Feel Good Tea brews flavours for your cuppa
▶ Dubai company’s founder tells Shweta Jain he plans to fill gap in market for branded beverages
For centuries, this herbal brew made from a dried tropical flower was little known outside of SouthEast Asia. It is now the top offering by an Emirati start-up that is attempting to tap into the fast-growing market for beverages in the Gulf.
The so-called blue tea is known for its intense colour and turns purple when a drop of lemon is added to it. It is strained from the butterfly pea flower.
Dubai start-up Feel Good Tea sources the beverage from China and sells it in loose form in the UAE and other GCC countries. It can add more flavours on request – a key differentiator for the start-up in a market dominated by packaged tea.
“It is all really about quality and experience,” says Feel Good Tea founder Mohammad Al Hawari. “The act of handling loose tea allows customers to touch, see and smell the leaves ... [while] the ritual of brewing the perfect cup can be both relaxing and contemplative.”
Founded in 2019, Feel Good Tea is tapping into a burgeoning market for the beverage in the region. The market for tea in the Middle East is expected to grow to about $8.2 billion in retail prices by 2025, up from $3.3bn in 2015, according to a recent report by analytics company Research and Markets.
The tea market has evolved dramatically over the past few years in line with consumers’ changing behaviour, according to the report.
Tea drinkers today are more interested in high-quality beverages that have specific health benefits. This has fuelled demand for healthy green and functional botanical teas, as well as herbal blends, it said.
“Consumers are increasingly looking for curated choices and experiences,” says Sandeep Ganediwalla, Indian research company Redseer’s managing partner in the region.
“We expect to see a lot of local brands create offerings to cater to the regional taste. The emergence of online channels has meant that they can test these products nimbly and reach directly to consumers.”
At Feel Good Tea, Mr Al Hawari says he personally selects each of the company’s blends from seasonal rotations before they are pressed into what he describes as tea pods – glass tubes that keep the tea fresh. He picks them for their unique flavours and health benefits.
Besides the selection of tea, which includes the more traditional options, the company – which now has more than 80 items in its product range – also sells accessories such as teapots, infusers, cups and mugs.
The brand was born on social media, says Mr Al Hawari, and grew exponentially as people began to increasingly shop online early last year due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Feel Good Tea generated Dh4.6 million ($1.25m) in revenue from February 2020 to January, Mr Al Hawari says. He is hoping for another bumper year as the company expands its product range and reaches out to more customers.
For that, the company will need more cash. Mr Al Hawari started Feel Good Tea with about Dh1.5m of his own money but now plans to raise about Dh3.3m in the first quarter of next year through crowd funding. He eventually wants to take the company public.
“For sure, we have plans for listing the company – this is the ultimate goal for the future,” Mr Al Hawari says.
“In the meantime, we are focused on crowd funding and venture capital.”
But the risks, as for any startup, remain high. For every success story, there are scores of ideas that fail for several reasons: from getting the product and pricing wrong to not having the right people to help to scale up the business.
Finding funding remains a constant challenge, especially as the company grows.
Mr Al Hawari understands the risks that come with any new business. He set up Feel Good Tea after losing a high-paying job in the corporate world. The incident left him depressed and he spent months in therapy.
During this time, he found comfort binge-watching Netflix while sipping on warm mugs of tea – a joy that he says led him to dig deeper into the business of tea and eventually start his own brand.
“When I drink tea, I always feel good. I did not want to complicate it and so named my company Feel Good Tea – pure, simple and straight to the point,” he says.
Mr Al Hawari says that Feel Good Tea aims to fill a market gap for an Emirati e-commerce business selling branded speciality tea. He spends hours carrying out product research and has travelled the world to find premium ingredients.
Having started Feel Good Tea from the basement of his house, Mr Al Hawari continues to run the company’s operations from there, with 22 employees. He was inspired by the founder of Australian company SkinnyMe Tea, which focuses mainly on detox tea.
Mr Al Hawari is counting on his more than 18 years of experience in investment management, banking and insurance to grow his business.
“Tea is so broad. There are thousands and thousands of varieties of tea – black, green, oolong, herbal. The list is endless. We want to focus on not just flavoured teas but also functional teas,” he says.
The company has begun to test various types of functional teas with detox, calming and sleep properties. To drive that growth, the company is looking beyond online sales, Mr Al Hawari says.
“We need to expand quickly. You need to be online and offline to make it successful.”
As people return to malls and restaurants, online sales have dipped from their peak and the company can no longer just depend on online sales, he says.
“We have plans to open physical shops but we want to go the extra mile. We do not want to just have a tea shop. We also want to have a tea bar, where you can taste different types of teas, for a price.”
Feel Good Tea is currently designing its first shop, which it plans to open in one of the malls in Dubai sometime next year, Mr Al Hawari says, without divulging details.
Meanwhile, the start-up is also in talks to display its tea products in cafes and restaurants across Dubai to build awareness about its brand.
Feel Good Tea has developed a corporate package for gifting in which it delivers personalised boxes to companies, a side of the business that has grown formidably, the founder says.
Mr Al Hawari says his company is trying to peg itself as the Patchi or Bateel of the tea market. Both those brands are quite popular in the region and Feel Good Tea is following a similar strategy – putting a variety of teas in a package that can be customised.
The company sells its loose tea in test tubes, packaged in a box. Its offering starts at Dh52 for a box of five tea types, with prices going up to Dh269 for a box of 18 tea tubes. Its most exotic offering, the blue tea called Blue Ocean, costs Dh130 for 100 grams.