All for a cup of tea

At a time when we see kids blowing away more than half their salaries in Starbucks, CCD, Costa and the likes – all for a cup of coffee. Every time we visit there, we cannot help but wonder how come coffee, a simple cup of coffee can be so expensive or even tea. Instead if you drink one cup of cutting chai, we spend less than Rs.10 and taste wise too, cutting chai is much better. You then think why the same kind of tea cannot be available at better cafes?

And capitalizing on this gap is Chaayos – a chain of chai shop in Delhi. The chai chain seems to have finally got the business format right as from one shop, they now have 32 across the capital.

The model is simple – Chaayos offers customized cup of tea, customers get to choose form 12 basic ingredients like cardamom, ginger, tulsi. It is expensive compared to the street chai but much cheaper than the likes of CCD. Each cup is priced between Rs46 and Rs149 and there are delectable eats too. pakoras and egg buns. That combination helped make the cafe a popular choice among the hungry office crowd, with customers mainly purchasing a Rs65 (including tax) cup of chai and some snacks, taking the total average spend per transaction to around Rs260-Rs270. In comparison, a cappuccino at a Cafe Coffee Day starts at Rs100, while at Starbucks it’s Rs155.

The location is also key – each outlet is spread over 700 square feet and found in a mall, corporate parks or on a high-street, where cheap tea shops are few. Pricing is the key here and Chaayos seems to have hit the jackpot. Wish more such desi entrepreneurs come along and make our Indian drinks and snacks more popular at affordable prices.