India, Sept. 23 -- In the early 2010s, most Indians still brewed tea at home and bought loose-leaf teas (not packaged in tea bags) from mass-produced brands like Tata Tea, Brooke Bond, Society Tea and Wagh Bakri. Interestingly, people had discovered cafe-brewed coffee by then, with speciality chains like Cafe Coffee Day and Barista springing up nationwide and popularising the cafe culture. However, tea lounges/salons were a rare phenomenon, limited to a handful of urban pockets.

Nitin Saluja and Raghav Verma wanted to change that for tea partisans. The proposition was quite straightforward when they set up Chaayos and opened their first outlet on quick service restaurant (QSR) model in November 2012 - bring chai out of living rooms and a...