Priyanka Tiwari
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According to Tarun Khanna, one of the key people behind Chai Point, the tea cafe chain is intending to go public and list itself in the stock market in 2026. The chain sells nearly a million cups of tea each day as stated by the the head of the company.
The tea chain achieved a special milestone in the Maha Kumbh as it sold almost a lakh cups of tea a day from its limited-edition outlets during its peak.
Khanna, a professor at Harvard University in the US, created the business in 2009 when he was drinking tea in a cafe in Mumbai with his student Amuleek Singh Bijral. He was having a hot cup of tea when he had an idea.
“A young boy was selling tea in roadside in plastic cups to customers. ‘Chotus’ like these serve tea in not-so-hygienic conditions and shoddy plastic cups. It made me wonder why we cannot serve nice tea to the mass in great quality and hygienic conditions while employing these chotus,” he stated.
This marked the start of Chai Point, which began with an outlet in Koramangala, Bengaluru in 2010. Now, the company serves more than 900,000 cups of freshly brewed tea a day along with sandwiches, pakoras, and snacks at much cheaper rates than other cafe chains.
"When Amuleek and I started off, we had five staff members and most of them were store employees," Khanna said while recalling the journey of Chai Point.
After 2 years, Delhi was the first place outside of Bengaluru where they launched stores, later expanding to Mumbai and Pune.
"We now have over 170 stores and counting," he said. "In the next two years, we plan to open another 300 stores," he added. The stores combination of both serves and sells and deliver. Of the 170 stores, there are 60 with seating areas and the rest are walk-in only.
“Chai Point was built out of India’s tea culture. For those people who revere chai, its flavours and the culture entwined with it, it is a treat,” Khanna said.
“Just like Coke or Pepsi, we also have our secret formula for brewing that special tea.” People often say that their mothers make the best tea, and I would not hesitate to say Chai Point is close to 8 or 9 on that scale,” he stated. The huge love for tea by ingrains is also captured in the slogan of Chai Point which states, “India runs on Chai.” Chai Point has developed further by now serving different varieties of tea and having its bots or tea dispensing machines that can record how each individual prefers their tea made in terms of the amount of sugar and other ingredients required.
Apart from serving these cities through retail outlets, airports and business parks, Chai Point has also been establishing a physical presence in more and more indian cities. The company also has a unique corporate focused delivery business that Vends tea and tea based products at corporate establishments.
Vending machines are placed and maintained in institutions like offices and even hospitals by Chai Point.
All vending chains that operate with a franchise model will find difficulty competing with Chai Point which operates with company-affiliate stores.
They are taking their time to decide the strategy that will work for them as they have received proposals for setting up stores in other countries.
"We are currently constructing 10 locations each month and Services 500 bots each month. In 1 year, our goal is to reach 20 locations and 750 bots,” he said. “Currently, we are close to 1,400 employees. Each store brings in 6 more employees and this is where we estimate 95 percent of employee growth will happen." The company has set its sights on deploying 500 bots monthly, and increasing it to 750 bots over the upcoming year.
"Right now, we are serving around 9, 00,000 cups of tea every day," he said. During the Maha Kumbh, "somewhere around 1 lakh cups of tea were sold per day at Kumbh during the days when it was at the peak. The number is coming down gradually." Chai point intends to make a primary plus secondary capital round in this fiscal year he wasn’t specific though.
“Currently leading in tea sales and cash flow positive, we plan to keep it this way in the future. In the next 4-5 months, we are targeting to be PBT (Profit Before Tax) cash flow positive ," he said.
In response to providing insight into the listing plans, he responded, saying, “We are making progress towards getting listed and we are expecting to get listed by May 2026.” Currently, the company holds almost 25 percent equity owned by the founders, early employees, and angel investors. The remainder belongs to institutional shareholders.
As it is the case with many Covid ridden cases, Chai Point was not able to escape the complications. With the onset of the pandemic, sales plummeted, and various individuals left the firm to join larger corporations,” Khanna stated.
Shifting the supply chain from China to India for bot manufacturing required us to create a tech team from the ground up,” he stated.
“We are altering and augmenting the Indian perception of coffee and tea, incorporating advanced technology that brews them. It’s all made perfect — every single time,” said Khanna, explaining the technology embedded in the bots. “With over 5,000 + smart brewing machines deployed across the country and counting, we are leading the transformation of beverage dispensing. Khai point is setting new standards for speed, quality, and convenience in public institutions and retail stores that experience high footfall," he explains.
The innovations include providing consistency guarantee by remotely monitoring and updating recipes in real-time and ensuring every cup standardizes and meets Chai Point’s gold standard of taste.
It also tracks data such as patterns of consumption, ingredient quantities, and error logs in real time. By using both GCP and AWS, it conducts predictive maintenance which prevents breakdowns before they occur.
Bots provide operational information, thus enabling data-based decision making and enhanced efficiency, he said. “Using AWS Streaming services, we are able to capture every single important point that emerges while working to enable optimized performance and reliability to ensure seamless operations.”
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