Streetwise Marketing, Street-side

A couple of weeks back, I got a call from a marketing manager of En Point Technologies- a tech company based in Southern California. They had heard about The Chai Cart and asked if they could sponsor it at an event. From what I understood, it seemed like they wanted me to set up the cart in a courtyard in front of the building at 150 Spear St., where I would hand the attendees a dinCloud branded commuter cup of chai as they walked in to go to their office. 

 Sounds simple, right? Except when I got there at 7:45am on Tuesday morning, I realized the courtyard was in fact in the next building, in front of 160 Spear St. To add clutter to the confusion, there was construction going on in front of 150 Spear St. One of En Point’s employees, Shirley, who lives in the Bay Area, had come out to help with the event. She too had the same information I did (she was roped in last minute to oversee this event) and was equally unaware of the logistics. 

 This was when I was told the back-story. En Point Tech. owns a Cloud Service Provider called dinCloud. Forrester Research was hosting this event on Cloud Sourcing, but En Point was not invited to be part of it. Handing out chai in dinCloud branded commuter cups was En Point’s way to make their presence felt at the event. So, clearly, we were not welcome to not crash the event and could not set up a table in the lobby or anywhere else in the building. 

 I had ~200 cups of chai and I didn’t want to throw it all out. Thinking quickly, I told Shirley that we could set up on the sidewalk in front of the building. We were giving stuff for free, who would object to that? She was game. At first, it seemed awkward, soliciting people to take free drinks, but soon Shirley became a pro at peddling street chai and cookies. We stood there for about an hour, like two street hawkers talking about Cloud Computing. 

 Would you think this was unusual? Well, yes, one person did and he happened to be an analyst at Forrester Research, @Staten7, who tweeted 

#dinCloud crashes #Forr sourcing workshop in SF. Providing free chai and cookies in front of our bldg. Nice guerilla mktg. 

Two days later, I was cc-ed on an email from En Pointe’s Senior Marketing Manager sent to their CEO and the rest of the Marketing staff talking about the tweet. The team was excited that they got noticed. I had a hearty laugh. To be quite honest, I was feeling a bit bad that En Point had wasted money on this event, as the logistics didn’t work out as planned. So, it amused me when I read that it actually worked in their favor! In all the years I spent as a technology Marketing professional, I must say, this was surely the most unconventional marketing tactic I’ve seen. Much kudos to the team at En Pointe for thinking out of the box and being bold to execute something not many companies would!

America's first (formal) Chai Cart coming soon!

Remember the days when I used to sell chai in the Mission out of a bicycle cart? So, it turned out, it wasn’t quite legal to do that. A lot has changed with The Chai Cart business since then. For the last year, the main focus of the business has been the production and distribution of the Chai Brews, which are being sold in stores around the Bay Area. 

 The question I get asked most often is “Where can we find the cart?”. Ever since my bicycle got stolen on Labor Day last year, there has been no chai cart. 

How can “The Chai Cart“ have no cart? This had to be fixed. After all, I have to be true to the name. Plus, I wanted to get back to my roots of selling hot cups of chai on the streets of San Francisco. But this time I want it to be legit. I want to get a Health Dept approved cart and all the permits necessary. 

 If you've been to India, you probably remember the little carts on the side of the road selling chai and other goodies. My vision of a chai cart is very similar to those carts. 

Ideally, I would have liked to brew the chai on-site. After speaking to SF Heath Dept, I realized I would need to add quite a few things (like a 3-compartment sink, ventilation, etc), which would turn the cart into a food truck. But I really wanted was a simple cart and that meant I had to change my plan. I now plan to brew the chai at the commissary, fill the Cambro containers, and use the cart as a point of sale. The people at the SF Health Dept were very cooperative. They agreed to approve this plan if I complied with a few simple regulations. 

 Also, I need permits to park the cart at a particular spot. My application for two spots (one in the Financial District and the other on Valencia St in the Mission) is currently being processed by Dept of Public Works. 

 To finance the cart and the permit fees, I have a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter. You can help by giving $10 or more and receive cool rewards like vouchers for cups of chai or a gift bag with many of our products. There are only 17 days to go and I still have a long way to go to meet the goal. I want people to feel invested in The Chai Cart and this is a great way to make that happen. I hope others will also see the value in this and help me reach my goal of $10,000.

Minimizing waste as a company

It is estimated that 40% of the waste we produce comes from packaging. I of the value I hold dear is creating minimal waste and wanted to instill this value in my business. 

 Inspired by the bottle deposit and refund system used by Straus Family Creamery and St Benoit Yogurt, I decided to use reusable glass bottles for the Chai Brews. Even though glass can be recycled, reusing them is more environmentally friendly. 

Seven months after the Chai Brews were on the shelves at Whole Foods, I got the approval from their regional office for the bottle deposit and refund! Chai Brews in reusable glass bottles. All stores that now sell the Chai Brews take a $1.50 deposit for the bottle and refund it back to the customer when the bottle is returned to the store. We collect our bottles from the stores, sterilize them, and reuse them. 

There are other ways in which we minimize waste. 

 - We do our own production and we make small batches of the Chai Brews every week. As I actively manage the inventory, I make sure we don’t overproduce. We literally never have excess inventory to discard due to the expiration date. 

-  We use freshly milled spices to infuse the Masala Chai Brew. I dehydrate the spices after production to reuse them for other purposes (they still pack a lot of flavor; so if you are interested in buying it at a low price, let me know). 

-  The tea leaves cannot be reused once brewed, we compost them. 

- The loose tea and the spice blend are packaged in tin containers. We don’t expect customers to return this, but we do hope they reuse it to store spices/jewelry or other small stuff. 

 Just as my decision to not use preservatives, using glass bottles and collecting them back from stores, limits my distribution options. Yet I feel proud that I have not compromised in the core values as I build this business. I remind myself of what I wrote last summer - if we remain true to our values and work hard to improve every single day, profits will follow.

Would you like some tea with your sugar?

I've heard many people say that one of the main reasons they don’t drink chai is b’coz it is way too sweet. This is true if the only chai you’ve had is at cafes. 

Most cafes use a chai concentrate as a base to make their chai or chai latte - which is always loaded with sugar. I looked for unsweetened chai mixes but didn’t come across any. I started to wonder why that was the case. 

 There could be several reasons; here are the most likely ones: 

1. Adding sugar was a way to make this traditional Indian drink palatable to the Americans. After all, the Big Food Industry uses sugar (and consequently America’s addiction to sugar) to make huge profits. 

2. The Americans who created the recipes based it on their experience in India – where they were treated to really sweet chai. Indians love sugar too and one way to show hospitality is to generously use sugar. 

3. All chai concentrates have citric acid – it’s a “natural” preservative that helps extend the shelf life to 11 months or more. Sugar helps in masking the sour taste of the citric acid. 

 When I started The Chai Cart, my mission was to provide “wholesome goodness of chai“– like the kind I made at home. To be true to this mission I made a deliberate decision to NOT add any preservative (even if it meant limiting shelf life to 3 months and restricting distribution within the Bay Area) or sugar. I wanted customers to have the choice – of how much sugar to add and even the type of sweetener (honey, stevia, splenda, etc).

 Every morning I make a 12 oz cup of chai with 1 tsp of sugar and 4oz of 2% milk. This cup of chai has 70 calories and 8 grams of sugar. A non-fat chai latte at Starbucks has approximately 170 calories and 34 grams of sugar. 

If you start your day with a cup of chai, make sure it’s the right start.

CHAI AND CHAI LATTE

I always raise one eyebrow when I hear or see the words “Chai Latte”. As I described in my previous post, “chai” is hard-wired in my brain to mean a certain drink – strong hot black tea with milk (spices are optional). So what is this “Chai Latte” stuff anyway – it combines two words from two different languages and cultures. The resulting drink doesn’t even taste like real chai. 

 In my quest to check out the competition, I had a chai latte at different cafes around the city. Most of them were way too sweet and too light (too much milk, not enough tea). Some that weren’t too sweet (like at Tartine Bakery, where they make their own chai), were still too milky – with a diffused taste of the tea. 

Of course, I concluded that none of them could make good chai. After all, they didn’t grow up drinking it - as I did. And it wasn’t that good chai had to be made fresh. I have made chai for my Indian friends with my bottled Chai Brew, and turned them into believers –that good chai can come in a bottle! 

 To find out why Chai Lattes tasted so bland, I went to my friend’s café and made a Chai Latte using my Chai Brew and frothing it with milk using the espresso machine. Here is what I found out – 

Chai Brew + milk – heated over stovetop = tastes like homemade chai 

Chai Brew + milk – heated in microwave = tastes like homemade chai 

Chai Brew + steamed milk using espresso machine = tastes like a “chai latte” 

 I am not a food scientist and I have no way to explain why steaming the Chai Brew (or concentrate) with milk produces a different result than when heated in the microwave or over a stovetop. So now, I have a new-found respect for the words “Chai Latte”. 

I am not sure who coined the term (Starbucks?), but they did the right thing. A “Chai Latte” is black tea frothed with milk. Not to be confused with “Chai” – the traditional tea drink from India.

Chai the way it should be

Having grown up in India, "chai" is hard-wired in my brain to mean steeped black tea and milk. Sugar and spices are optional, though commonly added. 

However, here in the US, “chai” has morphed into something else. Increasingly, it is presented as black tea with spices like ginger, cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom. Last week I attended the Fancy Food Show held here in San Francisco. The ticket to attend was only $35 and in return, you get to sample loads of chocolates, cookies, jams, cheeses, etc for 3 full days. Not a bad deal for your taste buds (maybe not so much for your heart or waistline). 

As all the specialty tea companies were there too, I took this opportunity to try the “chai” from all these companies. Let me first say that all these companies are tea experts and use really good, high-quality tea to make their products. As you learn more about tea, you start to realize how similar it is to wine. All the teas come from the same plant (as wine comes from grapes), but every tea is so different as it is hugely impacted by the region, climate, season of harvest, method of picking and processing, etc. etc. 

As I went around the floor tasting “chai”, I was less than satisfied with everyone’s interpretation of what “chai” is. Whether it was loose leaf tea or tea bag, as I tasted sample after sample, my brain kept screaming “Where’s the MILK?!” 

 I used to roll my eyes when I would see “Chai Latte” at Starbucks - it combines 2 words from 2 different languages, is overly sweet, and has vanilla. But at least they had the basic idea right – it’s a hot drink with black tea and milk. Or maybe it is the word “Chai Latte” that led people to think that “Chai” is black tea with spices and it becomes a “latte” by adding steamed milk. 

 I know, I alone cant change how chai is being defined here in the US. But if you plan to travel to India, just remember when you are offered “chai”, expect to get black tea with milk. If you want it spicy, ask for “masala chai“ and if you are looking for plain black tea, then you should ask for “black tea, no milk, please”.

If failure is inevitable, why try?

I am really excited about this year…this is going to be a special year for all of us. How can it not be? It started with 1-1-11! 

 I feel especially optimistic this year. Not b’coz I am a lot wiser but also b’coz I have found the support of people who push me forward every time I'm stuck. It’s been a little over a year since I began my entrepreneurial journey and I don’t regret it one bit. Everything you read about entrepreneurship and hear from entrepreneurs is 100% true. But it takes your own experience to drive all those points home. 

Every entrepreneur will tell you that failure is inevitable. A successful entrepreneur will tell you how they found success in their failure. Learning from your mistakes is important. But the real secret to success is not the lessons themselves, or luck or new opportunities; it is determination and humility. 

 It is your determination that will push you to get over disappointments when things don’t go according to plan, will force you to innovate to overcome roadblocks, and will drive you to find new opportunities when things look bleak. 

  Humility will let you accept your mistakes, enable you to ask for help when you need it, make you appreciate the opportunities given to you, and will never let you take anything for granted. Mostly, it will make you personable. 

 In my blogs this year, I want to share what I have learnt about the food business and entrepreneurship. Not just in the abstract, but in specifics. My hope is that it may help others like me. At the very least, it will be a good reminder to me of what I have learnt.