Madhur Malhotra is an engineer and ex-NRI. He is a post graduate in IT and Communication Management in Australia. He has worked with a reputed company, as well as the health department of the Australian government.
Though he earned well, he was always worried about his parents who were living alone in India. When his mother suffered a severe health problem in 2009, he decided to leave everything and come back home.
While speaking about this, he said, "My mother had to undergo open heart surgery. She was 72-year-old, while my father was 78 at that time. After my sisters got married, they had been living alone. Realising that managing everything alone would be difficult for my parents, I came back to India."
After returning to India, Madhur joined his family’s construction business which he found uninteresting and monotonous and unsatisfying.
One evening Madhur and his friend Shelly George were catching up over a cup at a tea stall in Bhopal. They observed the dirty environment there as everyone was smoking which caused a lot of inconvenience to them who are non-smokers. The server who is serving there was dipping his dirty hands into the glasses. They also noted that there were no girls in the tea stall due to the environment.
Madhur and Shelley planned to start a tea café of their own with better ambiance where people could come with their family and friends to enjoy a cup of tea. They began by selling Irani chai, but this plan didn’t work well with the customers. They had a creative bent of mind so they came up with an idea to serve a cup of tea in Kulhads. They introduced terracotta cups that added extra flavor to the tea, and that thought brought them success.
Source: Madhur
Why they chose name Chai34? In response to this question, Madhur said, "There are couple of reasons firstly chai-34 rhymes, secondly our plot no. On which we are centered is 34, and finally we won't have ever more than 34 tea types currently it's approx 20."
Madhur says the tea they serve is of high quality and they do not stinge on adding generous amounts of milk when serving the typical milky Indian chai. Smoking is, of course, strictly prohibited at the small cafe.
Now, The cafe serves 22 different flavors of tea, and it also has a fast food menu. They are also expanding their business in the different cities of India.
Share
