Cutting Chai with Lakshmi Ganapathy is a monthly series of bite-sized interviews with prominent South Asians showcasing their career and personality and celebrating their South Asian Australian identity.
UPPMA VIRDI is the founder of Chai Walli, who produce authentic artisan masala chai blends. Formerly a corporate lawyer, she was listed on CNN’s 40 under 40 and awarded Businesswoman of the Year at the IABCA Awards 2016.
What makes a good chai blend?
Uppma Virdi: For me, it’s about the sensory experience of it. When I make masala chai blends, it’s not as simple as putting spices together. It’s about how it makes me feel, the smell of it, how it looks. I always go into making a blend with a purpose…It’s like a dance with the spices, and you’re putting them together, and you’re smelling them along the way. I don’t taste any blends until I finish them and I’m happy with the sensory nature.
There’s a lot of science that goes into it – or else the spices will counteract and destroy the balance and the rhythm of the blend that I’m trying to achieve. Some things don’t work together, some things do, especially when you add the patti, the tea, that’s a whole different story.
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Your transition from corporate law to Chai Walli wasn’t initially supported by your parents. How did you stay resilient without their encouragement?
Uppma Virdi: I think I needed them to be like, ‘no, you can’t do it’… I needed that challenge. If everything was handed to me on a silver platter, I probably wouldn’t have worked so hard for it. Those challenges forced me to believe in this and want to make it work and prove them all wrong.
Ultimately it boiled down to proving that to myself; I think when you’re doing it for anyone else, it’s not the right reason.
You often talk about ‘decolonising chai’. What’s the difference between appropriating and appreciating?
Uppma Virdi: Appropriation is when things are taken from a culture, not without permission, but without informed knowledge of where it comes from and the DNA in which it’s passed down the generations. When things are appreciated, exoticism is not a part of it – it’s more informed and pays homage to where it comes from. It’s more, ‘I want to learn about this and can use or do or speak about these things in a more culturally informed way’.
I think that’s where I see the difference; [where it’s] taken and monopolised [upon] and then the other culture which it doesn’t come from makes money from it.
What’s something that you’re currently listening to/reading/playing/watching?
Uppma Virdi: I’m not watching much because my five-month-old baby doesn’t let me. I watched my first movie yesterday, I think it was called Tammy, and it was a brain-dead movie that was just hilarious. I’m a bit embarrassed about that, but I needed a good laugh.
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What’s a word that you like in a South Asian language, and what does it mean?
Uppma Virdi: I have these Punjabi flashcards for my baby, and I don’t know why, I just love the word kargosh – it means rabbit. There’s something beautiful about how it flows… there’s no depth to it. It’s just a beautiful word.
And finally: Soan Papdi or Papdi Chaat?
Uppma Virdi: Pani Puri – is that an option? I can do like 50 of those in a row. No? Okay, I’ll go Papdi Chaat.
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