Enterprise: Tea Drop
What makes them special: A member of the Ethical Tea Partnership, which works to create a more sustainable tea industry for workers, farmers and the environment.
Tea Drop was born in 2004, during the surge in specialty coffee’s popularity on the Melbourne scene. Working at a coffee roastery, the venture’s founder, Ashok Dias, realised that the cafés and restaurants were serving basic teas and not giving the same attention to the tea drinkers as the coffee drinkers.
Using the same principles as specialty coffee roasters, Ashok started sourcing fresh and artisan classic tea blends, direct from plantations. “We wanted to provide a solution or café operators [who wanted] to serve specialty loose-leaf tea with a twist,” Ashok explains. “We also took a giant leap of faith by becoming the first food service brand in Australia to introduce luxury loose-leaf tea packed in a pyramid tea bag.”
Seeing an overwhelming demand for high-quality tea, Ashok started expanding his library with a greater variety of specialty blends, providing unique teas for his hospitality friends to serve in their establishments.
“We source teas wherever possible with plantations that are Rainforest Alliance certified.”
Since launching Tea Drop, Ashok has led the evolution of the brand, developing a plant-based pyramid tea bag collection and transitioning its packaging from soft plastic to CFLEX. “This enables the packaging to become compliant with a global approach of being part of the circular economy and recycling,” Ashok explains. “We source teas wherever possible with plantations that are Rainforest Alliance certified.”
Tea Drop is also a member of the Ethical Tea Partnership, which works to create a more sustainable tea industry for workers, farmers and the environment. As a brand, Tea Drop re-uses most of the cartons in which it ships its goods to clients. It has also minimised the use of plastic in its eCommerce packaging. “From using craft paper tape to seal cartons, to using honeycomb recycling paper, we’ve been able to not only reduce our plastic usage, but also better protect our products from getting damaged during transit,” Ashok explains.
The global supply-chain shutdown during COVID-19 made sourcing stock difficult for Tea Drop because the business brings in its tea in small quantities to maintain fresh inventory. “My team worked very closely with all our customers, and they understood our brand’s philosophy of sourcing fresh tea, understood the issues we faced and supported our brand by accepting [alternative] stock whenever specific types of tea were not available,” Ashok says. “The sole reason why we as a brand survived the supply-chain challenges was the unwavering support from all our customers and the willingness to wait until fresh tea arrived.”
Ashok is still working towards full post-COVID recovery, alongside the rest of the hospitality sector. “Since COVID restrictions began, we have started focusing a lot more on promoting our brand within the eCommerce world and have experienced tremendous growth as more and more tea consumers are looking for good tea to be a part of their daily tea ritual at home,” Ashok enthuses. “To achieve a stronger brand awareness, we have been focusing on serving new styles of tea in cafes and encouraging operators to work more with specialty tea throughout their menu.”
Tea Drop has had great success with customers by serving freshly brewed iced tea, tea-infused cocktails, seltzers and sourdough bread. “I have always told our customers that Tea Drop’s core focus is to provide a unique selection of teas to all tea enthusiasts,” Ashok concludes.
This article first appeared in issue 40 of the Inside Small Business quarterly magazine
