Developer recreates kulhad chai in pure CSS for frontend art challenge
A developer built a detailed CSS illustration of a kulhad of masala chai for DEV Community's Frontend Challenge: Comfort Food Edition. The artwork depicts a hand-thrown terracotta cup surrounded by whole spices and a half-eaten biscuit, rendered entirely using divs, gradients, clip-paths, and shadows — no SVG, images, or canvas. The kulhad's irregular silhouette was achieved with an 18-point polygon clip-path, while five stacked gradient layers simulate the texture of matte clay. Steam wisps required three iterations to look realistic, ultimately using individual horizontal origins and mix-blend-mode: screen to mimic rising vapour. A CSS mask-image technique was used to punch a clean bite-shaped hole through the biscuit, preserving its crumb texture and shadow details.
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