Kolkata Chai started with a simple idea: “How do we extend the authenticity, respect and tradition behind a cup of masala chai to NYC?” The company started as a café in New York’s East Village in 2019, secured $1 million in funding in 2022 and recently added popular comedian/actor Hasan Minhaj as a business partner after receiving an investment that made him the second largest stakeholder in the company. Kolkata is now available in the DC Metro Area through fast-casual Indian restaurant RASA.
RASA is now brewing Kolkata Chai: Masala Chai at all five of its locations. The chai is available hot or iced with oat milk exclusively any RASA locations. RASA, founded by Rahul Vinod and Sahil Rahman (combined to create the name, RASA), opened its first location in Navy Yard in 2017 before opening a location in Mt. Vernon Triangle in 2020, Crystal City in 2021, and then Fairfax before opening at 12033 Rockville Pike in the Montrose Crossing shopping center in April 2023.
The Montgomery County natives behind RASA wanted to add a chai experience to their menu, and chose to bring one of the fastest growing chai brands to the area with Kolkata. More on Kolkata below:
“Our parents left Kolkata in 1987 and landed in Massachusetts to fulfill the American dream. Growing up as first-generation Indian Americans — our concept of home was ever-shifting. In 90’s America, we listened to hip hop, ate pizza and begged our parents for a pair of Vans sneakers. Every other summer or winter, we’d spend a couple of months in Kolkata. An earth-shattering contrast, there, we would jump in monsoon puddles, eat mangsho-jhol, play cricket in the streets and drink chai everyday.
Food was always better on the streets than it was inside the house. The street wallahs possessed almost magical skills — we claimed they had special sauces and spices that they told no one about. There was a lore to street food. It was democratizing, generational and spoke to all socio-economic levels. We went to the same spots where our mother used to get bhel puri during her college times — where the chef’s father used to serve our grandfather.
Kolkata Chai started with a simple idea: How do we extend the authenticity, respect and tradition behind a cup of masala chai to NYC? We hope to see you along this journey.
With love, Ayan and Ani Sanyal.”