March 17, 2021

Success stories are created over a cup of tea. Tea blending startup, Aromica Tea, makes it among the 10 Most Promising Tea & Coffee Brands in 2021 by Silicon India magazine. The laurel stems from Aromica Tea’s jaw-dropping line of wellness tea blends, including the first-of-its-kind Bhoot Jolokiya Tea (Ghost Chillie Tea).

Founder, Ranjit Baruah’s insatiable passion to concoct ingenious tea blends took roots two decades back while working in tea plantations that include a successful stint at Williamson Magor. With 20 years of experience in his kit, he decided to take a plunge into entrepreneurship in 2018, putting his bet on a segment that was yet to get explored to its full potential.

“I had three options in front of me. Either go for the regular tea trading which occupies 98% of the market. Or work with Orthodox Black Tea that holds 1.5% of the market. Or work on special tea that captures hardly 0.5% of the market. I decided to put my bet on the third one,” Baruah says. He invested 90% of the money he received after his voluntary retirement to start experimenting with the tea blends.

It has been a journey of trial and error for Ranjit Baruah to put to use his years of experience for solidifying his skills as a tea entrepreneur. From doing extensive reading about the tea industry to enlisting himself in numerous tea forums to attending international workshops, Ranjit Baruah left almost no stone unturned to learn and apply the learning to his business.

He began by sampling his tea blends at various cafes in Guwahati. As his blends gained traction, it encouraged him to expand the range of tea blends. An enterprise that started with 5 tea blends has 35 unique blends on offer at present. Today, Baruah has taken a step ahead, targetting the export market, with samples being sent to Australia and Nepal, and a few more being in the pipeline. IIM Calcutta Innovation Park has further facilitated sample exports to Germany. With the business gradually taking shape and having a definite business model in place, the founder has set a target to get Aromica Tea onboarded on at least 25 e-commerce platforms by end of 2021. 

Despite being hardly 3-year old and with a bygone year that was constricted by the lockdown, Aromica Tea has been making impressive advancements in the tea startup world. The recognition by Silicon India is a testimony to its success.