Coming from a family within the commercial enterprise of tea for many years, Punit Poddar has been a grasp taster of tea for 12 years. It hence received’t be an exaggeration to mention that Poddar is enthusiastic about tea. Turning the passion for tea to commercial enterprise changed into the most effective logical subsequent step and got here obviously to Poddar. Along with Soveet Gupta and Parvez Gupta, Poddar launched Udyan Tea in 2012 in Siliguri, a city in northern West Bengal, close to the luxurious tea gardens of Darjeeling.
Being Siliguri natives, the founders constantly had access to exact tea from Darjeeling, which grows some of the best teas in the international. However, no longer quite a few it is available domestically in India as much of this wonderful produce is exported to foreign markets. According to reviews, between April and October 2018, India’s tea exports stood at over $463 Mn. This is what Udyan Tea desired to clear up, convey nice tea to Indian consumers.
Udyan, which has bought over 20 Mn cups of tea up to now thru its net store and different on line channels, it now not handiest desires to produce precise concoctions of teas, and deliver a number of the rarest sorts proper to your step of aficionados in India, however it’s additionally on a undertaking to exchange the way India seems at tea.
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For many years, the Indian consumers has been in large part blind to the kind of teas available beyond their day by day cup of chai. But, this is changing fast with the younger technology dabbling their hands in the inexperienced and white variety, as well as flower-based teas, and getting more experimental by using the day. Catering to this are a massive variety of startups with a huge type of flavoured teas together with green tea, white tea, rose tea, detox tea and more.
“Udyan method lawn and that’s what we constitute – from the gardens. We try to carry most effective the greatest unmarried estate tea as well as the most flavourful blends to the people, that we source at once from the estates,” emphasised Punit.
The Early Days At Udyan
The Udyan founders spent many months knowledge that is the high-quality promoting strategy in the Indian marketplace. This was a time while there was barely any ecommerce for tea in the country. So the onus became on businesses inclusive of Udyan to determine the layout of promoting, packaging, and many others. And this turned into their greatest mission.
One other task changed into instructing potential clients and getting humans to recognize the life of different kinds of tea. Added to that, humans regularly did no longer fathom why any tea need to cost INR 5K – INR 25K per kg. “Fine tea is like great wine, and this is where the value is going up because the nice goes up,’’ stated Parvez.
To make customers recognize the purpose for the top class pricing of the tea, Udyan confused on the intricacies of tea manufacturing, proper from sourcing to the processing which entails careful vacuum-sealing to the way it guarantees authenticity, “We need to give out as a good deal statistics to the people as viable and for this reason determined on Single Estate teas — sold with the garden call along side a number of other statistics approximately them such as flush, grade, beginning, tasting notes and more,” said Punit.
Today, Udyan has over one hundred unique tea products made from over 50 signature flavoured blends developed by an in-residence tea master. The adoption has been very encouraging inside the metros and Tier 1 towns in India with USA, Western Europe, Russia and some Asian nations showing a wholesome appetite for its merchandise.
From Tea Leaf To The Final Brew
Freshness, authenticity and pleasant are what drives the product line at Udyan, claim the founders, and to ensure this, they supply their teas without delay from over a hundred and fifty tea estates in Darjeeling, Assam, Nepal, Nilgiris among different regions. The tea is vacuum sealed the day that they may be sold.
“Once vacuumed no outside factors can affect the exceptional of the tea and the freshness is locked within. This additionally method that every time a client gets their tea, it is nearly as clean as the day it become sourced and vacuum sealed. Through this, we're addressing a massive hole in making quality merchandise to be had to customers on this enterprise,” related Parvez.
When it involves creating the flavoured tea blends, R&D performs a key position. “Each blend is the outcome of an extensive R&D process that we behavior and craft the usage of the best teas and ingredients that we so meticulously supply,’’ Soveet introduced.
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Making a cup of Udyan tea is a easy manner of including a small quantity of tea to a cup, pouring warm (no longer boiling) water into the cup and brewing it for three-5 minutes.
Beating Tea Competition
Where there's achievement, there's certain to be opposition and Udyan has to compete with other gamers which includes Tea Box, Kettlery, Infinitea in the marketplace. To keep headway, Udyan desires to hold its consciousness on on-line structures in the meanwhile, thus far it has partnered with over 25 marketplaces, which include a few fitness-centric platforms. Additionally it is also running with subscription packing containers without cost sampling of its teas. “We are tying up with other agencies’ subscription containers like Sipsby in USA and Book Thela in India that allows you to reach exceptionally targeted audiences,’’ emphasized Punit.
Despite their excessive prices whilst as compared to the greater ubiquitous CTC (crush, tear, curl) tea market in India, the opportunity for top class teas is large and is developing at forty-50% yearly. There is a hastily emerging shift towards healthier alternatives in all beverage categories, and millennial and Gen-Z audiences are an increasing number of opting for green teas, healthful teas, single property blends and other area of interest tea alternatives. Udyan is one of the many foodtech startups eyeing this audience and the inflow of more moderen foodtech brands are in flip using faster adoption in a digital-first purchaser market.
