A piece of Dubai, parked in a Southern California car park

The Dubai Karak started from a simple gap. Southern California has extraordinary food from nearly everywhere, and event catering menus that all look the same — lattes, cold brew, lemonade, a dessert cart. Meanwhile the drink that an entire region of the world runs on was nowhere to be found.

Karak is not complicated. Strong black tea, green cardamom, sugar, evaporated milk, simmered together and poured hot into a small cup. What is hard is caring enough to brew it properly every single time instead of reaching for a bottle of syrup — and that difference is obvious in the first sip to anyone who grew up drinking it.

So we built the booth around it. A black-and-blush canopy with Arabic calligraphy panels, a served counter rather than a self-service urn, and a menu that grew outward from karak into sulaimani and sage tea, Arabic and Turkish and Saudi coffee, kunafa, and the chips-and-cheese paratha that stops any Gulf expat mid-sentence.

We are a small, growing business. Every booking is still personal, and the person handing your guests their cup cares a great deal about what is in it.