Diaspora Spice Co. x East Fork Pottery Chai Essentials

This set pairs a handleless ceramic chai cup with a traditional spice blend, both made to bring the roadside chai stall experience into everyday use. The pink-glazed kulhad comes from a North Carolina pottery known for tableware shaped and fired by hand. Its tapered form widens to a full rim, sized for the amount of chai you'd pour at a single sitting.

The masala includes spices sourced from growers across multiple South Asian regions. Each ingredient is selected for the role it plays in a layered, warming cup: the kind where black pepper heat and cardamom sweetness arrive in stages rather than all at once. You steep the blend with loose tea and milk, strain, and drink from a cup shaped to cup in both hands.

Kulhads traditionally serve as a single-use clay alternative to plastic at tea stalls. This glazed ceramic version is meant to be kept and used again. The handleless design and slight taper make it comfortable to hold when the chai inside is still hot. The glaze is smooth and cleans easily after repeated contact with milky tea.

Both pieces reflect direct relationships with makers: the pottery is wheel-thrown and finished in Asheville, and the spice blend sources from farms chosen for how they grow and process each component. The set is built around the idea that chai depends as much on the vessel as on what goes inside it, and that both are worth choosing carefully.