizing themselves with different ingredients that they can add to any daily Tea they have at home to make it a bit more special for themselves and their preferences. 

The conversations I've had over a cup of Tea are some of my most cherished memories. I wanted to bring back this experience, especially in a time where we are more virtually connected, but also socially disconnected from one another. My vision is to have people engage in conversation while using my products, curating for themselves, and building deep connections over Tea.

The name 'Chai Affairs' was also born from this desire to instill deeper connections between people through conversations, just like they used to exchange ideas in 17th century Salon de thé conversations.

How do you weave aspects of your culture into your products?
I would say the whole vision and concept of how the ingredients are to be used is inspired by my Iranian culture and how Tea is prepared. Traditionally, Iranians will drink Black Tea as a staple, but to make their tea even more special, they will add complimentary ingredients (such as the one's found in Chai Affairs) to enhance the flavor of their brew. Through Chai Affairs, I try to bring this whole experience to customers through the customized kits.

Other intricate details such as the stationary and product packaging is also inspired by my love for geometric art and architecture, which is a common traditional art in Iran.

What do you have currently in the shop that you're most excited about?
My favorite product is definitely the pre-customized Tea kits since they include a nice variety of our more unique ingredients and it allows customers to get the full Chai Affairs experience in a box.

Do you have any upcoming products or projects that you want to share? 
Chai Affairs is still very young, and I'm very ambitious! I have a lot of plans in the pipeline which I hope can come to fruition soon!

Other than optimizing the current products and website to improve customer experience, I'm hoping to release my new Tea Blend this summer. Creating Tea Blends was never the goal, but I've received a lot of positive feedback on the blend I've been creating for myself and I would love to share it with the world!  

I'm also working on a few collaborative projects towards the second half of 2022, so more on that to be shared later in the year!

My Persian tea traditions

If you follow me on instatgram, you’ll notice that I mostly share my gongfu style brewing sessions but that isn’t the only tea in my life! I share about that most often because it is newer to me and I am still finding out so much about tea through that style of brewing. I also want to share so that more people will try it! Please note that Persian tea culture encompass many different traditions and I am just sharing what my family practiced, it is not the end all be all.

Many people ask me when I started drinking tea and the answer is young. I don’t remember exactly what age but it was definitely in the 5-7 range. Most mornings we would eat noon-paneer (sheep milk cheese bread and walnuts) and sweet tea! This isn’t exactly sweet tea like in the south. The way the tea is brewed is very strong so we often would drink tea with a little sugar. The way I have shared before was with a sugar cube that you place in your mouth and keep there so as you drink, each sip is sweetened. I’m going to share some other ways we sweetened our tea too!

Let’s get down to the tea first. In my household and most Persian households, you will find black tea as the staple. While the type can vary, I feel like most of my family drinks exclusively ceylon. Below is a photo of the tea that I drink every morning. It’s from quality tea co and it’s called “best tea” which I personally find very fitting. As you can see it’s a loos leaf ceylon and compared to some ceylon that is a bit more broken up, this has relatively longer leaves. I do notice that the size of the leaf varies between sizes of packages I buy.

This tea is tossed with bergamot oil. You’re probably thinking, oh so it’s an earl grey. Not quite. I’m not sure the difference because I’ve had other ceylon earl greys and they just do not compare to this. The aroma is so lovely and reminds me of my childhood and grounds me every single morning.

I brew this plain with a little honey because it’s the only tea I like sweetened, I think out of habit but there are times that other ingredients are put into the tea!

Rose and rosewater are common ingredients in Iranian food and sweets. I have had this tea prepared with rose and rosewater. While I love rosewater in sweets, I prefer the whole rosebuds. I often see tea companies that have “persian rose” type tea blends use rose buds as well. I throw a few rosebuds in sometimes when I brew. Growing up, we rarely had this type of tea at our house because my parents liked it more plain but some of my relatives would brew it this way when we would visit. A visit to my relatives consisted of walking through the door, tea would be ready or almost ready and everyone would grab a cup and sit down to talk.

One other way that I did have it sometimes but it was rare was with saffron. Saffron is another common ingredient in both sweets and our dishes. I for example use saffron every day when I cook. Sometimes you will see this tea with saffron threads brewed in it. It seems that some Persian/Iranian restaurants you go to serve tea this way to share a more unique experience.

Now onto the brewing. Iran wasn’t always a tea drinking country. They were actually majority coffee drinkers until the 15th century so it’s no surprise that we like our tea STRONG. Most Persian households will have a ghouri or samovar. I do not have one only due to space, once I have more space I will be getting one first thing! If you’ve never seen one, it’s basically a double decker set up with the bottom being the water kettle and the top being the tea pot. See a simple example below.

If you look back to more historical ones, they are very decorative. You can find some like that nowadays, we have a few that my family was able to bring from Iran. Many modern ones are free standing and plug in instead of using the stove.

Essentially how this works is that you boil the water in the bottom kettle then you pour the boiling water with tea in the top one. Then you put both back on the stove and let it brew until it’s super strong! While I do enjoy tea this way, it definitely doesn’t follow brewing instructions and is probably burning the tea some :D

The other thing to know when serving tea is “kam rang” and “Poor rang” which is basically like lighter or darker tea. As a kid, one of your tasks is to learn to make and serve tea to your family! I’ve shared before that my mom had a loving nickname for me “kolfat chai” which is like tea butler LOL. So since the stronger tea is in the top and you have water in the bottom, someone who wants a weaker tea you might pour half brewed tea half water and change it up for a stronger tea. Many people just like to have a cup full of the top kettle. This double feature also allows you to keep the tea hot or reheat easily.

The other usual way we enjoyed tea growing up was in small glasses. These are Turkish glasses that my sister brought home for me on a trip but persian ones are very similar. some have handles even though they are smaller but many don’t. Generally you would have several glasses of these smaller cups. Nowadays, I drink my morning and evening tea out of glass too but they are larger and with a handle. This is out of convenience.

A lot of households would have these turkish style tea cups as well as Persian ones. One style that I often saw growing up and I recently ordered myself are cups that feature Shah Abbas or Abbas the Great who was considered one of the greatest rulers in Persian history.

The first sweetener I wanted to share with you is “ab nabat” which I believe is what you call rock candy in English. The rock candy we had wasn’t artificially colored and usually wasn’t on a stick. It was either normal colored or tinted slightly because it was infused with saffron. This one pictured is held together by a string that you’ll find once it melts. Ab nabat was my parents cure all for stomach aches. They would put it in either tea or hot water and it always worked! It was also one of my favorite ways to sweeten my tea when I was younger if we had it.

This other method may be somewhat strange but it’s actually great, raisins! Instead of darker raisins, we use green ones and they were always a bit dryer and longer. These are a little tart but also very sweet and having them alongside your tea sweeten it up! These were often used as the”healthier” version to the sugar cubes or ab nabat.

Which would you choose? Rock candy or raisins?

If you’re interested in checking out some options, I created a list that has some options. Please note that if you purchase any of these items through my link, I will earn a small comission at no extra cost to you.

Shopping/Idea List

Bangkok Chai Sugar Cubes

Chai Sugar.

Have you ever seen fancy sugar cubes?! Different flavors and shapes? I've been sent some and I've also seen them sold at a bunch of places. It's a simple way to make tea time fancier!

After researching how they're made, I decided that the Bangkok chai I got in my sipsby box would be perfect because it's not your typical chai blend! This chai blend from Kleff tea has Black tea, cinnamon bark, ginger root, cardamom pods, lemon grass, dried coconut in it!

In my recipe I mention using up to one tablespoon of tea. You may need less than this but definitely not more than this! I didn't actually measure the amount I used completely but it wasn't a lot. What I did was added a tiny amount of tea then I would mix, mix, mix and see how much more I needed. I read somewhere that it should be like damp sand, not wet sand and I think that is a great way to think about it!

Probably the most important note, MAKE SURE YOUR TEA IS COOL. If your tea is hot, it will melt the sugar and all you will have is sweetened tea! I crushed up some of the chai and put it in the sugar as well to give it a fun look but this is not required!

I used this mini donut tray that I have for baking but you can use anything! These are quite large for a sugar cube so I would suggest finding a small candy mold if you can. 

The best tool that I found for packing these is my hand! Get your fingers a little sugary so that you can really put pressure on the sugar and pack it in!

I put my mold near my heater to speed up the drying process but you don't have to! Smaller molds will definitely be ready quicker. 

These are super cute and fragrant! I think they would be a great gift as well :) 

Chai Cookie Sandwiches with Cinnamon Buttercream Filling

Oh my Chai. 

Soooooo, I know those butter cookies with the heart cutouts and jelly centers are a popular choice on valentine's day but I decided to go a different route...chai! I posted these cookies on my instagram on 2/14 without the recipe because I mentioned how it was "selfish" baking aka I didn't take a lot of photos and I didn't write the recipe. I made a batch of these to give out to my family, friends and coworkers on valentine's day. After asking on instagram if people would be interested in the recipe, all the YES PLEASE comments convinced me to write it up!

Something to note about cutting shapes with this dough, it's not easy. There is a high butter content in this dough so it's very soft. I used flour on the rolling pin, work surface and the dough itself to make rolling this dough out a little easier. Even with the flour, you have to be very careful when working with this dough so that it doesn't break! If you want to avoid the hassle, I would suggest balling up small amounts of dough and gently flatening them (not all the way) to make the two halves of the sandwich! 

In terms of your choice of chai, it's up to you. Remember that when you infuse tea in butter It really gets the flavor of whatever tea you're working with! For these I used a chai I had which is a white chocolate pumpkin chai, the pumpkin flavor came through well. If you need a reminder on how to infuse the butter with tea, it's very simple! Melt the butter in a pan, once it's melted take it off the stove and place your tea in the butter. I like to keep the tea in the butter until it's fragrant! Strain your tea and then let the butter solidify, I find it useful to put in the freezer to make the process faster. 

Don't throw away your tea leaves after you strain the butter! What I did to get this fun texture is took some of the leaves, chopped them up fine and threw them in the dough. Be careful to take out any hard chunks like cardamom, pepper etc. This is totally optional but I thought it added a pretty design to the cookies!

These are the heart shaped cookies I made on valentine's day, very festive! Making the heart shapes was definitely easier than making the teapot shapes!

Just for reference, in one of these batches I used bread flour because it was all I had and all I did differently was use 2 egg yolks instead of one egg, the cookies were just as good and soft :) 

Did I mention that the best part about these cookies is how soft they are?? It's very easy to take a bite out of them! No crunching here!

I wasn't specific about the filling because everyone has their own preferences. I beat the butter then gradually added cinnamon and powdered sugar until it was stiff enough to stay but not runny when spreading. If you get to a point where you overdid the sugar and it's too stiff, add a tiny bit of milk of your choice to loosen it up. 

I was a little lazy with the designs, I had on hand these store bought frosting that come in an easy squeeze bag and used that to make the swirls on both sets of cookies :) 

Orange Chai Bourbon

I'm back with another Owl's Brew Raddler drink recipe! This one has a little bit of a kick! The raddler used in this recipe is a seasonal one called Short and Stout. The stout is blended with Chai spices, coconut and pineapple. YUM! I'm not sure if I've ever mentioned my beer preferences before but I'm a stout lover, and a chai lover so this flavor was made for me!

You're probably like UGH she is using Bourbon again?! Let me tell you why though! Besides being a total unabashed bourbon lover, it goes well with so many flavors! The spiciness of chai specifically goes well with bourbon in my experience. 

This is a super simple recipe but has an important step that I think unlocks all sorts of flavors. To start the drink off you want to add the orange slice FIRST then pour the bourbon over the orange. When you let these two sit for a few minutes they are getting the chance to know each other better and mixing their flavors up :)

HERE'S THE MOST IMPORTANT PART! Take a spoon, muddler or whatever you can find and mash that orange and bourbon together!!! Not only are you mixing the flavors but the pulp gives the drink an extra punch and more texture. 

An orange garnish is perfect for any orange lover who wants to squeeze a little extra juice in their drink. 

All these flavors go really well together and the bourbon gives it a kick! When Mr. Tea Thoughts tried it he said, " It tastes like fall in a cup!" Enjoy your orange chai bourbon fall in a cup! 

Chai Chocolate Chip Ice Cream Sandwiches

Dairy Free!

I'll be honest, I don't usually post dairy free or gluten free recipes because it's not something that is part of my diet and my family and I are the ones who eat the end products of these blog posts. BUT, I found an easy dairy free ice cream recipe and decided to give it a try :) 

The Chai Box sent me this blend called sweet monsoon and I was so intrigued because there are mango and coconut pieces in it! A fun twist on traditional chai. 

It's a beautiful and fragrant blend!  Opening the package I was engulfed in the sweet aroma of the blend and it was teasing me throughout the whole ice cream making process!

You may have noticed I used the entire sample of the blend in my recipe because I wanted the flavor to stick out among the coconut milk and cashews which can be overpowering! 

I don't have a fancy or high powered blender but it worked fine! I suggest crushing up the cashews a bit first then adding in the other ingredients. The cashews should be soaked overnight so they are soft and shouldn't be a problem to blend. 

Do you see the frost on the container? I like to freeze the container beforehand to speed up the process of the ice cream making. I don't have an ice cream maker to use and my process is noted in the recipe below but if you have an ice cream maker this recipe is even easier!

I HAD to roll the sides of the sandwich in chocolate chips because it reminded me of the chipwiches you get from the icecream truck! I made these chocolate chip cookies but you could easily just buy chocolate chip cookies for this purpose. 

It's best if you let these sit out for a few minutes to let them soften. After assembling each sandwich I wrapped it in plastic wrap and kept it in the freezer so when you first take it out it will be hard. Once the ice cream softens a bit it has a similar texture to regular ice cream. 

The chai adds a wonderful flavor to the cashews. If you're not a fan of cashews this may not be the recipe for you because there is definitely a strong flavor of cashews that comes through.

 Coconut and cashews is such a delicious combination, I will definitely be making this again! Have you ever tried dairy free ice cream? 

Turmeric Rooibos Chai Ginger Ale

Spicy Ginger!

I had the chance to try the Turmeric Rooibos Chai from Liquid + Leaf. This blend contains Organic rooibos, organic turmeric root, organic cinnamon, organic licorice root, organic black pepper, organic bourbon vanilla pieces, organic clove buds, organic cardamom seed, and organic marigold flowers. 

These liquid leaf loose leaf tea bags are easy to infuse into anything you want to make and would be great if you're on the go. I like to bake and cook sometimes with tea bags because they make less mess and removes a few steps from the process. 

I've recently been itching to make my own ginger ale and I found an easy method making syrup that is mixed with seltzer water. I thought that turmeric ginger chai would be an interesting flavor to add to the ginger ale. 

This is a very simple recipe and if you're a ginger lover this is for you! The ginger simmers so long in the water that this syrup turns up being very potent and delicious! 

I use a suggested amount of syrup but it's really your own preference. I think it will turn out best by using a tall glass or pitcher and adding in the syrup first and then filling it with the seltzer water. 

A note about this ginger ale. If you don't like the taste of turmeric, you may not like the taste of this drink. Turmeric is a heavy flavor in this drink along with the ginger. 

Have you ever made your own ginger ale?! 

Tea Pop Sampler!

Creamy Pops. 

In my last Sips By box I received two different chai teas. I was so excited because the flavors in "chai" are amazing. I love the combination of spices used. I was really excited because these chais were slightly different and it gave me an idea...a sampler! 

I had a chai blend from Cozy Leaf and also another tea blend called white chocolate samoa that I added to the sampler. 

Here are the 4 teas I used. I used 2 teaspoons of each tea. I think if you use a tablespoon the pops will taste even better!

1. Cozy Leaf Country Chai Spice

2. Zhi Tea Cacai Chai

3. Rishi Masala Chai

4. The Necessiteas White Chocolate Samoa

Although chais tend to have similar characteristics, each of the 3 chais I used have something that stands out. The Zhi Tea has Peruvian cacao nibs, the masala has black pepper that is very prevalent in the flavor and the cozy leaf has anise! 

I added in the White chocolate samoa because it has coconut, caramel, and chocolate which I think can compliment the other 3 chai teas well without straying too much from the classic chai flavor. 

With these simple popsicles, feel free to add toppings or things to dip them in. I added coconut to some and also melted some salted dark chocolate to dip the popsicles in!

The milk in these blends gives the popsicles a creamy and more substantial taste than if it was the brewed tea alone. I think you easily substitute cow's milk here for any other type of milk you like. 

Each of these popsibles had their own flavor. As shown in the photos above, they all had different colors. I liked them each individually for different reasons but I think the Rishi tea was my favorite because of it's spicy flavor. It was a bit heavier than the other popsicles and I loved it! 

I had 8 mold and the tea was enough to fill 2 molds. I have to say that covering the popsicles in coconut flakes was my favorite. The white chocolate samoas had coconut in them but still taste great with a boost of coconut. 

Next up...boozy popsicles! What are your favorite types of popsicles?!