This economics graduate turned a ‘chaiwali’ after failing to clear bank exams

“Opening a tea stall is nothing new. Many people do that, but a girl, especially an economics graduate, selling tea on the road is something not familiar, and maybe that made me famous,” says Priyanka Gupta, aka Graduate Chaiwali, in an interaction with SMBStory. 

Priyanka started a small tea stall in April 2022 outside Patna Women’s College in Patna, Bihar. In just four months, she has opened another tea stall in the city, selling around 400 cups of tea every day, and has made approx Rs 1.5 lakh profit. Recently, actor Vijay Deverakonda, who was in Patna to promote his latest film, made a visit to Priyanka’s tea stall.

But what made this 24-year-old economics graduate open a tea stall? 

Brewing success

A resident of Purnia in Bihar, Priyanka moved to Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh, to complete her education. Just like any other graduate, Priyanka was thinking about her next move. 

“My family suggested I pursue banking exams. Though I didn’t want to pursue it, I had no option, and so I started preparing for banking and SSC in 2019,” Priyanka recalls.

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Two years passed, but Priyanka was unable to clear any of the exams.

“I come from a middle-class family, and in Bihar it is very difficult to make parents of a girl understand about her career goals or being financially independent. Everyone around me wanted to get me married, but I sought help from my father and asked for a year’s time to prepare for banking exams, and thankfully he agreed,” says Priyanka.

While Priyanka got a year’s time to prepare for competitive exams, she had other plans in mind–to open a tea stall. But she had to move to another city to make things work. She requested her father to send her to Patna as most kids from Bihar take coaching from the state’s capital city. 

“I could neither open a tea stall in Purnia nor in Varanasi since my family and relatives stay there. So, the safest place was Patna since nobody knew me there,” Piyanka says. 

Priyanka was short of money, but she managed to get some from her parents with which she was able to sustain herself in the city. She also joined a coaching center as a counsellor to earn some money, but she was not paid. She finally decided to borrow Rs 30,000 from her friend and kickstarted the business. 

An overnight success

With Rs 30,000 in hand, Priyanka bought a small cart, utensils, and ingredients to make tea and started her entrepreneurial journey outside Patna Women’s College. She named her cart ‘Graduate Chaiwali’. 

On the first day, a manager from Bank of Baroda stopped by her tea stall and asked many questions. He asked, “you are a graduate, go find some job, what are you doing? I told him there’s no job for us and I want to do my business in peace. He didn’t say anything, but smiled and left,” Priyanka recalls.

Gradually, people started flocking in and this caught the attention of a news channel. “They interviewed me and my life changed from there,” Priyanka says. 

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Priyanka says it is through people and media support that she is able to scale up her business to a second outlet now.

Even though summer is an off season for chai, Priyanka managed to make approx Rs 1.5 lakh profit, which she has re-invested in opening a second outlet. 

Priyanka says she sells over 300-400 cups of chai daily. The menu is limited for now with four variants of tea, which includes the best-selling pan chai, elaichi chai, rose chai, and chocolate chai. 

Challenges and future prospects

India is a tea drinking nation. Tea café chains like Chai Point and Chaayos have been making their presence felt in the past few years, while other players like Chai Sutta Bar, The Tea Factory, MBA Chaiwala, and others are scripting success through rigorous expansion.

The country is now the world’s tenth fastest-growing market for specialist coffee and tea retail chains being valued at Rs 2,570 crore in 2018, states a report by market researcher Euromonitor International.

Apart from difficulties in setting up the tea stall, Priyanka also faced a lot of administrative challenges from the local municipal corporation in the initial days. Another challenge has been the business being low during the off-season. 

Despite these challenges, Priyanka has managed to run a profitable business and has opened a second stall, and by the year-end, she is targeting to open a third stall. By next year, she wants to go for a franchise-based business model by operating in three-models including cart, small store, and cafe. 

“If I expand, I want people to benefit from it. I plan and try to not let go of my tea cart business so that even people who cannot invest a lot of money in their business can also start up something,” she says. 

(This story was updated to correct a typo)