Tea is the most consumed drink after water. The tea market is growing rapidly in the western world and drinking habits and lifestyles are changing; with youngsters who associate tea with health benefits driving this trend.
Tea Trails is the first chain of tea cafes in India that offers a carefully curated range of the finest teas from around the world along with suitable tea accompaniments, justifying the theory of tea pairing. It further specializes in elaborately tea-infused food menu; the signature tea infused dishes include the Burmese Tea Salad, Tea Marbled Eggs, Tea Infused Thai Bowl and more. They serve gourmet teas from around the world and have an exquisite range of teas from hot to cold and normal to extravagant. Offering an experience of almost 80 varieties of teas with various blends and added benefit; the offerings range from White tea, Green tea, Oolong, Herbal and Black Tea. Tea Trails also offers Bubble teas, like the Taiwanese Bubble Tea and the Tapioca Bubble variant.
Speaking about tea brewing process, Kavita Mathur, Co-owner and Tea Sommelier says, “Brewing tea is an ancient art which is seldom paid attention to. We, at Tea Trails, understand the importance of brewing and steeping high quality loose leaf teas to perfection, without which, the experience of drinking tea cannot be enjoyed to its fullest.”
Tea Trails looks to expand its network with over 500 outlets within the next 5 years. India is the second largest tea consuming market in the world but the Tea Café market is practically non- existent. Tea Trails aspires to cater to this latent demand and be the category creator. The Indian tea industry and the beverage café market are currently valued at Rs 19,500 crore and Rs 1800 crore respectively. Tea Trails operates in this space and has a first mover advantage.
Promoted by a group of entrepreneurs with successful track records, in November 2013, Tea Trails has embarked on an interesting journey of changing the rules of the game in the Café space. Tea Trails currently operates 6 successful outlets in Mumbai and have perfected the business model. The brand has now embarked on a pan India expansion strategy that is a combination of company owned and franchised outlets. In the current year the brand plans to open 45 outlets across the country. In the initial phase, the focus markets are Mumbai, Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Delhi NCR and Ahmedabad.
“The large part of the expansion strategy is based on Franchise network development. This business model is asset light with high ROI. Tea Trails is in the process of raising an investment of $2 Million to support this plan,” says Uday Mathur, co-founder, Tea Trails.
Tea Trails also proposes to merchandise select blends of teas that would be available at premium retail stores and niche online portals, apart from the Tea Trails outlets.