Well, where to start?

This venture is the result of a lot of soul searching, dissatisfaction with my job, and a desire to live a life that's truer to one's core values.

My love of chai can be traced back to my teenage years living in Kenya. When I was 15, I spent a week over Easter break at a friend's parents' camp in the Maasai Mara. Said friend's parents were biologists, studying (if memory serves), some aspect of the behavior of kongonis. More to the point, part of this research involved getting up at an ungodly hour every morning, huddling under wool blankets in the open back of an old (Russian?) army surplus truck, and bouncing away into the darkness towards that day's field study site. Tucked along the sides of the truck were old beat up thermoses full of of Maasai chai, made every morning by their Maasai camp aides.

So it was in the 'Mara, shivering in the pre-dawn coolness of the African savannah, that I learned to appreciate just how damn good a cup of warm, spicy sweet chai can be for the soul. That warmth left an imprint. As I've moved through life, I always preferred chai over coffee when needing that steamy, cozy pick-me-up. Nearly three decades later, now living in Colorado, I continue to make chai for myself on my backcountry ski outings and multi-day backpacking trips.

I worked hard over the years at creating a recipe that recaptures a little bit of that Maasai Mara magic, but in powdered form. This means I can brew a cup at a moment's notice when camping or half-asleep on dawn patrol mornings. My life partner, adventure journalist Jayme Moye, is also my business partner. The inception of Backcountry Chai is a combination of long conversations, serendipitous ingredient discoveries, and a little "what the hell."

We're still putting the finishing touches on everything - and figuring out a whole lot of other logistics that goes along creating something like this. But by mid summer, we'll have something we can ship. Sign up for the news release below, we'll email you when you can buy the best instant chai mix on earth. It'll be worth the wait, promise.

--jfh