While pursuing a BBA in Hospitality in 2015, Arpit Raj (24), along with his gang of friends, would often roam the streets of Shillong looking for good food joints.
“We thought that if we had midnight cravings, there certainly must be others like us who would love to get food delivered,” says Arpit.
This was the first of many steps that led to his venture ‘Chaai Seth’, which would become one of India's fastest-growing tea franchises.
At the time, Arpit and his friends started a tiffin delivery service that was exclusively meant for those wanting to snack late at night.
Eventually, he thought, why not start a food joint on campus? But everyone had different cuisine preferences.
So, instead of striving for perfection in various cuisines, he decided to zero in on a food item that could bring people together no matter where they came from.
And tea was the answer!
The idea worked incredibly well. The climate of Shillong meant people flocked to the tapri ever so often, and soon, Arpit and his friends began to see returns.
However, due to issues with permits, he had to soon shut down his tea stall.
Arpit — who at the time was moving to Delhi to start a corporate job — was disheartened to leave his idea behind.
However, a-year-and-a-half into the job, he says that he revisited the idea of the tapri.
“I convinced two of my friends that we could really scale the chai tapri idea into a business,” he recalls.
So the three friends quit their individual endeavours and bought a space in Delhi to restart their business.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Arpit and his friends decided to expand the menu and add burgers, biscuits, frankies, sandwiches, pastas, momos and other snacks to it.
They also decided to serve a range of teas instead of serving just the traditional one.
Today, at any Chaai Seth outlet, there are 25 varieties of tea for a customer to choose from, like the daalchini tea, butterscotch tea, kali mirch tea, guava tea and more.
Chaai Seth has 27 outlets pan India and a customer base of “more than 50,000 people”.
The brand witnessed a whopping turnover of over Rs 4.8 crore this year.