15°C | Saturday May 11, 2024 
14 November 2023
By Hannah Wilcox
Nestled away in the suburban backstreets of North Sydney is a new oasis of culture, spice and innovation. Ambi’s Chai brings the tastes of the Afro-Punjabi palette to locals.
Located at 35 Ridge Street near Stanton Library, Ambi’s Chai is a homely outlet serving up hot cups of uniquely-flavoursome chai accompanied by an array of nibbles for lovers of both sweet and savoury snacks.
Ambi’s opened its doors in North Sydney following the success of its flagship store in Pennant Hills.
The Sun sat down with founder Ambi Thindi and business partner Rachel Harvey to chat about all things chai; how the business came about, the history of the drink itself and what to expect from the duo’s creative minds moving forward.
“I started off with a very simple idea of chai. As the community got involved, people got involved and they started playing a part in shaping Ambi’s Chai to what it has become today,” Ambi said.
“The one in Pennant Hills started on a whim and a fantasy. It was never meant to be what it has become now.”
The expansion east into the North Shore was ultimately down to business management, Ambi explained.
“If you’re standing still, you’re going backwards. My bigger concern, or driving force, was if we didn’t do something and open up another spot people would take these ideas and concepts – people with more resources, more money,” he said.
“If I don’t spread out, somebody else will. I don’t want to be in the city, in the CBD, I want to be off the beaten track and that’s why we chose North Sydney. It’s taken a little bit longer than I expected but it’s building its own vibe.”
“Off the beaten track is what we go for,” Rachel laughed.
“We don’t want people to be in a rush. If you go off the beaten track a little bit, people don’t come in expecting to grab and go. Whereas if we’re in the CBD of Sydney, or the CBD of North Sydney even, you expect things to happen a little bit faster than what we do here.”
Ambi responded: “I just don’t want to be another shop, because then we miss what we’re about. There’s nothing unique about it.”
Ambi’s Chai was inspired by the members of a women’s hockey team he used to coach. The owner used to take a flask of chai to the pitch to keep warm during chilly winter games, with the girl’s curiosity leading to team bonding sessions; meeting up for dinners and brewing chai.
“As we were brewing the chais, one of the girls would say, ‘how would this taste with a bit of chocolate?’ or ‘how would this taste with this and that?’ So that’s where those girls inspired some of the chais we drink today,” he continued.
“Ashlee’s for instance, she’s a midfielder. Brooksy’s a midfielder. Maddy’s a forward attack, Axel’s a goalkeeper, Khushy’s an attack player. They all contributed to it.”
“Ashley was always in my ear telling me I had to do something after I stopped coaching them. They told me they were going to miss my chai, so for a good two, three years she was in my ear all the time asking me what I was going to do as they missed my chai.”
SPICE GIRLS: The original hockey girls, nicknamed the ‘Spice Girls’, still catch up with Ambi and regularly visit the stores.
A chance drive past an empty store on a corner on Pennant Hills Road inspired Ambi to take the leap, working behind the scenes for seven months from August 2018 before the launch of the flagship store on April 27, 2019.
“For a month or two, there was nothing happening. I’d be sitting in the back working on my laptop – and then suddenly in July, it exploded. In July, everybody realised there was a chai place. We must’ve had just under a year of trading, and every month it grew before Covid hit,” he said.
Ambi’s Chai is a self-titled community hub, with an emphasis on creating an atmosphere where people can come together.
“It’s no longer about the chai now, it’s about the vibe, the customer service, a place to come and hang out and I think all of that – plus a bit of food, and people meet each other, sit down and chat and that’s what chai is about,” Ambi added.
“You sit down and talk till the cows come home. That’s where the community played a big part in it.”
The community involvement began with the invention of the ‘Chai-ampions’, a friendly competition running instore that lets locals add a strike next to their name each time they visit.
Win it three times, and visitors are crowned an Ulta Chai-ampion with the opportunity to have their own specialised chai drink created based on their favourite flavours.
“Emma was one of the Chai-ampions and she liked star anise, so we made a chai with star anise which today [on the menu] is called Em’s Star. Then we have Scotty, she likes licorice and then Fitzy’s, which is rum and raisin chocolate chai, then Stewy’s chilli-choc chai and we have Ishy’s redhead,” he listed.
“The chai’s were then being influenced, and inspired, by the community.”
The owner’s favourite remains his own, titled ‘Ambi’s Chai’ – a powerful concoction of chai based on strong, sharp peppers.
A North Sydney special is the ‘Rachy Wachy Chai’, named after co-owner Rachel which is geared towards her taste buds; described as ‘smooth, rich and flavoursome’ and comes served with oat milk and gur.
“When I first started [Ambi’s Chai], I started with the view that I wanted to share my experiences. So if you look in the store, there’s a lot of Ambi’s stuff around. My time in the military, time in India, time in England, time all over the place, playing hockey. The main aim was trying to build a sense of belonging,” Ambi added.
“We grew up with chai. As kids in Africa, we were born there after our parents migrated from Punjab in the 40s.” Ambi grew up in Kenya, Zambia and South Africa.
“Mum would be making chai on the pot, and we’d just hang around and figure it out. That’s how it started – we’d put ginger, cardamon. We grew up with spices all the time,” he said.
“As kids we’d have chai from breakfast, chai for lunch, chai for dinner – it was just chai, chai, chai.”
The chai served at Ambi’s is Afro-Punjabi inspired, a fusion which differs from the traditional Indian tea following the introduction of the drink to Africa in the late 1800s.
“[Indians] are used to smaller cups and sweeter, milkier chai’s where ours are very strong chais – very wholesome, very flavoured,” Ambi explained.
“We work on the thinking of Ubuntu, which is a Zulu word and it means ‘togetherness’ and ‘community’. That’s what it’s all about, and that’s what we strive to bring to our chai bar. In a way, yes I wanted to share my experiences with everybody but I hadn’t thought this would take off in the way that it has.”
Rachel joined the ranks early on, originally a loyal customer of the Pennant Hills store.
“I was 18, and Mum and I used to come into the Pennant Hills store after the gym. We’d do that once a week for a while and then when Covid hit we made it part of our daily routine to get out,” she said.
“We don’t live very far away so we’d walk the 20 minutes up to the chai bar, get a chai and walk back with it. We did that every day and that’s when I really started getting more involved and I started helping out when it was busy behind the bar.”
“It didn’t start with me working as part of [the chai bar] either, I would just help out if it got too busy for Ambi to do by himself and then just went from there,” Rachel added.
Rachel is now a business partner in the enterprise and recently travelled to Kingston, Canberra to set up their third store in August.
Together, along with another staff member Emma, they travelled to India for two weeks on September 25 on a ‘chai-ourney’; with another already in the works for next year to Zanzibar and Dar es Salaam.
“We visited all the places like Delhi, Umritza, Agra. All we did was drink chai’s at all the tea stalls there. What it made us realise is what we have is unique, there is nothing like it,” Ambi said.
“I wanted to take Rachel and Emma as a part of the team to start showing them what we had here and compare it to what is supposed to be the birthplace of chai.”
Rachel said they visited with the aim of finding new spices, but instead realised they were already doing a lot more with chai than what the locals were.
“We use a lot of spices that they wouldn’t think of using, but we did come back with ideas on how we can integrate how they make chai, what spices stand out in each chai. It was nice to know we were doing everything pretty much what they were doing, if not more.”
“There’s definitely a few ideas in the background.”
The Sun was lucky enough to be told about a new menu item coming exclusively to the North Sydney store in the next couple of weeks – an apple pie-inspired roti dish.
“Expanding our sweet roti menu is my pride and joy!” Rachel laughed.
It will join the limited (yet deliciously flavoursome food menu), sporting roti, chickpea and chicken dishes all day on the weekend and in the evenings on Friday through Sunday.
“We just have snack foods. We don’t want to be seen too much as a restaurant or a cafe,” Ambi explained.
The Sun was offered the chance to try one of Maddy’s Mzungu – a spicy milk chocolate chai.
“Maddy is my strike forward and she’s the one that inspired it,” Ambi said.
“She wanted chocolate in the chai. If you go back to where I come from, and you said chocolate, I would’ve said no way you’d put chocolate in a chai – hence the name Maddy’s Mzungu chai. Mzungu means ‘white person’ in Swahili.”
“I said, ‘only a white person would think of putting chocolate in a chai’,” he joked.
Keeping in theme, another recommendation is the Mzungu Rotella which is warm roti with nutella and seasonal fruit – but there is definitely something on the menu for everyone to enjoy.
Ambi’s Chai is open Tuesday to Friday, 8am to 1pm then 6pm to 9pm and weekends 9am to 2pm, 5pm to 10pm.