How this entrepreneur couple is brewing a Rs 20 Cr specialty tea business in India

India is a tea drinking country. But, people are now going beyond the boiled milk chai, and exploring variants such as green, black, oolong  - even bubble tea in different flavours. 

The country, second only to China globally when it comes to tea production, savours its tea, consuming 80 percent of tea produce. In fact, the country made its way through 10 million tons of tea in 2020, according to Expert Market Research. 

Srinivas Ganadinni had his first brush with tea business in New York in 2007. An MBA student, he met Mark Goonasekera from Sri Lanka while working part time as a technical recruiter and soft skills trainer at a consulting firm, and they started a Ceylon tea business in the US before Srinivas moved to India. 

After his marriage to Madhuri Ganadinni, the couple continued with the tea exporting business and later launched an direct-to-customer, ecommerce platform called The Tea Planet in 2016. 

The Hyderabad-based entrepreneurs, who have been in the tea business for at least a decade, vouch for the growth opportunities due to rapid digitisation. 

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What The Tea Planet does

Starting with a small outlet in Hyderabad, the business has grown over the years to become an end-to-end solutions provider in India's specialty tea industry. 

In addition to importing and exporting tea and coffee from across India and Sri Lanka, The Tea Planet formulates various tea mixes, manufactures a range of tea products, and works on research and development of various ingredients, packaging solutions, and the changing government rules and regulations concerning the tea industry. 

Madhuri claims the startup is the only manufacturer of bubble tea products in India.

Operating on a dual model of B2B and B2C, the startup caters to a wide range of clients from startups, restaurants, and cafes to multinational beverage brands in the hot, iced, and bottled tea segments while selling directly to customers via its ecommerce website, which features more than 200 different products.  

It also operates on a franchise model to set up The Tea Planet kiosks or cafes while offering services in consulting and new product developments to 40-odd brands in the country. Apart from retailing through franchisees, the tea products are also available on marketplaces such as Amazon and Flipkart.

“The teas undergo as little processing as possible to preserve their natural flavour, innate characteristics, and medicinal values,” the duo tells HerStory. 

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Challenges and the way forward

Despite a promising market opportunity, The Tea Planet faces stiff competition on all fronts, from online D2C tea brands like Tea Box and Vahdam, private labels like Madhu Jayanthi, Crystal Tea, Shah Brothers, and other tea franchise businesses such as Chai Point and Chaayos, among others. 

Bootstrapped so far, the tea startup claims to clock an annual revenue of Rs 20 crore through its range of businesses in D2C, franchising, exporting, and consulting.

However, the journey was not without any challenges. The duo travelled widely to understand the tea market in different countries by attending various trade exhibitions in Europe, Middle East, and Asia. 

“Our cross-cultural experience helped us discover the suitable level of sweetness, flavours, and other ingredients as well as how to market Taiwanese-style bubble tea beverage mixes right for the Indian taste palate,” she says. 

Moving ahead, the couple hopes to expand further in the retail market and venture into markets outside India.