If a ritual feels chaotic, you stop doing it.
And traditional chai-making, for all its beauty can quickly descend into chaos.
Milk creeping up the sides of the pan. Foam erupting without warning. That familiar moment of hovering, half-relaxed, half-ready to leap into action.
We didn’t see this as user error. We saw it as a design and engineering problem that had never truly been solved.
So we built something better.
The problem no one had fixed
For centuries, chai has been made the same way - an open pot, direct heat, constant attention. The challenge isn’t flavour. It’s physics: milk foams rapidly, heat concentrates unevenly, and a moment’s distraction leads to scorching or spill-over.
Most solutions tell you to watch more closely.
We asked: what if the object did the work instead?
Introducing the Chai Fountain™
At the heart of the Loka Chai Maker is our Chai Fountain™ — a self-stirring, spill-over proof system engineered specifically for milk-based brewing.
As your chai heats, the fountain allows a higher heat to be used throughout, since it doesn't foam over, accelerating the speed of the brew and preventing the user from having to monitor and adjust the heat.
The result is controlled convection, not chaos.
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No spill-overs
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No hovering over the stove
Just steady heat, consistent movement, and a calmer brewing process.
See the engineering in action
To understand how the Chai Fountain™ works watch the video with Jon Marshall as he explains the thinking, mechanics, and problem-solving behind the system.
Designed to disappear into the ritual
Good engineering doesn’t announce itself, it removes friction. The Chai Fountain™ works quietly in the background, so you don’t have to manage it or think about it. You can step away, reset the kitchen, or simply be present.
This is engineering in service of habit — of repetition, of rituals that feel sustainable, not stressful.
Because when the process feels calm, you return to it.
And when you return to it, it becomes part of your life.
Built by a team that obsesses over the details
This work was led by Andrew Aitken, an exceptional engineer, in close collaboration with Jon Marshall, Industrial Design Partner at Pentagram, alongside industrial designers Chifen Cheng and Amelia Kociolkowska, and a wider team of designers, and makers.
The challenge wasn’t just creating something that worked, but something that worked every day on real stovetops, in real kitchens — quietly and reliably.
Loka is the result of three years of research, development, testing, and tasting thousands of cups of chai.
