How Much Money Does Boba Guys Make

Boba Guys make their drinks with existent fruit, real milk, real foamed cheese, and real tea, brewed from loose-leaf oolong and other quality varietals, and served with tapioca balls fabricated in their own manufactory. The bustling chain, now with 20 locations, was co-founded past Andrew Chau and Bin Chen. Chau, a featured speaker at World Tea Expo this week, explains how relentless attention to quality elevated a simple mix of milk tea and tapioca to a $three billion global segment that is enticing a generation of not-tea drinkers to give tea a try.

Explanation: Andrew Chau, co-founder and CEO, Boba Guys.

Co-founder, CEO, and author of The Boba Book Andrew Chau describes the allure of bubble tea.

'We Really Push the Envelope for Quality'

By Dan Bolton

A concern graduate with a master's degree from the University of California, Berkeley, Andrew Chau worked as a marketing planner and manager at Target and Walmart before co-founding Vergence Media, a digital imaging startup. He later managed e-commerce for Timbuk2, a consumer electronics venture, and worked as a global brand manager for LeapFrog, in Emeryville, Calif. In 2011 he and Bin Chen launched Boba Guys opening their first shop in the Mission District. In 2015 they launched Tea People. The company has since expanded with 6 locations in Los Angeles and one in New York City.

Dan Bolton: Why is bubble tea a gateway for exploring tea in-depth?

Andrew Chau: I hope I don't insult anybody by suggesting that you demand boba in gild to experience tea. There'due south a millennia of history with tea. I'm non saying that nosotros're rewriting all of that history. Tea is something that's been drunk for thousands of years.

In sure countries, tea is normal, in sure places coffee is normal, in certain places mate is normal. Tea is basically a cultural product. When I say it's a gateway drink, what I mean is that is how a lot of people become into tea. It brings you into the deep parts of tea; we're talking about knowing what an oolong is, knowing where tea comes from in the world.

Knowing tea at that depth opens the gate.

There'south a drink that I really dearest in Taiwan, where my parents are from. It's made with a high mountain oolong, a buttery tea that yous put crema on elevation. The crema is like ultra milk, some people call information technology cheese. Sometimes y'all get a milk mustache drinking information technology along with the tea. It's almost similar a milk tea, and aye you are having tea with milk, maybe there's some saccharide in it. But what you are really tasting is the body of the drink, which in this case is an outstanding oolong, an Atomic number 26 Goddess [of Mercy] tea with a milk cap or foam. Ten years ago you would have probably simply ordered a Frappuccino.

And that's how so many people get in. The idea is to go you interested in the tea. Sure it is called a "Frozen Summit Oolong" but drinking it yous are starting to understand the profile of that fine tea flavour.

That'south what we do.

Nosotros really push the envelope. We source our own tea and sell it to unlike cafes across the world. Our tea make pushes innovation, pregnant that we do nitro tea considering with nitro yous have more than trunk and can gustatory modality nuances that you wouldn't make it a hot water steep.

What we exercise is get people involved.

A gateway is basically like a beachhead, right? It's where people enter. So y'all enter the store and gild a uncomplicated milk oolong, a Necktie Guan Yin, a familiar English breakfast tea, or a Ceylon tea. We capture the best qualifies of these teas in a bubble format.

Dan: Your Boba gateway doesn't accept a sign on it announcing, "no ane over 35 allowed." Boba Guys shops are filled with people of all ages eating and slurping and conversing. They are animated and interact as they poke and play with their wide-diameter straws. Boba is experiential — a drinking occasion that mingles quality tea and a memorable experience. Will you talk about those aspects?

Andrew: People sometimes say boba is a fad. I'm like, well, how is information technology a fad if ii billion people drinkable milk tea, or have tapioca every mean solar day? When boba first came out, it was a kind of dessert. Tapioca and cassava, the institute that it is made from, are native to Brazil. The Portuguese and Spaniards brought it to Southeast Asia. Like to flan, you lot have cassava pudding, and cassava cake across Southeast Asia, in Malaysia, the Philippines, and other Spanish and Portuguese colonies. The pudding got mixed into a milk tea civilization. In Europe, there's a milk tea culture in the Middle East, and fifty-fifty in Mongolia and Russia.

So I think that what happened is that it caught on once again, in modern times as a kid'due south beverage considering teenagers drink it loaded with a lot of sugar. I was ane of those kids, but as I got older my metabolism changed, and then I have to watch that sugar.

When we created Boba Guys we purposely fabricated information technology attainable. The format and taste profile are like what people desire in a Frappuccino. We lowered the sugar content and used raw sugar. We make our ain sugars. We don't have whatsoever loftier fructose corn syrup in our stores. That is one way we made it accessible.

Consider matcha. Everybody loves matcha in a latte or milkshake, but many don't appreciate matcha's tea civilisation. We take tea classes at Boba Guys. I teach people 'this is a Dragonwell, a Longing green tea,' or 'this is a sencha green tea.' When yous grind it up to make it into a fine pulverization that is essentially matcha. At Boba Guys we layer it into the drink. The technique is known equally a pousse-café. You encounter the layer, it is visually separate versus i behemothic green mixed latter.

I explain that you're drinking the entire tea leaf, whereas if you had a Dragonwell Longjing it would just be steeped. And so y'all begin to understand how your body is internalizing all these anti-oxidants, like the catechins and ECGC. When you explain that to people you're able to story tell. People haven't been articulating the story of boba.

How do we go far attainable to Americans?

Nosotros explain that information technology is something to enjoy casually. If you want a slight tea buzz and you're young and merely are non a alcohol drinker. Go grab a boba.

That'due south what we are seeing now. It's become a hangout for people. You would never a decade ago hear a regular everyday American want to talk about oolongs. You would hear them talk virtually light-green tea and black tea. I think we have come a long way and we desire to be much more than inclusive.

"When I say it's a gateway drink, what I hateful is that it'southward how a lot of people get into tea. It brings yous deeper into tea, knowing what an oolong is and what is Pu'er, knowing where tea comes from in the world."
– Andrew Chau

Bridging Cultures

The Boba Guys sell tea online and supply many cafes and shops. "We started Tea People considering we wanted to share our favorite teas with our friends the merely way nosotros knew how, past keeping information technology simple," said Chau. "We visit the farms ourselves and source our own teas. Our mission is to brand quality tea approachable, so we try to make it intimate, directly from the source," he said.