Interview: Take A Look At The World Of The Good Life Company’s Luxury Teas With Its Founders

Last month, we introduced you to the The Good Life Company (TGL Co), a luxury tea start-up which was looking to raise $1 million in investments. Less than a month later, the tea company has joined hands with actress and reauranteur Ayesha Takia Azmi and her husband Farhan Azmi, who are no strangers to the hospitality sector.

We got the opportunity to speak with the founders of TGL Co. – Bhuman Dani and Shariq Ashraf about the six month old tea start up. Before we get into that, here’s a little more about the gourmet tea company.

All About TGL Co

TGL. CO has over 300 varieties of tea blends being developed in its R&D Centre. It sources its teas and ingredients fresh from all around the world and blends them in Europe.

TGL. Co is now offering a set of 24 teas for customers to try at restaurants across Mumbai or to order online. Tea variants include the ‘Chilli Romance’ (Masala Indian Green Chai), Strawberry and Aloe and Orange and Mango Oolong teas.

Talking Tea With TGL’s Founders

What is your relationship with tea like? 

Shariq: I have always been an avid tea drinker all my life and while I was in my way to Antarctica via Argentina, this passion promoted me to meet Ines Berton, owner of Tealosophy – South America’s biggest tea company. It was a great experience and I learnt loads from her. Ever since then, the concept of starting a specialty tea company in India was on my mind, and when I met Bhuman, who had similar aspirations, it was the perfect launch pad.

Bhuman: I got exposed to the world of teas when I moved to London and I was mesmerised to experience teas like never before. My friends often mocked me for visiting the Amanzi tea bar next to my office post work while they were on their beer diets in the neighbourhood.

I happened to visit the East India Company store on Conduit Street in central London and that’s when I decided to get into the luxury tea space.

Since, I had no background in teas, I decided to learn under Jane Pettigrew who is not only a reception that of the famous British Empire medal but also part of the UK tea council.

Shariq and I met at an alumni event of Boston Consulting Group, for which we had both worked for a while, Shariq in the Melbourne office and I in the London office, where we started talking about our passion for teas, and joined forces!

We met Mr. Abu Farhan Azmi to pitch our teas for his Café Basilico restaurant in Mumbai. Farhan, having been in the restaurant business for years, and being a connoisseur of fine teas, immediately fell in love with our offerings, and decided to come on board – a true testament to the quality of our products.

 Do you keep health benefits in mind when designing the teas?

Absolutely. We work with Tea Masters, Culinary Experts and Botanists to create our blends. Tea experts to select the right tea leaves, culinary experts for taste profile and botanists for health benefits of the ingredients.

Which is why the ingredients we use are both unavailable and unheard of in the country – such as barberries, mallow petals, Schizandra Berries, Muira Puama, thistle flowers, osmanthus, etc.

Apart from being amazingly tasty – most of these ingredients have medicinal values.

For example, Schizandra Berries help reduce stress and increase physical performance, Barberries are incredibly healthy -they help detoxify, are good for diabetes, improves heart health and boosts immunity. Mallow petals are anti inflammatory, and help with respiratory problems such as sore throat and coughs, and with digestion. Similarly, all the other 40+ botanical we use have various health benefits.

Tell us a little about how the ingredients for your teas are sourced.

We are committed to offering innovative blends with exotic ingredients and tea leaves from the best botanicals from around the world.

Although there are many tea players that sell amazing teas, there are 3 ways in which we are completely different:

a) Sourcing of tea leaves:

Most players source their leaves from the Indian subcontinent – that’s India, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bhutan. Nothing wrong with that! India is the second largest producer of tea but an Oolong leaf grows best in Taiwan. A white tea grows best in the Fujian province of China. The humidity, temperature, altitude, alkalinity in soil is optimal for these leaves to grow in these regions. So at TGL, instead of just limiting ourselves to the Indian subcontinent, we’ve also gone to China, Taiwan, Japan and sourced the finest leaves from these countries.

b) Sourcing of ingredients:

Most players source their ingredients locally – which is why the range is limited and quality is sub-optimal. At TGL, after we’ve got these leaves from around the world, we ship them to Europe to our contract manufactured blending facility wherein we mix our teas with dehydrated fruits, flowers and natural flavours in the presence of European botanists and culinary experts – botanists to ensure our blends are amazingly healthy and culinary experts to ensure the optimal taste !

Which is why the ingredients we use are both unavailable and unheard of in the country – such as barberries, mallow petals, Schizandra Berries, Muira Puama, thistle flowers, osmanthus, etc.

Apart from being amazingly tasty – most of these ingredients have medicinal values. We follow a streamlined central purchasing principle – source ingredients from locations they grow best – for example our barberries come from Iran, our Schizandra Berries from Russia, Muira Puama from the Amazon rainforest, mangoes and strawberries from India, etc

c) The blend overall:

Most players have simple, conventional blends – Green tea with mint, green tea with ginger, green tea with rose, earl grey, english breakfast, chamomile, rooibos, etc

A typical blend that TGL Co. offers is Green Sencha Tea mixed with mango, banana, melon, guava, sunflowers, cornflowers and Passion flower leaves.

8 ingredients in one tea so it’s extremely flavourful, extremely tasty, extremely healthy because less than 6 calories a cup and extremely high in quality because of our sourcing process.

Why do you choose to blend your teas in Europe?

Europe provides us a perfect place to source various exotic and healthy botanicals and ingredients from around the world.

Since our ingredients are sourced there, we also blend there to ensure freshness, and quality control. We then import the final blends to India.

 What are some of your favourite TGL teas?

Mogo Mogo and Geisha are all time favourites for us. Apart from these, Shariq needs his daily cup of Fountain of Life and Golden Mist, Farhan loves Strawberry and Cream as it complements his outlet – Cafe Basilico’s desserts in Mumbai, and Bhuman uses Strawberry Aloe to cool down in the summer, and Little Buddha to cosy up to in the monsoons.

 What’s your take on the luxury tea market in India?

We are extremely bullish on India – especially now that global bigwigs Teavana and TWG have announced their arrival.

The Green tea market in India in 2007 was almost non-existent – today its 650 crore and growing at ~50% per annum.

We see a lot of switchers from this green tea segment since what’s currently available is bitter and not very health.