Courtesy Project Chaiwala
Courtesy Project Chaiwala
Courtesy Project Chaiwala
Courtesy Project Chaiwala

Wake up and smell the karak: the UAE's obsession with the beautiful cup


  • English
  • Arabic

Tea – the second-most consumed beverage in the world after water – has a special place in the UAE. More specifically, a flavoured tea called chai karak, which transcends emirates and borders too, from Ras Al Khaimah to Muscat in Oman – you can spot a karak shop from a mile off. The long line of cars crowding tiny cafeterias and beeping their horns is a dead giveaway.

The catalyst for this round-the-clock vehicular mayhem is a small Styrofoam or paper cup filled with a liquid guaranteed to give you comfort and a kick-start.

It is a simple formula: loose tea leaves brewed with spices, brought to the boil and simmered with evaporated milk.

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Recipe for the karak we drink at 'The National'

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Karak arrived in the UAE with the Indian diaspora in the 1960s, during the time oil was discovered in the region. The local population took to this hot, creamy drink from the outset, adding their own touch to it and naming it chai karak. For those who don't know, karak means hard or strong in Hindi.

Soon, roadside cafes began to spring up and the drink became a dailyritual, bordering on necessity, for some. From youngsters showing off their cars as they sip the tea on a night out to lorry drivers for whom a cup of karak is a 4am pick-me-up, the drink has become ingrained in UAE culture.

Most drinkers of the tea have a preferred blend of flavours, and what spices should be included and how much of each, can prove to be a point of contention.

Marwan Parham Al Awadhi, better known as DJ Bliss, can't live without his daily dose of karak. The 37-year-old Dubai DJ and TV presenter is a regular drinker, and he loves the stuff so much that he made a fun track about it. The record was picked up and used in an advert for Rainbow's Qubez – an instant karak drink made by adding hot water.

Bliss’s obsession with the spiced drink began at home, where he says he often sipped the tea in the company of his parents on a Friday.

“The next thing I knew I was trying out different places,” Bliss says. “I liked it so much I made this song about it. I like coffee as well, but I think coffee is a bit too strong and it gets you kind of too excited sometimes.”

The popular drink spans all cultures and is available almost everywhere. "If it's a wedding or an office, or anywhere they want to be hospitable, drinks on offer would be red tea, Arabic coffee or karak," Bliss says. "People drink it all day. That's why in the song, I say, 'I need a karak in the morning, I need a karak in the evening', there's literally no right or wrong."

If you’re new to the concoction, to follow Bliss’s at-home method, you need only “throw in some loose tea, boil it with hot water, then put some condensed milk in there. Then, depending on what flavour I want, I either cut up some ginger, crush up some cardamom or put in some saffron”.

When he's buying it, though, he says: "My favourites happen to be right in front of my office and right behind my barbershop. You want to drive up, be able to wait, beep your horn. The guy comes out and gives it to you, or you can find parking. Ease of access plays a major role."

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Eight of our favourite karak spots in the UAE

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In an emirate where there seems to be a new coffee shop opening up on every corner every other week, Dubai's Project Chaiwala is satisfyingly different. Friends Justin Joseph and Ahmed Kazim decided after a visit to India that they wanted to bring the feel of the streets of South Asia to Dubai.

Should you head down to their Burj Park, Downtown Dubai station, you will be treated to tea as it is served in India. A chaiwala pours the piping hot liquid into the cup, swooping and moving his hands apart and together while a small crowd watches on.

“We keep it authentic and real, using the original recipes and products and transplanting it into an urban culture,” Kazim says. “Our shop brings people who have been brought up outside their country back to their roots. It’s also for the people who have grown up in Dubai. The city has grown so quickly, karak just takes them back to their old days; to their old neighbourhoods when life was more simple.”

To keep the project authentic, the team travelled to South Asia to find their chaiwalas.

“We went on a hunt, basically. We were looking for people who knew tea and who knew the culture. Being a chaiwala takes skill, it’s very visual and friendly. So being selective when choosing and training our staff was very important.”

Naturally, karak is Kazim’s favourite beverage. “I am Emirati and it’s become ingrained in UAE culture,” he says. “Tea is a big part of our lives. We gather around the table post-lunch, very much like the English do with an afternoon tea.”

Like the thousands of other karak enterprises across the country, many of which are found in Khalidiya and the old parts of Abu Dhabi, the Project Chaiwala team has put its own twist on the drink. "It's actually sweeter, but not too sweet."

Brewing tea at Project Chaiwala is a serious business. “It takes us an hour and a half to two hours to prepare every batch, so it’s not just your average cup of tea. There is a lot more to it. We can also custom-make your tea to your preference. More tea, more ginger, whatever you want,” Kazim says.

As well as the outlet in Downtown Dubai, there is a roving kiosk that takes up residence at many of the region's food festivals. There are plans afoot for a permanent shop in the not-too-distant future, too.


Another karak stop worth exploring is Filli cafe, which has expanded its presence right across the UAE.

When Rafih Filli took over his father’s small hole-in-the-wall cafeteria in Dubai’s Al Mamzar, little did he know that a simple cup of karak would change his life.

He came up with his own secret recipe, changed the sign on the wall and Filli cafe was born. "My dad left the country when the cafeteria started failing, so I stepped in to help run it," Filli told The National in a previous interview.

“I was only 21 then. After three months, I added tea to the menu – tea the way I like it.”

It took a while to convince the customers to come in and try the new flavours. “They were unsure because they didn’t get why tea tasted so flavourful,” he says. “The crowd that was coming were the staff of the local families living in the area. They thought I was adding something extra.”

After a month of playing around with the recipe and offering free samples to those visiting the cafe, Filli began to attract a steady daily stream of loyal customers.

News about the taste of his drink soon spread. There are currently 27 Filli outlets across the UAE, and the little Al Mamzar start-up now serves about 5,000 cups of tea a day.

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Read more: 

Eight of our favourite karak spots in the UAE

Recipe for the karak we drink at 'The National'

Filli Cafe’s cuppa is its recipe for success as it aims to overtake Starbucks

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Name: Lamsa

Founder: Badr Ward

Launched: 2014

Employees: 60

Based: Abu Dhabi

Sector: EdTech

Funding to date: $15 million

How Tesla’s price correction has hit fund managers

Investing in disruptive technology can be a bumpy ride, as investors in Tesla were reminded on Friday, when its stock dropped 7.5 per cent in early trading to $575.

It recovered slightly but still ended the week 15 per cent lower and is down a third from its all-time high of $883 on January 26. The electric car maker’s market cap fell from $834 billion to about $567bn in that time, a drop of an astonishing $267bn, and a blow for those who bought Tesla stock late.

The collapse also hit fund managers that have gone big on Tesla, notably the UK-based Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust and Cathie Wood’s ARK Innovation ETF.

Tesla is the top holding in both funds, making up a hefty 10 per cent of total assets under management. Both funds have fallen by a quarter in the past month.

Matt Weller, global head of market research at GAIN Capital, recently warned that Tesla founder Elon Musk had “flown a bit too close to the sun”, after getting carried away by investing $1.5bn of the company’s money in Bitcoin.

He also predicted Tesla’s sales could struggle as traditional auto manufacturers ramp up electric car production, destroying its first mover advantage.

AJ Bell’s Russ Mould warns that many investors buy tech stocks when earnings forecasts are rising, almost regardless of valuation. “When it works, it really works. But when it goes wrong, elevated valuations leave little or no downside protection.”

A Tesla correction was probably baked in after last year’s astonishing share price surge, and many investors will see this as an opportunity to load up at a reduced price.

Dramatic swings are to be expected when investing in disruptive technology, as Ms Wood at ARK makes clear.

Every week, she sends subscribers a commentary listing “stocks in our strategies that have appreciated or dropped more than 15 per cent in a day” during the week.

Her latest commentary, issued on Friday, showed seven stocks displaying extreme volatility, led by ExOne, a leader in binder jetting 3D printing technology. It jumped 24 per cent, boosted by news that fellow 3D printing specialist Stratasys had beaten fourth-quarter revenues and earnings expectations, seen as good news for the sector.

By contrast, computational drug and material discovery company Schrödinger fell 27 per cent after quarterly and full-year results showed its core software sales and drug development pipeline slowing.

Despite that setback, Ms Wood remains positive, arguing that its “medicinal chemistry platform offers a powerful and unique view into chemical space”.

In her weekly video view, she remains bullish, stating that: “We are on the right side of change, and disruptive innovation is going to deliver exponential growth trajectories for many of our companies, in fact, most of them.”

Ms Wood remains committed to Tesla as she expects global electric car sales to compound at an average annual rate of 82 per cent for the next five years.

She said these are so “enormous that some people find them unbelievable”, and argues that this scepticism, especially among institutional investors, “festers” and creates a great opportunity for ARK.

Only you can decide whether you are a believer or a festering sceptic. If it’s the former, then buckle up.

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3) People must be over 21. Emiratis and residents can register. 

4) The campaign uses the hashtag  #donate_hope

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Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.

The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.

Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.

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Name: Qyubic
Started: October 2023
Founder: Namrata Raina
Based: Dubai
Sector: E-commerce
Current number of staff: 10
Investment stage: Pre-seed
Initial investment: Undisclosed 

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The biog

Siblings: five brothers and one sister

Education: Bachelors in Political Science at the University of Minnesota

Interests: Swimming, tennis and the gym

Favourite place: UAE

Favourite packet food on the trip: pasta primavera

What he did to pass the time during the trip: listen to audio books

ASHES SCHEDULE

First Test
November 23-27 (The Gabba, Brisbane)
Second Test
December 2-6 (Adelaide Oval, Adelaide)
Third Test
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Fourth Test
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Fifth Test
January 4-8, 2018 (Sydney Cricket Ground, Sydney)

The biog

Family: He is the youngest of five brothers, of whom two are dentists. 

Celebrities he worked on: Fabio Canavaro, Lojain Omran, RedOne, Saber Al Rabai.

Where he works: Liberty Dental Clinic 

Women's Prize for Fiction shortlist

The Silence of the Girls by Pat Barker

My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite

Milkman by Anna Burns

Ordinary People by Diana Evans

An American Marriage by Tayari Jones

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Skewed figures

In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458. 

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