Tea Delite finds a niche in the milk tea business

 

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Isn’t drinking milk tea a fad, which as most fads go, will eventually go the way of zagu pearls (the rage in fancy beverages a decade ago)?

Isn’t the milk tea business about to reach market saturation?

Ofelia Chianpian, owner-manager of D Elite Tea Corporation which sells milk tea under the “Tea Delite” brand,  ponders the questions for a minute, then replies slowly.

“Did the Chinese tire of drinking tea?  Did the Japanese?  Did the British weary of tea taken with a little milk, which by the way must have been the precursor of the modern milk tea?”

She’s pretty sure it’s not a fad, saying that Filipinos have taken to the drink very quickly –and have assimilated it into their lifestyle.  “And it helps that tea enjoys a good reputation for all sorts of health-promoting and restorative properties.  There is also a chance young Filipinos are charmed by the almost mystic antiquity tea evokes.”  Tea, after all, has been drank thousands of years BC and is the most consumed beverage in the world, next only to good old H2O.

As for the second question, she doesn’t answer categorically.  “Yes, it might seem that a new milk tea shop is opening every other day. But the market is big, made up of children, students, and yuppies up to those in their 40s who are looking for a healthier alternative to coffee and soda.”

So if a business owner studies the market carefully and finds her niche, the venture will thrive, she thinks.

The trick, she says, is to find a competitive edge that will distinguish a brand from the rest.  This edge may be in the form of new product development or innovation in service.

Ofelia’s Tea Delite found its market niche in schools and universities – either in-campus or off-campus but very near schools.  She avoids the malls because locating there requires a bigger overhead.  She doesn’t deny, though, that there’s a certain prestige to being mall-based.

Tea Delite is in the school canteen of Chiang Kai Chek College in Tondo, Manila; in the Manila Tytana Colleges, Macapagal Boulevard; in the Agno Canteen near De La Sale University on Taft Avenue; and at William Shaw Residences, Caloocan city.

It is also in the Galleon canteen of One Corporate Center in Ortigas Avenue and at the cafeteria of the Manulife Business Processing Center at the UP Technohub, Quezon City.

The only stand-alone Tea Delite shop is near De La Salle Araneta University.

Taking Tea Delite to students right where they study and stay for most of the day was an inspired move. “They are especially receptive in Chinese schools, for obvious reasons.”

You need to be on your toes in this business and be innovative, Ofelia repeats.  She would take time to monitor the competition, find out what their best-selling product is, and analyze what makes them tick.

Gigi loves experimenting with new products and innovating existing ones.

Her best-selling winter melon milk tea is a product of a search for the best winter melon products and weeks of experimentation.  “I tried 14 products before I found the right one.”  To this, she has added a “secret ingredient,” she winks.

Some of her experiments failed, she says, but “I found that even such ‘disasters’ have a ‘side B.’”

She recalls an example:  ‘I was trying to develop a product that didn’t quite work out.  So there I was faced with gallons of ingredients in danger of going to waste if I didn’t think of something fast.”  This was how she formulated Tea Delite’s milk tea shake which has the consistency of melted ice cream.  The shake clicked with her young customers.

Innovation is also manifested in the way an entrepreneur responds to problems.  When she was a neophyte in the business, students complained of spills.  She readily invested in a sealing machine.  “One must be flexible in making adjustments.”

Nowadays, she’s busy developing a new product using winter melon.  Still under wraps, the innovation  should be ready for launch in a couple of months.

The petite, forty-something Tsinay was not a stranger to business when she opened Tea Delite’s doors in 2010. For years, she has been involved in the family’s bag-making business as comptroller, where she was in her elements, being a CPA.

Thus, it was a breeze for her to set up her milk tea company’s production and inventory control systems, records, etc.  She had also by then become an experienced people manager.

She boasts of a service crew trained to be courteous and friendly, to change orders – no questions asked – in case of complaints. She handles staff training herself, going to the extent of training them right in her home if intensive coaching is called for.  Occasionally, she calls in professional speakers to teach customer relations and motivation to the crew.

But her foremost business mantra is “Never short-change customers.”  People pay for quality, she says, and thus she always tries to be consistent and live up to the name.   “Tea delite is after all a play on “elite tea” signifying it’s for the discriminating.

“Yung you’d scrimp on ingredients because your costs have risen?  No, never.  Saluhin mo muna ang cost difference.  If inflationary trends persist, then adjust your price.”

Photo: from the Tea Delite facebook page