Episode 15: Got at Home

Now considering Got Tea started their business right as the COVID-19 pandemic began to unleash its wrath upon the world, they knew that they had to always stay innovative in providing customers with their products and an authentic bubble tea experience, regardless of the challenges. And early on itself, they had decided that a home brewing kit would be a perfect way to ensure customers were satisfied, no matter if the café was open or not.

During the lockdowns, many different food and beverage establishments came out with their “at home” kits, promising the same food or drink experience from the comforts of your home, and even teaching you how to make the food and drink preparations by yourself. Got Tea’s “Got at Home” home brewing kit builds on this idea, to provide a unique bubble tea experience to consumers all over the country.

However, there simply had not been any time to execute this idea earlier. Once their café was up and running, the daily running of the café, the eventual move and renovation of the new café, and the regular product updates ended up consuming much of everyone’s time. But once the second wave of the pandemic hit the country, and the café was forced to shut down temporarily, the team decided that now was a good time as ever to start working more concretely on this home brewing kit plan.

The team wanted to ensure that the experience for the consumer was as pleasant and seamless as possible. And to ensure that, they got Yesua (remember him? He designed the Got Tea logo) back on the team to help them design the kit. And working with him has been essential to the success of the process of designing this kit. The team has found that not only was it really easy to work with him, as he was easily able to anticipate the team’s needs, but he was also familiar with Got Tea’s aesthetics, so the team did not have to catch him up to the design.

For the kits, the team decided to directly import the boba, since they could not find a supplier willing to give them individual-sized packages for the kits. For this, they’ve ordered 1 tonne of bubbles from Taiwan! This really shows the commitment the team has to this idea – as a start-up, to make such a large investment, not only in the boba, but also in other products related to the kit such as boxes and straws, is a big commitment. Some may say that it is not a financially prudent decision to make, but the team is also confident in their idea.

The team hopes that the kits will be ready to go by mid-August, starting with limited flavours – they want to get an idea of the market and gauge the interest in the product, before coming out with more flavours. They plan to strategically release the product, with proper marketing, by June or July, but orders for the larger public will take a bit longer. But, watch out for updates on Instagram, Facebook and their website – they will be releasing some teasers soon!

This journal is an ongoing series tracing the story of Got Tea, the latest bubble tea store launched in India, located in South Delhi, now available on Zomato and Swiggy. Want to know what happens next? Stay tuned – new episodes come out every week!