Tea worth drinking,
and worth backing

A decade of tasting
in a cup

Hi, I'm Kai. I started Chai by Kai because I needed work that fits around my health, and because I wanted to build something that backs people like me: care experienced, disabled, overlooked. Both are true at once, and this shop is what they add up to.

The flavour part started in kitchens. I trained as a chef and competed at it, and cooking taught me to taste deliberately. Then a stint working in a tea house introduced me to tea properly, and that was that: a passion was born. The bridges between tea and food started showing up everywhere, and I never stopped exploring them.

That palate is why the tea is good. Every blend is built the way a chef builds a dish: balanced, tasted, adjusted, tasted again. If I wouldn't happily pour it for myself, it doesn't get a label. Honest prices, too: quality without the luxury tax.

And the tea is only half the point. Once a fair wage for the blending hours is covered, at the real Living Wage rate, 30% of the profit goes to care experienced and disabled causes. In our first year we give a minimum of 100 pounds even if we make nothing, and we only ever claim what has actually been given. As we launch and grow: good tea to homelessness outreach, because being homeless shouldn't mean the cheapest teabag, and paid, living wage stall work for care experienced, disabled and homeless folk. Real work, real pay, never 'exposure'.

The whole business is built the way I need it to work: flexibly, around health that doesn't run 9 to 5, with paper and cardboard wherever we can. Proof that beautiful things can be built against the odds. A small range of loose leaf to start, a chai collection coming next, and whether you're a seasoned connoisseur or just curious what a really good cup tastes like, you're in the right place.