Tea Bro: India's first Pre-Brewed Tea Liquid Decoction

Jeenal Jain

Oct 4, 2021 — 7 min read

Company Profile is an initiative by StartupTalky to publish verified information on different startups and organizations. The content in this post has been approved by Tea Bro.

As per the Tea Board of India [Guwahati Tea Auction Centre], the Indian Tea industry is a massive $33bn market. With a vision to bring innovation to the way people consume tea, Kartic Sharma founded Tea Bro in 2021. Tea Bro manufactures and sells India's first Pre-Brewed Tea Liquid Decoction (An Instant Tea offering).

StartupTalky interviewed Mr. Kartic to get insights on the startup story and roadmap of the organization. In this article, you'll discover how Tea Bro was started, its business model, future plans, and more.

Tea Bro - Company Highlights

Startup Name	Tea Bro
Founder	Kartic Sharma
Headquarters	Gurugram
Founded	2021
Industry	Food & Beverage (Tea)

Tea Bro - About and Vision
Tea Bro - Industry Details
Tea Bro - Idea and Inspiration
Tea Bro - Product and USP
Tea Bro - Founder
Tea Bro - Name Meaning and Logo
Tea Bro - Business Model
Tea Bro - Launch
Tea Bro - Challenges Faced
Tea Bro - Funding
Tea Bro - Competitors
Tea Bro - Recognition
Tea Bro - FAQs

Tea Bro - About and Vision

Tea Bro manufactures and sells India's first Pre-Brewed Tea Liquid Decoction (A Instant Tea offering). They are Tea Farmers from Assam and control the entire supply chain of Tea from Farm to Cup.

Tea Bro is a startup with a clear mission to - “To serve high-quality Instant Tea to the Tea loving nation”. This patent-pending product is a ‘Ready to Drink’ Tea which is pre-brewed to perfection from the finest Assam Teas with love and care. Just add Tea Bro to a cup of hot water and Done! Your cup of tea is ready in 5 sec. Enjoy the perfectly balanced Milk Tea (in 5 Exotic Indian Flavours), Instantly!

Short Term Vision - a) To serve high-quality Tea (Instantly) to its Tea loving nation. b) To bring in innovation in the Tea industry and the way high-quality tea is farmed, processed, blended, and served.

Long Term Vision - a) India-wide distribution channel (online and offline). b) Sales abroad for its tea offering.

Tea Bro - Industry Details

Tea in India is a USD 33Bn dollar market. Indians last year consumer 110Mn kgs of tea per year.
Tea is the second most drunk beverage in India after water.
The Instant Tea market is the only sector in India that is on the rise.

(Source: Tea Board of India, Guwahati Tea Auction Centre)

In the next 5 years:

With rapid urbanization and essentially people having less time to do the daily chores themselves, Kartic (Founder, Tea Bro) believes that Instant Tea will be a very common phenomenon in most of the household. If you see markets like the USA, which is a fairly urbanized market – has more demand for instant offerings (tea, coffee, soda) than the actual ones.
In the next 5 years, the Instant Tea market should at least make up about 15% to 20% of the Tea consumption in India.

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Tea Bro - Idea and Inspiration

Kartic is from Assam and his family has been involved in the Tea industry for over 3 generations. They have seen the industry closely for the last 38 years and have realized that there has been very little improvement/innovation. Moreover, the way people consumed tea has also been the same for over 50 years now. A TeaBag was also introduced to the world about 40 years back. The last innovation in which Instant Tea was offered was ‘Powdered Instant Tea’, which was made by a process called Spray Drying.

They found that there was no way in which companies were able to offer good quality tea in a ReadyToDrink manner. That’s when it struck that he can do something to solve this problem. After months of R&D, they came up with Tea Bro. This patent-pending product is a ‘Ready to Drink’ Tea which is pre-brewed to perfection from the finest Assam Teas with love and care. Just add TeaBro to a cup of hot water and Done! Your cup of tea is ready in 5 sec. Enjoy the perfectly balanced Milk Tea (in 5 Exotic Indian Flavours), Instantly!

They've had tremendous responses from Tea connoisseurs and Tea blenders and tasters about its high quality and Tea innovation. In the last 2 months, since the startup has been live, the market response (where ever Tea Bro is present) has been encouraging.

Tea Bro - Product and USP

Tea Bro's patent-pending product is a ‘Ready to Drink’ Tea which is pre-brewed to perfection from the finest Assam Teas with love and care.

How does the product work?

Just add Tea Bro to a cup of hot water and Done! Your cup of tea is ready in 5 sec. Enjoy the perfectly balanced Milk Tea (in 5 Exotic Indian Flavours), Instantly!

What problem is Tea Bro intending to Solve?

TeaBags – In using TeaBags the process of brewing is never complete. By the time brewing is complete the temperature of the water goes down. Therefore, there is never a good tea drinking experience with tea bags.
Premixes are easy to use but lack the quality of the cup. Premixes are made by a process called Spray Drying. Tea is only spray-dried at or above temperatures of 180C. At this temperature range, all the constituents of Tea (its flavors, aroma, enzymes, polyphenols, etc) are all burnt off. Therefore, essentially Premixes have more of a punch of masalas rather than tea.

USP of Tea Bro

Tea Bro is a new category in the instant Tea market. It manufactures and sells India’s first ‘Pre-Brewed Tea Liquid’. This patent-pending product is a ‘Ready to Drink’ Tea which is pre-brewed to perfection from the finest Assam Teas with love and care.

Tea Bro - Founder

Kartic Sharma is the founder of Tea Bro. Being an engineering & management graduate from the University of British Columbia, Canada, Kartic has been associated with companies like Accenture, Invest India, and Delhivery before founding Tea Bro.

Tea Bro - Name Meaning and Logo

The word ‘BRO’, is used very often in urban and rural India now. Even if a person does not know English very well, would know the meaning of this word. Kartic wanted to have the name of the company which is most relatable to the masses. Tea is and will be its main product always. Hence Tea Bro.

Tea Bro - Business Model

Business Model of Tea Bro -

Sales (Online + Offline)
Institutional Sales (hotels, offices, flights, trains, Indian army, etc)

Tea Bro - Launch

Channels – Tea Bro did pop-up kiosk across Gurgaon (in apartments, offices, co-working spaces, events, etc). This helped people to get introduced to its concept and innovation
Online sales have been working well for the startup for now
Tea Bro got an institutional Purchase Order from a large office and a hotel
Instagram Reels have been very helpful to get a large reach for Tea Bro

Tea Bro - Challenges Faced

The main challenge faced by the startup was introducing its product in modern retail. They have a huge listing fee. The team worked a deal with them to offer more margin in comparison to high capital costs for listing fees and it worked better for Tea Bro.

Tea Bro - Funding

Tea Bro is currently a bootstrapped startup.

Tea Bro - Competitors

Currently, Tea Bro doesn't have any direct competition for its offering, 'Pre-Brewed Tea Liquid'. It is the first company in India to make a product of this sort and therefore for the product and the process, it has a 'Patent Pending' status. Instant Tea has traditionally been offered in Tea Bags or Premixes. There are hundreds of companies in India that retail these. Tea Bro is the first company in India to offer 'Ready To Drink' tea in a 'Pre-Brewed Tea Liquid' format.

Tea Bro - Recognition

Tea Bro has been nominated by Industry Outlook and Fortune magazine to feature in the ‘Top Upcoming startup edition’.

Tea Bro - FAQs

What is Tea Bro?

Tea Bro manufactures and sells India's first Pre-Brewed Tea Liquid Decoction (A Instant Tea offering). They are Tea Farmers from Assam and control the entire supply chain of Tea from Farm to Cup.

Who founded Tea Bro?

Kartic Sharma founded Tea Bro in 2021.

What is Tea Bro's USP?

Is Tea Bro funded?

No, Tea Bro is a bootstrapped startup as of 2021

How does Tea Bro work?