I first met Chelsea Tan at a small weekend market in Northern Virginia, manning a humble stand named “Chiboo Bakery” that sold delicious macarons that came in bright pastels. When I talked to her, I immediately noticed the familiar sounds of her accent — like myself, Chelsea is originally from Malaysia, a multi-ethnic Southeast Asian country halfway across the world from where we had met. After bumping into her again at a different market, I wanted to learn more about how she made macarons and what it was like to run her own business.

Chelsea started Chiboo Bakery when the world shut down in March 2020 due to the Covid 19 Pandemic; she moved from her home in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia to Northern Virginia with her husband but without a job or any contacts in the area. The inert quarantine period drew her to not only pursue her long-time baking hobby but expand that passion into her own business. In two years, she moved to Frontier Kitchen, a licensed industrial kitchen in Reston, fulfills custom orders as gifts and is a vendor at popular farmers' markets on weekends. 

Her specialties are macarons, a popular French confection that is known for its wide variety of colors and flavors, as well as its iconic look: decadent ganache sandwiched between two delicate cookies. But while her macarons may be French in appearance, the flavors they come in are inspired by some of Chelsea’s favorite Asian tastes. These include popular Asian flavors like matcha, passionfruit or mango, as well as fusion flavors like miso caramel — a play on salted caramel that capitalizes on the umami qualities of salty miso paste. 

Her weeks usually have a set schedule that includes baking times, a day for delivering wholesale and the weekend markets. “I usually just give myself a day off each week. Making macarons is a long, patient process,” Chelsea said. I didn’t believe it until I visited Chelsea at Frontier Kitchen and saw the vast quantity of macarons she made in one week alone. As demand has increased in the two years since the start of Chiboo Bakery, she makes hundreds of macarons a week in order to keep up with her wholesale, weekend markets and special orders, but has begun to feel some burnout towards the end of this year. “I definitely don’t think that I can keep up with doing weekend markets every week. It’s tiring to travel and vend for a whole day, plus sometimes the markets are dead and you end up not getting as much business as you expected,” Chelsea said. “Next year, I want to focus on more custom orders. That’s where I can be more flexible with my product, as well as more creative.” 

For Chelsea, Chiboo Bakery is more than just a business. Malaysians like Chelsea grow up as foodies; food is at the heart of Malaysian Chinese culture, so much so that a standard greeting is not, “how are you” but instead asking, “have you eaten?” In her family, food is one of the ways they show love and how they celebrate life. “I wanted Chiboo Bakery to be my way of spreading happiness to others, like how my family used food to show their love for me,” Chelsea said. Her personal purpose has led her to embrace more aspects of her identity by incorporating distinctively Malaysian flavors in her macarons, such as Milo, a nostalgic chocolate drink popular with children, and salted egg pork floss, a rich, addictive sweet and salty combination. She also now sells kaya, a thick coconut jam that is a staple to Malaysian breakfast. 

Even the name of her business is symbolic. “Chiboo” is her nickname, given to her by her parents that derived from her Chinese name. As she creates a new life in the United States, she continues to cultivate a part of Malaysia that will always be with her, no matter where she goes.