Starting a tea room in Bangkok

[balo]

Thais loves ice tea with milk or hot green tea , So yes there is a market if you try to make it "Thai friendly".

Personally I prefer Japanese Green tea macha latte .

What has happened to you? You've been turned.

I'll send an emergency package of PG Tips and Tetley.

Yes, anybody who likes green tea with milk in it is seriously disturbed, as are the people who invented it. Disgusting!

But it's very healthy for you , one cup green tea macha contains more antioxidants than any other tea or herbal drinks. Just ask any Japanese.

[1marco1]

There's one on the ground floor of the Central World which offer many kinds of tea hot and cold.

[elgenon]

I suggest you take a look at the tea room on Thapae in CM. See what works, what doesn't. I'm not a tea drinker but enjoyed it.

It's a delicate balance, you don't want to start out with such a pared down experience it is not enjoyable, yet you don't want to blow a bunch of money on something that doesn't work. Ya gots ta do reesearch!!!!. An idea is one thing but doing it right is work.

[laban]

Recently went to a a new tea room on Sukhumvit 10 called Chan & Yupa. Beautiful old house restored except that they have put Pvc windows and not very comfortable chairs. Garden is small but beautiful.

As far as tea is concerned, they did not have a clue: green tea and flavored teas but no black tea at all!!!??

[onthemoon]

There seem to be lots of tea rooms popping up lately. On Thanon Lang Suwan at the Portico community mall there is a very nice cafe on the second floor. They must be successful because they recently expanded into the adjacent space. There is also a small, very neat tea shop at the top floor of the Mercury Villa, the red mall close to the Chidlom BTS station.

If I were the op I would go and try to chat up the owners/workers of these places to try to get some idea of how the business works.Yes, that should work.

Yes that should work: "Excuse me, I have no idea how to run a tea room and want to be your competitor. Please teach me everything."

[onthemoon]

One thing to remember which is very important. If you start up any business and it

becomes successful, you can be sure other Thais in the area, will start doing the same thing.

That really depends upon the height of the threshold of entry into the business. If, for example, the start-up costs are high, or the business has protected intellectual property, or the business has an exclusive contract with a key supplier, then there won't be copycat businesses.

Google Porter's Five Force Model.

[1FinickyOne]

Jaxter - even if you are on target and knowledgable about teas, there are too many mentions of "small" in your approach - small business ideas are less likely to be profitable, the margins are too thin - I know you are just starting out and likely have limited funds, but if you are to succeed, you should have some big ideas… and a lot of knowledge about teas - not a small selection, but a big selection… unusual, rare - that might intrigue me - otherwise, I can buy tea at the grocery store… find some way to make it special, someplace to go out of your way for… it doesn't sound like you have the passion that might be needed for this… become an expert if you are going to do it, go all the way… bring in some unusual baked goods or things people like with their tea… make it special and unique and people will have a reason to walk around the corner… good luck - hope this helps.

[honu]

Two recent new tea cafes have opened in Silom and the Ekamai areas, the Peony cafe and Peace Oriental tea house. Both are not lower-end informal shops, so both are geared towards the same people that don't mind spending 150 baht on a coffee, just related to decent tea.

Of course other shops opening are clear signs of supply, not necessarily demand. The trend seems to be to make the businesses work by combining food service with higher end tea sales. It doesn't take much business development analysis to figure out that you would need to sell a lot of tea at between 100 and 150 a cup to pay for overhead anywhere, and in anything but a mall-type setting it would be hard to get that.

Might as well also mention the main tea cafe people into tea know of in Bangkok, the Double Dogs tea shop, for a look at that. That's a different model, in Chinatown, but the idea is the same: offer better teas at prices that would only make sense to people into better teas (well over 100 baht), and supplement that with some food and loose tea sales.

Meanwhile there are a half-dozen stalls selling versions of powdered tea drinks to go at the BTS station near where I work. The demand is already there for bubble tea and "Thai tea." Maybe these other shops will help push tea awareness to the point where enough people want a decent tie kuan yin or da hong pao to expand the market further, or maybe they'll just barely get by, or not even that, time will tell.

[Lukecan]

start a tea room in a muslim area, but than your place might be used for other things too

It will be the next ISIS MEETUP SPOT

[honu]

I just visited the one tea shop you hear the most about in Bangkok, Double Dogs tea room in Chinatown, on the center of Yaowarat (the main street). It was ok, nothing so special. The tea was better than you ever usually run across here, which was nice since tea and some snack cost 260 baht.

The interior was nothing special, set up to not hold many tables in the main room but apparently with more space in the back. Of course simply duplicating their business model wouldn't work because it includes the location as part of the draw, and they are already there doing it.

The teas to take away were really expensive ($20 to $30 for 50 grams of tea, double or triple typical pricing for better teas), but grade really does come into play, and availability, so they are charging more based on those teas not being around.

I was in some really cool tea cafes in Seoul not too long ago, just in and out because I was really looking for loose tea, and it might be possible to use their approach as a starting point. Decorations were rustic and comfortable, lots of wood, like Double Dogs, just a bit more interesting. They served more herb teas (tisanes, to tea drinkers), but that may not work in Thailand because no one ever drinks that. Then again almost no one drinks decent tea too but that seems to work for some.