A Sip of Sweet Karak Offers a Taste of Dubai
Text by Natasha Amar
Photos by Project Chaiwala
Karak’s roots lie in Indian chai masala. At Project Chaiwala, a chaiwala calls out “Chaiwala kadak kadak, chai chai chai,” while he pulls the tea, pouring the rich, brown liquid from the spout of a kettle held high up.
Having grown up in Dubai in the early 1990s, one of my fondest memories are of Friday evenings at the beach, my fingers deep in beach sand, in search of seashells, under an orange-pink sunset sky. My parents sat cross-legged on a chatai, a woven bamboo mat, sipping hot, sweet, milky karak tea in plastic cups from a nearby cafeteria.
Much has changed since then. The city’s transformation from a humble fishing, trading and pearl diving hub to a world-record setting, futuristic metropolis full of skyscrapers and manmade archipelagos is nothing short of remarkable, but there’s one thing that has remained constant: its love for steaming cups of the sweet milky concoction that is karak.
While Indians were living in Dubai since the late 1800s, it was in the 1960s, that thousands began to make their way across the Arabian Sea, from central and south India, to settle on the shores of Dubai, a city that welcomed their aspirations and offered opportunities to earn significantly more income than was possible back in India.
These immigrants set up textile or gold trading shops in the city’s souks, or restaurants, cafeterias and grocery stores in Bur Dubai. They brought along their favorite dishes—dosa, tandoori chicken and dal pakwan—and their fuel, sweet, black tea with milk, sometimes brewed with ginger and cardamom. Their chai was sold in simple, no-frills cafeterias most often run by Keralites and eventually came to be known in the UAE as karak. Like the people themselves, it was welcomed by the local Emirati population and became a part of the city’s cultural fabric.
Today Indians constitute over half of the Asian expatriate population that accounts for about 71% of Dubai’s total population, and nearly 3.4 million Indians live in the UAE, making it home to one of the largest Indian diaspora populations in the world. A vast majority of karak cafeterias can still be found in old Dubai, predominantly home to Emiratis and South Asians.
Chai is that feeling of home that many Indians take with them across the globe. It is what they crave for before the day begins and the doors of their minds are flung open to the cares of the world, and at the end of a long one, when the steam gently rising out of their cups is reassurance that they did their best. Whether sipped on in the comfort of the home or outside a corner cafeteria, it is an excuse to gather with family, friends, colleagues,and neighbors, even if for a few minutes in their busy or mundane day.
“Karak is delicious, very sweet,” says Arva Ahmed, founder of Frying Pan Adventures, a company that pioneered food and culture walking tours in Dubai and introduces guests to the nuances of the many cuisines found in the city. As an Indian who grew up in Dubai in the ’90s, for Ahmed, karak is a way of life. “Even when I travel, my cup of chai in the morning is so important. I carry my strainer, my loose-leaf tea, and my Rainbow milk wherever I go, at an Airbnb or wherever,” she says.
***
Commonly served in a Styrofoam or paper cup, rich, milky karak tea is brewed with black tea leaves and often cardamom. Sometimes, saffron is also added. The blend’s roots lie in the Indian masala chai, in which other spices such as ginger, cinnamon and cloves are also added. Depending upon popularity and time of year, cafeterias can sell anywhere from a few hundred to a couple of thousand cups of karak a day.
Most cafeterias in Dubai make a signature blend of loose-leaf black teas from a few different brands commonly available in supermarkets, their ratio of mixes a closely guarded secret that becomes key to that unique taste that keeps customers returning. Sugar is added to the water while it’s boiling and not after the tea is prepared, making the karak inherently sweet. While most places usually add evaporated or condensed milk just before serving, to quickly lend it a creaminess after the tea has been brewing for a long time, a few choose to boil fresh milk with the water, sugar, tea and spices instead. To make karak with a tea bag is unthinkable and results in a watery drink that Ahmed describes as “horrific.”
“The secret to a good karak, first, is that the tea has to be steeped very well,” she says. “Second, the steeped tea and milk have to be in the perfect ratio. The best karaks have a very caramelized, almost like a toffee sort of aftertaste, because when you're boiling the milk or even if you're using evaporated milk, it naturally gives it that very creamy and slightly toasted caramel flavor. Interestingly, some cafeterias crumble in glucose biscuits, which makes the tea super sweet and gives it that biscuit-y flavor. Then of course the temperature. It has to be super-hot.”
Speaking of its cultural significance, she says, “Karak is a core part of most households in Dubai. For a lot of Emiratis, karak has very much become a core part of local culture and identity. At Emirati weddings for example, the local drink gahwa is served, but you’ll also find karak.”
Ahmed Kazim and Justin Joseph are cofounders of Project Chaiwala, a homegrown chai café on Alserkal Avenue, a cultural district home to art galleries, performance venues, cafés and creative concepts. Kazim, who is Emirati, says, “Karak has been an integral part of my upbringing. It’s how I kick off my mornings, and on drives, I always get some karak.”
“Growing up, my friends and I would hang out at karak spots around Dubai almost as a daily ritual,” says Joseph, who is Indian. “For me, karak is nostalgia.”
After having met as colleagues in their consulting jobs, they decided, fittingly over karak breaks at work, to set up Project Chaiwala in 2017. They wanted to globalize a chai concept, widen its appeal and center the chaiwala, the Hindi word for the man who makes your chai, commonly used around chai stalls in Indian cities.
In Indian homes around the world, this tea is simply called chai, but in Dubai, and the rest of the Gulf region, it is known as karak, most likely from the Hindi word kadak (meaning strong). It’s believed that the name caught on when Arabs in the region heard the Indians asking for “kadak chai” which means strong black tea that has been brewed for a longer time. Perhaps in some way, this new name helped integrate the drink not only into Emirati society, but also in the city’s uniquely cosmopolitan culture.
Ahmed agrees, “I do think that calling it karak makes it easier to localize it. There is the Indian Keralite community opening up the little cafeterias and that has been the reason why we have a karak or chai culture, but karak is just as much present in homegrown Emirati concepts and newer hipster cafés as well.”
***
In Dubai, everyone loves a good karak, from the laborer who toils away at a construction site and the salesman selling perfumes in Meena Bazaar to college students on a late-night drive through Jumeirah, the elderly Emirati friends meeting in Al Fahidi’s heritage district in the evenings, and the musicians performing at open-air concerts in Al Quoz. There’s never a wrong time for karak either; whether it’s a morning pick-me-up, a few minutes to banter with friends before taking the metro home, or a spontaneous midnight date when gray skies appear over the city, there’s nothing like the warm comfort of a fresh cup of karak.
That this love persists in a city where a new Instagrammable or specialty café is hot every month is no mean feat.
“Karak is just such a democratic drink,” says Ahmed, “It’s available for as low as one or two dirhams, unlike a more expensive cup of specialty coffee, which can be a bit intense. Chai is a little more laidback.”
The drink’s availability from drive-through cafeterias in Dubai long before the proliferation of trendier cafés has made it irreplaceable in the city’s culture. Even today, many Dubai residents, both Emirati and expatriate, have a go-to karak spot that they’ll drive up to for a karak delivered to their car window in exchange for a few dirhams. Cafeterias will almost always have taxis parked outside, their drivers seeking a few minutes of refreshment during their day.
Indeed, my own memories of Dubai are incomplete without the many conversations about relationships, work and dreams, over steaming cups of karak with my best friend in her car, parked outside a gas station cafeteria.
So, if it’s the simplicity and no-fuss quality of karak that make it popular, how does the drink fit into modern café culture in a city where innovation and creativity are paramount in a highly competitive food and drinks industry? Does it need to appear cooler?
“I don't think karak needs to be cooler,” says Ahmed, but that hasn’t stopped many businesses from making karak-flavored foods.
Of new cafés that offer the flavors of karak in nontraditional forms such as ice-cream and French Toast, she says, “It’s great that they’ve incorporated the flavor in their food, but I don't think karak needs any sort of refinement or elevation or affirmation. It’s not like karak’s popularity was declining. If you’ve grown up with it, it’s part of your daily and social routines. To me, it shows that they’re innovating, yet they also have this very Emirati aspect to their brand. Karak, if anything, will help them, as opposed to them helping the image of karak.”
***
It’s believed that the name karak caught on when Arabs in the region heard the Indians asking for “kadak chai” which means strong black tea.
The founders of Project Chaiwala say they saw room for improvement, both in the quality of the drink and the entire experience itself.
“We realized that while the karak here tastes great, it's not the best quality and doesn't use the best ingredients. We're trying to change that and the perception of it being that one-dirham cup,” says Joseph. A classic karak at Project Chaiwala is brewed with cardamom and costs 12 dirhams, and the café also serve a zaffrani, a karak prepared with saffron-infused milk, and a Project Chaiwala Signature that adds secret ingredients to its karak recipe, for 15 dirhams each.
In the planning stage, Joseph and Kazim traveled around India, visiting tea gardens and chai stalls around the country, to dive deep into the essence of the chai experience, in the hope that they could strike that perfect balance between authenticity and creativity to widen its appeal among the 200 nationalities who call Dubai home.
“Our recipes are inspired by what we learn about brewing tea in India,” says Joseph. “The big difference between any other chai here and ours, is the way we source our tea. We're getting the freshest batch and it's organic black tea- very hard to find that in any other cup of karak in Dubai.”
At Project Chaiwala, the tea is sourced ethically from an estate in Darjeeling in India, and the fresh milk and spices are sourced locally.
Then there’s the showmanship that also attracts people who might have not grown up drinking karak. At Project Chaiwala, a chaiwala calls out “Chaiwala kadak kadak, chai chai chai,” while he pulls the tea, pouring the rich, brown liquid from the spout of a kettle held high up, into a steel tumbler, or into a rustic kulhar or terracotta cup. The tiny bubbles on the surface invite you to take a sip immediately, even if that means risking a bit of tongue burn.
The entire experience is meant to transport customers to a nukkad, or street corner in Mumbai or Kolkata, and yet, you can escape the afternoon heat in the air-conditioned indoor space. This introduction of street chai culture into Dubai’s urban environment was their motivation behind Project Chaiwala.
Kazim explains, “We obviously relate to the South Asians and Arabs who’re familiar with karak chai. But other nationalities, who’re curious when they pass by and see the chaiwala pulling the tea, calling out ‘chai chai chai’ might come for the showmanship and the humor involved. We give them samples to try out and they want to know more.”
Kazim and Joseph stress that they want their concept to bring a global appeal to chai and keep it relevant to Millennials while still staying authentic to its roots. They’re steering clear of clichéd references to Indian culture, such as autorickshaw design props, something they believe has been overdone by other places in Dubai.
“While we’ve added strong elements that we noticed in India, like our chaiwalas and chaiwalis (when they’re women), a blue wall- something we saw all the way from Kolkata to Darjeeling, and the kulhar we serve our chai in, we haven't gone overboard,” says Joseph.
The project’s rising popularity and loyal clientele, most of whom come back for the strong, full-bodied karak, indicate that the pair has been successful at what they set out to do. The secret to that, Joseph says, is, “Really well sourced tea, the process, which many places don't follow here, of brewing fresh milk and the spices along with the tea, and then something that we call the chaiwala spirit that elevates the entire experience and changes the whole flavor of your cup.”
Project Chaiwala’s strong roots in the city’s cultural identity does not mean that the duo is afraid to innovate. On their menu is a cold frappe version of their Project Chaiwala signature and a soft serve, offering the classic flavors of karak in contemporary forms, as well as a vegan karak.
“We created our own version of vegan karak,” Joseph says. “But it's not as simple as just changing the milk because that changes the flavor. So we had to test it out to ensure we could keep that same flavor, while catering to vegans or lactose intolerant people.”
That itself points to the increasing demand for karak in a demographic that is new to drinking it.
“Karak and chai in general, are having a revival,” says Joseph, “People in Dubai are looking for coffee substitutes. Usually with karak, you don't have the spike and crash that you would with coffee, it's kind of more sustained and then mellows out, although the caffeine content is the same.”
Despite their innovation, Kazim admits that the most popular chai on their menu is the original karak, that is also his favorite. A smile lights up his face when he says, “It’s just so fresh, real, and authentic. Nothing beats the taste of an original karak.” It would seem like the city agrees.
