'I Have Learnt Not to be Brand-conscious'

MITTAL'S TEA Shop is tucked away in the alleyways of the quaint curio market of Sunder Nagar. The owner Vikram Mittal sits on his high rise stool to attend tea tasting sessions that he likes to conduct in one corner of the shop. You will find not one or few but around 50 new varieties of tea at the Mittal’s. “I have now created a blend of masala tea with some special cinnamon, fennel and cardamom. Not realising its worth, when I tested with friends, the results were amazing. However, I was unaware of the fact that mixing anything in tea is illegal,” says Mittal, who joined the family business after completing his engineering from IIT Delhi and is a professional tea taster and lecturer.

Anything blended in tea whether gold or iron would be levied as an adulteration as per the Tea Act of 1954. But in the 70s when companies in Europe started flavouring their tea, Indians were not ready as the government did not allow. “I think it was almost in the middle of 90s that there was this amendment made in the legislation to add something other than tea. Now it’s legal, encouraged and it’s been accepted well.”

When Mittal extensively travelled Europe, he was fascinated from the small tea houses or the so-called confectionary shops in Paris. “Defined as a tea shop as opposed to a cake shop, it serves a variety of cakes, breads, sandwiches and tea, a central theme for which people come. So why not something like this in India soon?”, says the tea-taster who plans to bring a similar experience in India.

As Mittal’s primary business is in tea retail and procurement, he plans to start a QSR also. “One thing that I have learnt over the years is not to be brand-conscious. When a buyer comes to my store I don’t sell tea in a hurry but create an experience for him to understand and acquire a taste,” says the proprietor of the tea house, one of the first shops to sell loose leaf tea in Delhi when until Mittal’s father converted it into a teashop in the 1970s.

Contributing very positively to the growth – even served at the Emperor’s Lounge of The Taj Mahal – Mittal talks about the health benefits of tea. “Tea’s role was identified by the American laboratories after 30 years of research on how the morning cuppa is not a mean beverage and you don’t have to take it very lightly because this tea has kept China and Japan slim and KFC’S and McDonalds has made the US obese. Surprisingly, it took the Americans to tell the world that what the best was for health. We had health products but didn’t have the knowledge.”

Mittal’s has even started a franchise in Japan by a one of the customer, called Mittal’s Tea Room in Japan.

So how do you get the perfect blend? Mittal affirms, “I think the reasons to believe that large companies have R&D centres where almost 60% of the parameters are tested on quality. But the remaining 40% is made by the tea taster. So even very good instrumentation and lot of advanced analytical tool cannot possibly analyse a tea. And this can only be done by human taste,” says Mittal who believes in delivering good quality tea with accurate price points.

The tea is procured from about 35 tea farms within India – Nilgiris, Darjeeling and Assam. Mittal Teas offer exotic Indian teas fromDarjeeling, Assam, Nilgiri, Flavoured, Herbal Teas and Infusions. They also have teas from China, Japan, Sri Lanka and South Africa. With a combined turnover of about 10 crore, Mittal considers that one can increase the turnover by being inventive in products which people don’t even visualise. “If you are lucky, your increased turnover follows. But if it does not happen you really don’t have to regret anything because you get your satisfaction creating something new, something nice and adding something to the society in a way.”

At 55, Mittal begins his day at 5.30 am with tasting and evaluating teas. “It’s very refreshing thing to do and I like what I do. I always like this particular tea from south India Nilgiris which is delicious and it’s like saying that a father always loves the child who is weaker in studies. Hence, Nilgiri was always a poor cousin of Darjeeling and people never rate it very highly. We were the first series tea company to start promoting Nilgiris as a speciality and people accepted this gradually.”

Talking about the expansion plans, Mittal wants to import about 30 tea vending machines from Germany which is herbal cum coffee brewing equipment. “Once the project is ready then we will tie up with the distribution company to penetrate into the different market segments by April 2018.”