On today’s episode, I sit down with Mahsa Darabi, founder of MAHSA CHAI®, a premium chai company built around high-quality ingredients, and a powdered format designed to be easier for both consumers and cafes.

What started as a personal blend Mahsa made for herself during a period of postpartum anxiety eventually became a product people in her community kept asking for, and today MAHSA CHAI® has moved from hand-filled tins and local pop-ups to retail, cafes, production partners, and customers across the country.

In this conversation, we talk about what actually goes into making chai at scale: sourcing dozens of premium ingredients, working with spice and tea suppliers, how tariffs, packaging, and shipping create real fragility for small food businesses, and why MAHSA CHAI® has chosen a powdered chai format instead of the concentrates most cafes use. We also get into pricing, margins, consumer education, retail expansion, the decision to launch a caffeinated blend, and what it means to scale a business while staying extremely protective of the product, the customer, and the values behind the brand.

I learned a lot during my conversation with Mahsa, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.