The gap between consumption and commerce is where Chaayos found its opportunity.

India drinks over 1 billion cups of tea every single day. Yet until a decade ago, almost none of that habit was monetised through organised cafés. That gap between consumption and commerce is where Chaayos found its opportunity.

In a country that treats chai as a cultural constant, building a premium café chain around it sounded counterintuitive. Tea was abundant, informal and cheap. Coffee, meanwhile, had brands, loyalty and aspirational value. Chaayos challenged this imbalance and, in the process, redefined how urban India consumes its most familiar beverage.

An Insight That Emerged Abroad

The idea for Chaayos did not originate in a boardroom or a market study. It began with a daily inconvenience faced by Nitin Saluja, an IIT Bombay graduate living in the United States after college. Professionally, everything was in place. A strong academic background, a stable job and exposure to global consumer culture. But something was missing from his routine. Coffee was effortless to find. Authentic Indian chai was not.

What initially felt like a minor adjustment slowly became a recurring thought. Chai was deeply embedded in Indian life, yet it had no organised presence in modern food culture. The absence raised a simple but powerful question: why had such a dominant habit never been built into a structured business?

That question stayed unresolved until Saluja returned to India.

A Market Hiding in Plain Sight

Back home, the contradiction became obvious. India is one of the world’s largest tea-consuming nations. Chai fuels offices, households, travel and social interaction. Despite this, the organised café market told a different story. Coffee brands had national footprints, standardised menus and premium spaces. Chai was still largely unbranded and informal.

There was no national chai chain. No consistent experience. No scalable model. The opportunity was not about teaching people to drink chai. It was about formalising a habit that already existed at massive scale. Saluja partnered with Raghav Verma, another IIT graduate, and in 2012 they launched Chaayos with a clear objective: build a modern chai café chain for India’s urban consumer.

Pricing Against Perception

The first Chaayos outlet opened near IIT Delhi. From the outset, the brand focused on customisation, allowing customers to tailor their chai to personal preferences. Over time, this evolved into more than 80,000 possible combinations.

But innovation alone was not the challenge.

Price was.

In a market where chai typically sells for ₹10 to ₹20, Chaayos priced its offerings above ₹100. The reaction was predictable. Scepticism was widespread, and many questioned whether consumers would ever pay a premium for something so commonplace.

The founders believed the debate missed the point. Customers were not paying for tea leaves and milk. They were paying for hygiene, consistency, predictability and a comfortable environment. The product was familiar, but the experience was new.

From Experiment to Scale

That positioning gradually found acceptance. As urban consumers embraced reliable quality and personalised choice, Chaayos expanded across business districts, residential hubs and high-footfall locations.

What began as a niche experiment scaled into a nationwide operation.

Today, Chaayos operates 200+ outlets across India and has crossed ₹300 crore in revenue. More importantly, it created a premium chai category where none existed before.

Chaayos did not change India’s relationship with chai. It simply proved that even the most ordinary habits, when structured thoughtfully, can become enduring businesses.