Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. When it comes to
Speaker 1: foreign policy, the US has sought to cultivate a deeper
Speaker 1: partnership with India, and if you think about it, it
Speaker 1: really makes sense. There are about four point eight million
Speaker 1: Indian Americans in the United States. That's according to some
Speaker 1: Census Bureau data. Indian Americans account for twenty percent of
Speaker 1: the nation's Asian American population. Overall, two thirds of Indian
Speaker 1: Americans are immigrants, thirty four percent are US born, and
Speaker 1: around half of Indian Americans live in four US states California, Texas,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and New York numbers. Carol, I know well.
Speaker 1: I want to give a little bit of a said
Speaker 1: because these guys are thinking a lot about that community,
Speaker 1: reaching out to the community. Our next two guests, We're
Speaker 1: welcome and delighted to have with us, actor comedian Hassin
Speaker 1: Minjohn Minaj. Forgive me Naj Minaj.
Speaker 2: This is all good, well live, We're alive here on Bloomberg.
Speaker 1: Husain Minaj along with Anyi Sanyal, who co founded Kolkata
Speaker 1: Chai Company with his brother. Welcome, Welcome, welcome, so great
Speaker 1: to have you here with us. Anya, I want to
Speaker 1: start with you because tell us about Kolkata and our
Speaker 1: producer CC has been down to the Soho location says
Speaker 1: it's incredible, very good. You have two in New York City.
Speaker 1: Tell us about how it all came together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so five years ago, my brother and I decided
Speaker 3: to do the craziest thing possible, which is bring authentic
Speaker 3: chai to America. We grew up being able to travel
Speaker 3: back to India a lot, and you know, New York City,
Speaker 3: you can find anything you want to eat and drink,
Speaker 3: but it was really hard to find a good cup
Speaker 3: of chai. So that's where we started. We opened six
Speaker 3: months before the pandemic. We bootstrapped our first cafe location,
Speaker 3: which I don't recommend, But five years later we are
Speaker 3: at three locations. We just brought on, you know, one
Speaker 3: of the more generational talents in this country to join
Speaker 3: the business, and we're super excited.
Speaker 1: How how did you get involved in it?
Speaker 2: So funny enough, I had heard about the cafe for
Speaker 2: a long time. Getting a great cup of chai is
Speaker 2: kind of a somewhat of a secret in our community.
Speaker 2: You talk about where you can get a great cup.
Speaker 2: Heard about the cafe over in Nolita and then funny enough,
Speaker 2: my wife put me onto it. I get back home,
Speaker 2: I open one of our drawers and it's full filled
Speaker 2: with KCC. Seriously, yeah, She goes, have you had Colcutta chain?
Speaker 2: And I go, yeah, I've heard about it. Is it
Speaker 2: the real deal? And it became Bena approved and therefore
Speaker 2: it became Hasan approved. And then I went down to
Speaker 2: the location. Their their location. They're celebrating their five year
Speaker 2: anniversary this week. But I went down to the Nolita
Speaker 2: location and I saw the community that they've built. They
Speaker 2: now have three cafes, and of course they obviously have
Speaker 2: the incredible DTC business and they've built this amazing omni
Speaker 2: channel platform. And me and you know, Annie got to chatting,
Speaker 2: and a lot of times, you know, celebrities, we get
Speaker 2: asked to participate and hey, you should endorse this product.
Speaker 2: And what they'll do is they'll they'll use your name
Speaker 2: and likeness and they'll white label you with some commodity
Speaker 2: tequila sneakers T shirts and that's great.
Speaker 4: Or you like drink it on the Patriot Act, sure,
Speaker 4: yeah yeah, show yeah.
Speaker 2: Or you talk about the Samsung GALAXIESZ Full three by
Speaker 2: Frizon five G the fastest five network available. Right, I've
Speaker 2: done that commercial, but this is different. This is something
Speaker 2: where I genuinely loved the brand. I loved what they
Speaker 2: had been building, and I wanted to authentically tell our
Speaker 2: story through Tea. Is one of the largest markets that's
Speaker 2: growing right now, and getting a great cup of chai
Speaker 2: has been something that in our community we've always wanted
Speaker 2: and they really cracked the code, not only just from
Speaker 2: their brick and mortar business, but the fact that they
Speaker 2: broke the code with the massolid chie concentrate. So when
Speaker 2: I was having that great cup of tea at their
Speaker 2: location in Nolita, I was like, wait, this same cup
Speaker 2: can be here in New York City. I can have
Speaker 2: it in the Midwest. You know, you can have it
Speaker 2: wherever across the country. Which is which was?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 2: That was?
Speaker 1: That was.
Speaker 4: My good friend Kritty Gupta used to make me chai
Speaker 4: and bring it into work, and then unfortunately she was
Speaker 4: transferred to London. So now like, I'm in the market.
Speaker 4: What is the secret to making it really truly authentical?
Speaker 2: What's the coca cola recipe?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: I wish I could.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 3: The secret is is my brother, He's the head chef
Speaker 3: and he's figured out the perfect blend of tea, spice
Speaker 3: and a little bit of sugar to get that sweet
Speaker 3: and spicy balance. We sourced all of our tea from
Speaker 3: legacy tea estates in Assam in India. So this is
Speaker 3: where one hundred years ago they planted t two hundred
Speaker 3: years ago they started planting tea, and so all of
Speaker 3: our product is coming from that region. So we're talking
Speaker 3: about the most authentic, you know, unfiltered product that you
Speaker 3: can find.
Speaker 2: What Paris is for fashion, I would say Assam is
Speaker 2: for tea. Would you agree with that?
Speaker 4: Honey?
Speaker 1: How big is the market? I have a daughter who
Speaker 1: loves it. Was in Tanzania, brought it back, loved it,
Speaker 1: loved it, loved it. So tell me how big the
Speaker 1: market is and tell us a little bit about the business. Yeah.
Speaker 3: So in the US, the package tea market is about
Speaker 3: a fifteen billion dollar category, but it's growing slowly because
Speaker 3: tea is a little bit sleepy. However, you have these
Speaker 3: modern formats like macha, which is actually growing at a
Speaker 3: ten percent kagger and so we see ourselves as that
Speaker 3: next iteration of macha you mentioned, you know, the growing
Speaker 3: Asian American population in this country, and that is fueling
Speaker 3: this need for people to want to have the real thing.
Speaker 3: We don't want to go to you know, the takeout spots,
Speaker 3: to the fast food spots. We want that real, authentic
Speaker 3: from the source product. And so that's really where we're
Speaker 3: excited about chai as a new category and our business.
Speaker 3: So we've grown three hundred percent year over year, so
Speaker 3: we are on a rocket ship right now. Revenue opline revenue,
Speaker 3: and that's accelerated by our direct consumer business and our
Speaker 3: e commerce product.
Speaker 1: So we do is that where most of the businesses,
Speaker 1: and that's where the.
Speaker 3: That is where most of the revenue is YEP. So
Speaker 3: we use our brick and mortar locations as community building
Speaker 3: and product introduction to the market since Child's relatively new,
Speaker 3: and then we accelerate that growth on direct to consumer.
Speaker 3: And so we have a best in class chai mix
Speaker 3: which is like a tea and spice mix, and we
Speaker 3: do a liquid concentrate product which Hussin alluded to as well,
Speaker 3: and you can make chi in thirty seconds at home,
Speaker 3: So we're going to get you right.
Speaker 2: That's but what you guys were talking about was exactly
Speaker 2: the problem that they solved. Hey, I had a colleague
Speaker 2: that put me onto this great cup of chi. You know,
Speaker 2: my daughter came back. He gave me this great cup
Speaker 2: of chie. And the difficulty has always been is how
Speaker 2: do you pack a package and product this great experience
Speaker 2: that you had somewhere in Tanzania or somewhere in Delhi
Speaker 2: or Mumbai or in Assam, and how do you get
Speaker 2: it to the break room?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's you don't want to go to Starbucks and
Speaker 4: get the chai te latte.
Speaker 1: I'm not.
Speaker 2: I'm not here to throw it on any other places.
Speaker 2: But but but what cacc has also done, which is historical,
Speaker 2: is they're the first storefront location for a chai cafe.
Speaker 2: So this this thing that is different. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 2: that has a deep resonance in our culture. It was
Speaker 2: usually relegated to like a side item that you would
Speaker 2: get at a restaurant. But this is like a true
Speaker 2: brick and mortar storefront and an omni channel of business.
Speaker 1: What do you do to grow it? So what's the plans?
Speaker 1: Is it more stores? Is it you bring him on
Speaker 1: to grow right?
Speaker 4: Or do you also like it ends with us?
Speaker 3: It ends with us.
Speaker 4: Take a cup of.
Speaker 2: Tea and yeah, yeah, yeah, number one movie at the
Speaker 2: box office.
Speaker 1: But also like bringing it into other big retail.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, you nailed it. I think right now our
Speaker 3: growth is happening on to its consumer and e commerce.
Speaker 3: So that's really where we're dialing in new product formats,
Speaker 3: you know, new ways of advertising and telling that a story.
Speaker 3: I think having huston, you know, generational storyteller, bringing Chi
Speaker 3: to mainstream America through that type of format, through that
Speaker 3: pop culture format, that's what we're really excited about. And
Speaker 3: then to your point about retail expansion being in grocery stores,
Speaker 3: that's the next step for us. We want to be
Speaker 3: accessible to all Americans.
Speaker 2: For me personally, it was about a healthier caffeine alternative
Speaker 2: to coffee. No caffeine, there's no caffeine, but you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: not to get too scientific, but there's l fianine in it,
Speaker 2: which is almost like a like a cleaner, kind of
Speaker 2: healthier sort of kick that you get from chai. So
Speaker 2: also for people who were if coffee's giving you a
Speaker 2: little bit of a rumble in the tumble, it's it's
Speaker 2: it's messing with your tummy a little bit. Chai is
Speaker 2: a great alternative to that, and so For me, I
Speaker 2: think people really want the real thing and they want
Speaker 2: a healthier alternative to coffee or espresso.
Speaker 4: And do you give did you give something to Blake Lively?
Speaker 4: I mean you passing it on to people who aren't
Speaker 4: Indian you want to me? To me, chai fundamentally is
Speaker 4: about community, family commiseration. It's like intrinsically linked to joy
Speaker 4: and being together and so like. To me, the X
Speaker 4: factor to me was why isn't this having it's yerbamate
Speaker 4: or macha moment?
Speaker 2: And I think it really is about to have that.
Speaker 1: All right, this was almost perfect. It would have been
Speaker 1: perfect if you had brought us a cup.
Speaker 2: But did you want it that we could have plugged that.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying, Hassin minhaz and anis Sanyelle, thank you
Speaker 1: so much. Really appreciate it. Cooledkatta Chai company. This is
Speaker 1: Bloomberg