- [Announcer] "A Fork in the Road" is brought to you by... - I'm Tyler Harper.

As your agriculture commissioner, I have the honor of representing one of the hardest working groups of people in our state, our farmers.

That's why we invite you to take the Georgia Grown Challenge.

Try any Georgia specialty crop against any other state's produce, and you'll pick Georgia Grown.

♪ Picture perfect ♪ ♪ Hang the picture on the wall ♪ ♪ I see you shine from afar ♪ ♪ Yet to me you are the star ♪ ♪ Oh yeah, baby ♪ ♪ Feels good, feels right ♪ ♪ Take the feeling, pass it on ♪ ♪ Just pass it on ♪ - I'm Tyler Harper.

As your agriculture commissioner, I have the honor of representing one of the hardest working groups of people in our state, our farmers.

That's why we invite you to take the Georgia Grown Challenge.

Try any Georgia specialty crop against any other state's produce, and you'll pick Georgia Grown.

- The fascinating and ever-changing world of agriculture.

Let's hit the road here in Georgia and meet the farmers, producers, makers and bakers who keep us all fed and keep us coming back for more.

Straight ahead at "The Fork in the Road."

(sultry music) ♪ I came from the mud ♪ ♪ There's dirt on my hands ♪ ♪ Strong like a tree ♪ ♪ There's roots where I stand ♪ - [David] Georgia farmers, artisans, merchants and producers, we depend on these men and women every day of our lives through the choices we make and the food we consume.

Their strategy and approach is always shifting, but the end game remains the same, results.

(sultry music) (bright music) You see them in town markets, when scrolling through social media, and their work is often seen, used, and even consumed in our everyday lives.

That's the work of an artisan.

This week we explore a few gifted Georgia artisans who have used their combined skills of creativity and business savvy to build a successful operation.

We begin this episode in Marietta, Georgia at a business that's been built to a T, or should I say, a chai.

(bright music) When you walk into the home of Monica Sunny, there's a warm yet spicy aroma in the air, a calmness, a general sense of relaxation.

And that same sensation is true at her place of work.

It just seems to follow her wherever she roams.

But it's not an unexplained phenomenon.

There's an easy explanation as to why.

It's simply the essence of chai.

- I was born in India, so chai has always been a part of my life.

Growing up, I would have chai with my mom and dad, my grandparents, so it's a big part of our culture, which I wanted to instill in my boys.

The Chai Box really grew out of my love for chai and my desire to teach my boys how to make chai and let them also experience that chai time together.

So that's what I started doing.

My oldest son Ethan had food allergies, so a lot of the play dates were at my house.

The moms would come, the kids would come, and we would have chai together.

And everybody wanted to learn how to make chai.

So the foundation of Chai Box is really teaching people how to make chai.

That's how it kind of started.

And so literally The Chai Box grew out of my kitchen.

Chai means tea, that's what it means.

The word chai literally translates to tea.

So that's why you see this movement of, "Stop saying chai tea," because what you're saying is redundant, tea-tea.

Chai to me means more than tea.

It means family, it means togetherness, because I have such wonderful memories connected to that word.

- [David] Like most every artisan, there are secrets to the trade.

That's part of what makes them unique.

Monica uses that generational knowledge of chai recipes to concoct a variety of flavor profiles.

- We have our namesake product.

This is a typical spice box that you would see in Indian household.

When I was trying to teach my boys how to make chai, I took the spice box and I put cloves, spices, tea leaves, and a little index card.

They used this to learn how to make chai and they would call this the chai box.

So when I was teaching people how to make chai, make it your way, they wanted something that was easier to do, so already blended.

So then we came up with our blends.

We have about 14 different blends with different spices that are inspired by different regions in India.

Some of them are like my mom's recipes and my grandmother's recipe, like chai tonic.

We have loose leaf and then we also have a chai concentrate.

We want to source our single origin spices from regenerative farmers in Kerala, India, which is the spice capital of the world.

And these spices are so robust and flavorful, and we get 'em directly from the farmers, so they're fresh.

And we hand blend everything here.

We do everything here.

We blend everything here, we package, we do shipping.

- We're actually using biodegradable packing peanuts.

If you dump 'em in water, they'll just dissolve.

- [Monica] And my husband is the master brewer, so he does the brewing of the concentrate.

We're a chai family.

We all sit down and have chai together.

We always have a thermos of chai here in the morning for us to share.

- [David] Let's talk about Oprah.

- What can I say?

(Monica laughs) Oprah was a dream come true.

10 of her favorite things were on "Good Morning America."

The day that we got the call, it's like everything stopped.

It was like that moment of, "What just happened?"

And then once you realize you're on Oprah's favorite thing, like "What are we gonna do?

We have to prop up."

We had this extra pressure of having more inventory.

My community came together here in Marietta, our family, my mom, my husband's mom, people that we go to church with, soccer moms, anybody that I could think of, we had everything from floor to ceiling was filled with gift boxes, because we had to get ready for Oprah.

And then we had to get ready for "Good Morning America."

That was the most beautiful part of it, all of us coming together to get ready.

And then in four hours on "Good Morning America," we sold out.

(upbeat music) We source from regenerative farms.

Our sustainability efforts start from the very beginning, all the way from how we source to how we produce and how we mix.

We don't add any preservatives or artificial flavors.

And then how we package, we package in rice paper bags.

We also compost our chai mulch.

When we brew, we have lots of tea and spices leftover, which is really great for gardens because they have all these tannins.

So we work with local businesses, farms, and then also just our community who can come get chai mulch and use it in their garden.

- [David] Chai mulch probably smells pretty good compared to regular mulch.

- It does!

Your backyard's gonna smell wonderful.

(upbeat music) - Of course, I'd learned where to get this chai box here in the store or online, but like many culinary attempts, I didn't wanna mess it up once I got it.

So why not learn from the master?

And that's just what I did.

Monica kindly invited me to her family's home to hone my skills in the art of making a perfect cup of chai.

Monica, went to the store, got quite inspired.

Let's learn how to do it here.

- Yeah, this is where it all started, in this kitchen right here with this chai box on this stove.

- Beautiful.

- So this is our chai box.

Do you remember all the stuff that's in it?

- [David] Of course I do.

- [Monica] Okay, let's quiz you.

- Okay, all right.

- What's this spice?

- Carmon.

- Cardamom!

- Cardamom, okay.

- Nice!

- Thank you, thank you.

- What about this?

- Fennel, fennel.

- Yes!

This is easy.

- That's the tea.

- Yeah, you like this one.

- Ginger, cloves, cinnamon, roses.

- Yes!

- Yes, alright, thank you.

- Good job, good job.

- Thank you, thank you.

That's the chai box.

- That is the chai box.

- That's what does it all.

- So you get to create your own blend now.

So decide which spices you want, you'll crush them, and then we'll start making the chai.

- Oh, I get to do my own, okay, okay.

Let me know if I'm overdoing anything.

- Okay, there's no, you discover your true blend.

You discover whatever you want.

- I'm a huge fan of ginger.

- Okay.

- But do we crush the ginger?

- We don't crush, we only crush the spices.

- Okay.

- Do you know why we crush the spices?

- Why?

- To release all the oils.

- That makes sense.

- Yes, I love cardamom.

And cardamom actually is a mood enhancer.

- Really?

- Yes.

- It's gonna make me happy.

- It's gonna make you happy.

- Okay, good, good, that's what I was hoping.

I'm a huge fan of cloves.

- Okay, so cloves are really, really strong, so you might wanna, yeah, there you go.

- [David] About it?

- Yes, those are antibacterial.

They're really good for any kind of joint pains that you have, so that's perfect.

- Oh, that's like everywhere.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, okay, good, good.

- Yes.

- [David] Cinnamon.

- Cinnamon, yes, you can put as much as you want in there, because that's anti-inflammatory.

And it tastes really yummy.

You're trying everything, what about fennel?

- [David] Yeah, fennel.

- Fennel is a great digestive.

So you've got all your spices.

- Okay, got 'em all in here.

- Now you're just gonna crush 'em.

There you go.

Yeah, just go at it.

You can just put it on the floor and just go.

This is how I wake up my kids in the morning.

I make my chai and just, yeah.

All right.

- [David] Okay.

- You've done most of the work.

Now we're just gonna let the water do its work.

- [David] Pour it in?

- Just put it right in.

- That's simple.

- There you go.

- Perfect, that's it, get all that stuff in.

Now we're just going to let it infuse in there.

And the water will, we call it spice boil, so give it a couple of minutes.

My rule of thumb is one minute per cup.

- [David] Got it.

- We're making about three cups, so about three minutes.

And it should start boiling, and then we'll add in our tea leaves.

- Now, so we wait to put the ginger and all that in.

- Yes, yeah.

I mean, if you want to, you can go ahead and put it in actually.

Go ahead, put it in.

- [David] You know I like ginger.

- Yeah, maybe a little bit more.

- Oh yeah, okay, all right, you don't have to tell me twice for that.

- Did you wanna do something roses?

- Roses, yes.

- Yeah, why not?

- Yes, okay.

- [Monica] Everything out of the chai box is going.

- [David] Get that floral, there we go.

- Yes, oh, that looks so pretty, look at that.

- Thank you, I'm very proud of myself for that.

- Smell it.

- Oh yeah.

- Yes.

So, do you see the color change?

- [David] Yes.

- That's what happens with the spice boil.

You know all those oils are releasing.

So if the color doesn't change, that means you probably need to crush your spices.

So again and add in tea leaves.

We'll do two teaspoons per cup.

And once you have the tea leaves, it's perfect time to do your chai facial.

Now is the time you just wanna pull your hair back, David, and then you just... - Awww.

- Take it all in.

Isn't that nice?

Get all those oils in your skin, do chai facials.

- There you go, yes, yes.

- Perfect.

- Warren, how do I look?

Am I good?

- It's a morning ritual.

Now, tea you can let it boil, black tea up to five minute max.

Because afterwards, if you boil it longer, you know the little bitter taste that you get?

- That's what I was wondering, yeah, that after back here.

- That's tannins.

- Okay.

- But once you add milk, it stops the release of tannins, the milk fat.

- [David] Nice.

- Right?

- [David] Okay.

- You ready to add in the milk?

- Yes!

(bright music) Well, Monica Sunny, Evan and Ian, thank you for having me to your home.

- Thank you for telling our chai story.

We're a family that loves chai and that's what makes us go around.

- Oh well, I love chai now as well.

- Thank you.

- Thank you.

- Cheers.

- Thanks for letting me be a part of it, cheers.

(bright music) Get another refill soon.

So feeling calm, relaxed, and slightly spicy, my chai education session at the Sunny household came to a tasty end, sitting down by the pool with the family, enjoying one last cup and taking home a box to maybe give my own home that enchanting essence of chai.

(sultry music) From Marietta, southeast we go to Statesboro, where a variety of sweet and savory concoctions are popping up everywhere.

(upbeat music) (popcorn popping) It is a nostalgic sound, a reminder of nights at the movies or weekends at the old ballpark.

The explosion of a solid kernel sets off a domino effect leading to a crescendo of pops that result in delightful aromatics and a tasty snack.

David Cork knows this sound, this smell, and this taste quite well.

So much so that he's made a business out of it.

(upbeat music) - I bought a little popcorn cooker from a company in Texas, didn't really know what I would do with it.

I've always kind of had these harebrained side gigs that I hustled.

I'd never really cooked kettle corn, but started playing around with it at the farmer's market and then really just kind of grew a following at the farmer's market over the years.

- [David] When did you decide, "You know what, I'm gonna start taking this to the next level?"

- A lot of times I wondered like, can I even take it to the next level?

Will I be able to do that?

There were a couple local businesses here in town that said, "Hey, we wanna put it on the shelf."

And I said, "Well, all I have is this clear Ziploc bag with a little sticker that I had printed locally."

And they're like, "We don't care, we just wanna put it on the shelf."

And so I put it on the shelf here locally, and that started to grow.

Gave it to a couple of the grocery stores here in town, said, "What do you think about putting it on the shelf?"

And so they put it on the shelf too.

And so we just started to grow a little bit.

And again, I was working full-time with a real job and doing this as kind of a side hustle.

- [David] And once they had the supply, they quickly realized that the demand was there.

And from that point, they just had to keep up.

- [David Cork] If you fast forward to 2021, we had grown a little bit outside of Georgia and then Publix came and approached us about putting it on the shelf in the Georgia Grown section.

I quit my job right after that and just went after it full time.

- [David] So they came to y'all.

- Yeah.

- [David] Someone must have had it.

- That's right.

(upbeat music) We pop all the popcorn in here, so no matter which flavor we're doing, it all starts in this room with this cooker.

- [David] Hey, you're not giving up any secrets, right?

- No, no, no recipes are shared today.

Nate is cooking kettle corn today, and it's pretty basic.

Four ingredients, sugar, salt, oil, and popcorn.

- [David] Nice, and it was neat watching Nate here get to work with that, mixing it up.

That's an important part of the process.

- [David Cork] He could get a part-time job at the Hibachi Grill.

What do you think, what do you think?

We bulk bag everything in this room.

So everything's put into these giant bulk bags, and then we take it up front, and that's where they individually bag it into the retail packaging.

(upbeat music) We have a couple of these baggers here at the shop.

It's kind of semi-automated, weighs it all out for you, and then we manually bag it and seal it here and date code it.

- [David] I was telling these guys, that sound is almost hypnotic.

- Yeah, it is.

- [David] I just watched "War of the Worlds."

- Oh, yep, that's exactly right.

So yeah, this is our retail packaging that we're doing right now.

So this will go on the shelf at Publix or some of our local customers here in town.

And we ship a lot of these too through our different websites that we have.

(upbeat music) - [David] It's really neat watching these guys work.

It's just such a time to process.

(upbeat music) So it goes into the bag, he hands it to the gentleman here, and then what's that machine do?

- [David Cork] He puts a little bit of a nitrogen flush in it.

That nitrogen is gonna push some of the air out and it also will preserve the product longer, give it a better shelf life.

We publicize that we can do six months.

(upbeat music) - [David] Do you have a favorite?

I know it's hard to pick a baby.

- I actually like the salted popcorn.

Just the plain salted, no sugar or anything on it.

It's my favorite.

It kind of reminds me of growing up as a kid in the Atlanta area, going to Kmart and going to the snack bar and getting an Icee and a bag of salted popcorn.

I think that's why I like it so much.

- [David] And you always liked popcorn?

- I've always been a fan, I have.

Our whole family still likes popcorn.

(upbeat music) - [David] It's not just the stores.

It's at a pretty popular place in Augusta.

- Last year we did the Master's Tournament and looks like we're gonna do it again this year.

- [David] They wanted you back.

- [David Cork] They did, it sold out, our caramel corn.

- [David] Back by popular demand.

Get it, pop, popular?

- [David Cork] There you go.

- [David] Thank you.

(upbeat music) An interesting thing that I learned today is that there's actually more than one type of kernel.

I was wondering how he got his popcorn so delightfully puffy.

- [David Cork] Early on we decided we were gonna oil pop everything.

You can air pop or oil pop, but to me oil popped is a more tender product.

And we also decided early on that we were gonna use a mushroom popcorn, which is, it looks like ball, like a baseball almost, instead of a butterfly type popcorn, which you might see at a movie theater that's kind of spread out looking.

The mushroom popcorn just seems to have a better quality.

More expensive to buy, but a better product.

- [David] Now for the flavors.

Yes, they have it with butter, and yes, they have it with salt, and those are great, but that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the flavors.

- At the farmer's market, we started off with a single flavor of kettle corn.

I believe the next one that we started to add after that was caramel corn.

We wanted to put a product out there that didn't have any sugar, so we did what we call Simply Salted, and then we added Snickerdoodle.

On our fundraising side, we've added some different cheese flavors.

A buffalo ranch, a jalapeno cheddar, a white cheddar, and then just like an orange cheddar.

These guys in here like to experiment with different flavors and they did a cookies and cream recently and it was excellent.

And they did it on a kettle corn base, so it made it really good.

It's crazy to think that, first of all, that we're popcorn people, and I never thought I'd be a popcorn guy.

It makes for interesting conversation when you're with like a business professional and they're like, "Oh, so what do you do for a living?"

"I make popcorn."

- [David] It's a smooth operation indeed.

Every kernel popped is made to order, meaning every bag delivered is as fresh as it gets, straight from Statesboro to your humble abode.

(sultry music) We now journey from Statesboro north to Bishop for a little energy boost, courtesy of a creative couple and their love for hibiscus.

(upbeat rock music) This drink was created out of necessity.

According to Clayton and Phoebe, the energy drinks that were out there were all flawed.

Either too many calories, too many unhealthy additives and artificial flavors, most of which have always been suspect.

So they had their work cut out for them if they wanted a drink that didn't have any of the above-mentioned flaws.

And here's the real catch, it had to taste good too.

(upbeat rock music) - The phrase that we use to describe the drink is super simple energy.

Super benefits, simple ingredients, delicious energy.

The business actually started because we had family members giving up artificial diet drinks, and they were really dissatisfied with the way that natural options tasted.

So from the get-go, when we found out that that was a really common problem, we set out to see if we can make something simple with natural ingredients and beneficial, but also taste was a big deal.

What you're getting when you pop a tab is, you're getting amazing benefits, tons of vitamins, and electrolytes and antioxidants and drinks as well as zero calories.

We're not using as a brand any artificial preservatives or anything like that.

One ingredient that we use in order to avoid that is hibiscus.

It's a flower, it's got these natural organic acids that are present in it that help us have this really, really long shelf life in the can so that whether you crack a can on day one or two years later, it still tastes the exact same, still is very fresh and still is very safe.

(upbeat music) - The idea initially came from a few different places.

It kind of hit us all at once.

It was the combination of Clayton working with food science at UGA and one of his professors coming back from a trip to India, I believe it was, everywhere he went, there was hibiscus tea and it had this beautiful color and just a really unique flavor to it.

And at the same time I had gone and bought some hibiscus dried from just the local grocery store and was baking with it, started brewing a little bit of tea and we were actually making a lemonade with it for a little while and it just had such a unique bite to it and flavor.

So we also knew from that kind of tangy quality that it had that that would be able to replace any preservatives and it would really keep the product stable, lasting for a long time, and really healthy.

(upbeat rock music) - So we start right here.

The cans move forward on this big conveyor.

And then when we're ready to start rolling on the canning line, you've got a little sterilization unit here.

What will happen is this blows deionized air to the inside of the can that'll completely clean it out, get anything that's inside of the can blown out.

It's really high pressure.

Come down here and then wait to be ready to be filled.

The guy on the back end of the line gives thumbs up, guy on the end of the line ready to start packing 'em off at the end of the table, we get ready to go and turn it to automatic.

And you'll immediately start hearing lids drop over here so that as they cans come by, they'll be able to grab one of those after they get filled.

We'll hit the hold cans button.

Cans will get pushed in.

Fill, let 'er drop.

And then of course, here, usually the cans will get filled up with our red liquid HIBO.

And then once they're full, this will lift back up, cans will flow through here, they'll run through the star wheel, and the lid just goes right on top as it flows by there.

- After all our cans are run through each seamer, we have two heads going here.

So they go, they're lifted up, seamed, spun around a million times, and then on the backside, they're washed one extra time.

And then they'll start coming down this conveyor belt here and they look like this minus the label.

And then as they go, they're pushed through this, evenly spaced out, come through here, grab a label.

We'll have a huge stack of cases here and we'll throw 'em all in cases and get 'em loaded up onto the rest of the pallets.

- [David] There's notes of similarity between the flavors, and that's the sweet hibiscus, but it's the additional natural ingredients that help keep it fun.

And of course, both Clayton and Phoebe have favorites.

- Original is actually my favorite flavor.

It has taken the longest for us to get right.

Hibiscus itself, the flower, has these berry and citrus tones, and we knew we couldn't just let the normal flavor of hibiscus will out because it also has these, like the tea has these kind of earthy and beady tones as well, which we knew some people will like, and so we wanted to focus in on those berry citrus tones.

And so we spent a long time trying to come up with a flavor combination.

And we've gotten it wrong a lot.

It's been a really hard flavor combination to make.

And that's why it's my favorite is because we put so much work and care into making it the best it could possibly be.

And now I can say the flavor that we've ended up on is, honestly, whenever I drink it, I can't put it down.

- And then second is passion fruit, which is my all time favorite.

And this one is really special to us because we took our honeymoon in 2021 and we went to Hawaii and had the most amazing passion fruit juice you've ever had in your life.

And we thought, wow, this would be an incredible flavor to pair with HIBO.

So we came back and asked our flavor manufacturer to get us something that tasted like fresh passion fruit, and they got it, and it turned out incredible.

- One thing that really matters to me a lot is my relationship with my dad.

My dad was one of the people that inspired the company to begin with, but also we loved key lime pie when I was a kid, that was the dessert that he always ordered at restaurants.

And so we knew that when we started HIBO, we wanted to make a key lime flavor to kind of pay homage to one of the guys that inspired the whole thing.

- [David] So mission accomplished for the duo at HIBO.

Keeping it clean, keeping it healthy, offering a natural boost of energy, and of course, making sure it tastes good.

So from chai in a box offering recipes passed down through the generations to a popping success in Statesboro, bringing made-to-order popcorn straight to your local market and a healthy couple bringing a unique, natural, and equally healthy award-winning beverage to the table, these Georgia artisans prove that creativity, heart, and genuine passion for what you do can deliver amazing results.

I'm David Zelski, see you at the next "Fork in the Road."

(upbeat music) "The Fork in the Road" was brought to you by... - I'm Tyler Harper.

As your agriculture commissioner, I have the honor of representing one of the hardest working groups of people in our state, our farmers.

That's why we invite you to take the Georgia Grown Challenge.

Try any Georgia specialty crop against any other state's produce, and you'll pick Georgia Grown.

- [Announcer] From produce to people, the best things are grown and raised in Georgia.

Even in tough times, we come together, work hard, and grow strong.

When you purchase Georgia Grown products, you support farmers, families, and this proud state we call home.

Together, we will keep Georgia growing.

- I'm Tyler Harper.

As your agriculture commissioner, I have the honor of representing one of the hardest working groups of people in our state, our farmers.

That's why we invite you to take the Georgia Grown Challenge.

Try any Georgia specialty crop against any other state's produce, and you'll pick Georgia grown.