No matter what the weather, chai remains a perennial favorite for its mix of sharp spices and pleasant sweetness, balanced out by a milky base. Coming away from 2012 Fancy Food Show, we found four small businesses who are channeling the classic blend in various forms of food and drink.

The Chai Cart
Paawan Kothari left her Silicon Valley career to take advantage of the food truck movement in San Francisco, dealing out childhood flavors to pedestrians in the form of homemade chai. The business quickly took off, and now Kothari offers her goods in concentrate form. This is our favorite of the bunch with good reason; Kothari personally sources her ingredients and no sugar is added to the final product. The Chai Cart offers masala, rose and chai late concentrates in addition to a line of loose teas.

Bhakti Chai
Founded in 2008, the goods from Bhakti Chai have stayed mostly in the Rocky Mountain region. Serving up Original, Unsweetened, Decaf and Coffee Blend chai concentrates, the flavors are also available in massive 64oz. growlers for the serious chai fiend. Ginger overtones are balanced by the sweet anise notes from fennel. The organic, fair trade tea is given its punch from evaporated cane juice and a series of fresh spices.

Third St. Chai
Another Colorado brand, Third St. offers six flavors of concentrated chai that is prepared simply by adding milk. The microbrewed beverage can be served hot, iced or blended, and is only slightly sweetened. Showing responsibility at every turn, the Third St. facility is fully wind-powered and the ingredients they use are composted for local farmers.

Hippie Chow
Complement your hot cup of chai with a similarly flavored handful of Hippie Chow granola. While they make a number of mixes, the aggressively spiced chai version is definitely the standout. The all-natural ingredients list includes organic oats, almonds, honey, canola oil, spices, sugar, vanilla extract and salt—exactly the kind of wholesome goodness you would expect from a brand called "Hippie Chow".

Note Design Studio quietly sidled into the public eye last year with its exhibition Marginal Notes, as part of Stockholm Design Week. Alexis Holmqvist, Susanna Wåhlin, Johannes Carlström, Kristoffer Fagerström and Cristiano Pigazzini run the multi-disciplinary studio, which has since built up a prolific base of collaborations with companies across Sweden and beyond, not to mention fresh interior architecture and installations like the recent Below the Snow at the Formex design fair.

This year, the studio revisited the original Marginal Notes concept to show another exhibition of experimental prototypes lifted from the margins of their notebooks. "We're looking for those unique sketches which pop out when you look at them again, the ones you just need to realize," says Fagerström. A recurring theme seemed to be emerging from the team's prep-work, that of Base Camp; "Simplistic materials and shapes of scientific field exploration tools; adapted to wear and tear," he adds.

As with its previous 2011 exhibition, the group set to taking the 2D sketches into 3D, with a diverse set of results that mix color, material and form in a light airy expression that has become the firm's signature. Marginal Notes gave Note a chance to not only show conceptual work but also its more recent collaborations like the simple overhead lighting for Zero, a mobile project screen for Zilenzio and a group of light ash wood structures, dressed in fabrics from Afroart.

However, Note stands out mostly for its independent projects like Tuc, a group of three rotund stools which get their form from the Steve Zissou-style beanie hat and its attention-grabbing red color. The edges of the cushion are folded up to reveal an intricate lattice of metal beneath.

The piece Sifter is a scaled-down take on an excavation machine from a building site, transformed into a coat hanger with a net below to catch items that may drop from your pockets. Peep brings light into typically dark bulky storage furniture, using the same mesh as Mosquito, a selection of screens that can be used as backdrops or temporary feature walls. The Catch is a fun ceiling light that can be moved around its central pivot to resemble a firefly caught in a butterfly net.

"To fell a tree, and to cut it up into useful pieces is a thing of pride for a lumberjack or a settler building their first cabin," says Fagerström, explaining the Settler seat. "The iconic shape of a log on a sawbuck inspired these benches, since a dead tree in the forest is really the best place for a short rest."

Marginal Notes 2012
8-10 February 2012
Showroom Lindehöf,
Hornsgatan 29, Stockholm

Plucked from the Great Lakes beaches of New York state, each of Kiel Mead's wall-mounted driftwood hooks marks a unique expression of his dedication to craft. Mead personally selects, bleaches and stains the hooks individually, telling Cool Hunting that because the approach is so extensive, every piece is like a little labor of love and, consequently, an unforgettable form. "There are several steps to the process so I end up touching each hook about 10-12 times," says Mead. "During that process I get to know each one personally. It's sort of silly but I end up picking favorites and imagining where each one will end up. The ones that truly become my favorite don't ever leave my studio."

Mead is forever toying with common objects, and some of his most beloved designs reflect this aspect. The American Design Club founder pioneered the movement in accessories to cast everyday items like bubble gum, drill bits and retainers in materials like brass, gold and silver. "I came up with the driftwood hooks simply by running a color experiment in my studio," he points out. "I had a pile of driftwood that I had been collecting for a few months and I just started to stain the pieces these really great vibrant colors. It was never supposed to be anything. I feel like some of my favorite designs happen purely by accident."

Mead, who grew up in a town on Lake Erie in western New York, has also always had a "love affair" with driftwood. "We used to collect the most interesting looking pieces and display them on the porch or in my mom's gardens," he says. This project centers on his fascination with the contours of each piece. "Although there is nothing genius about a hook on the wall, I think what made me keep doing the hooks and actually giving them life as a product has to do with how each one is so different from the next," reflects Mead. As a consumer I really appreciate a product like this because it is so personal and one-of-a-kind."

Stained in 10 different hues, the driftwood hooks are between 7-12 inches in size and sell from Areaware for $25 each. A limited number of hooks will also hit Anthropologie stores this spring, a development Mead is excited about—after all, coming across the hooks in shop, he tells us, will be like reconnecting with an old friend.