The Story Behind the Story - Got Tea

The Got Tea team was soon ready to launch. And they got the opportunity for two pop-ups in early 2020. In February 2020, LBB Delhi organized a Dessert Bazzar at Sunder Nursery, and the Got Tea team had a small kiosk at the event. The next month, in early March, Jesus and Mary College’s (JMC) Ethnic Eight society hosted a cultural festival, which also featured the Got Tea team and their bubble teas. These two events were pivotal for the team, as it was their first foray into actually selling their product in the Indian market. YuSung at the JMC event The team and their products were an absolute hit at these events! Selling around 150 beverages at each event, the team became more confident about what they were selling and found that there was indeed a demand for bubble tea in Delhi. These events also helped the team understand the type of flavours that the Delhi market liked – contrary to their beliefs, they found that people in Delhi were more open to experimenting with and trying new f...

While the finer details of the business were still to be figured out, the co-founders of Got Tea had two important principles which guided their business efforts – their products would be a combination of two cultures, Korean and Indian, and that all the ingredients they use in their products would be sourced locally. These two principles formed a sort of ‘multicultural’ approach to their business, something which we had learned in Woodstock, and team Got Tea was bringing this to their business.  So, what goes into bubble tea? Well the two main ingredients are the bubbles and the tea! Now while some may argue that the bubbles are the most important part of bubble tea, I think it is the tea – the bubbles won’t matter if the tea is substandard. And lucky for the Got Tea team, India has plenty of tea!  YuSung, SuAh and Jo at an event So, for the tea, the team approached a senior from school, Tadit, who runs a tea plantation in Assam. He sent a couple of options of teas to them, f...

When YuSung and SuAh came to India, they decided to travel around a little, reconnecting with some of their friends from school and also doing market research. The city they knew the most was Delhi, so they started from there. They reconnected with some other Woodstockers who had set up a business in Delhi, to understand how the city is for a new business.  The two people they met were Ariella Blank of Atmosphere Kombucha, who was a year younger to us in school, and Ajai Thandi of Sleepy Owl, who was two years our senior. Both of them advised YuSung and SuAh to start in Delhi, and said the market here was ready for their venture (and not saturated, yet).   YuSung and SuAh with ex-Woodstockers, including Ajai Thandi of Sleepy Owl But SuAh and YuSung were diligent businessmen, and decided to still do more homework and actually visit other cities to get a sense for themselves. This was especially important to YuSung and SuAh, since they had not really been to southern India (sinc...