Poorvi Chordia Of Herbs & Kettles On 5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand
An Interview With Martita Mestey
You must have something people want or are looking for. How does your product benefit the customer? Does it make them feel good, feel healthier or provide another benefit? We considered this carefully as we were creating our custom blended tea, herbal mixes, and golden lattes.
As a part of our series called “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Poorvi Chordia, Founder of Herbs & Kettles.
Herbs & Kettles founder Poorvi Chordia is many things: founder of a thriving company, a certified tea sommelier, an attending physician in infectious disease at Atlanta’s Grady Memorial Hospital and a busy mom to two school-age daughters.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?
I grew up in India in Mumbai. I am an only child. My father was a physician. My mother had polio growing up which inspired my own interest in medicine. My husband, Abe, and co-founder of Herbs & Kettles was born and raised in the United States, but his family is originally from India. After graduating from medical school in Mumbai, I moved to the US in 2009 to intern at the University of Florida. Abe and I met there our first week. The rest is history!
Can you share with us the story of the “ah ha” moment that led to the creation of the food or beverage brand you are leading?
Like many physicians, Abe and I were stretched to capacity on the front line of the pandemic. We would decompress after long days by spending time in our urban garden and with our daughters as much as possible. We also soon realized that our ritual of enjoying a cup of tea together really helped us to relax and reconnect. From there, we began blending our own chai and sourcing teas from a few, small tea growers in India. We decided to sell our blends at our local farmers markets. We loved having a personal connection with our customers, and they loved our teas, our story, and our culture from India. Our interactions at the markets led to our “ah ha” moment. There is a gap of premium teas from India. We started as Noble Roots at the farmers markets before rebranding and launching nationwide as Herbs & Kettles.
Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?
When we first started drinking whole-leaf tea from a great tea farm in Meghalaya, India, we steeped it for 5 minutes as per the instructions. It was bitter, flat, and had poor flavor profile. We then started reading about different techniques for steeping tea, short steeping times, and how to get the best flavors and aromas from your tea. This is what led to my tea sommelier certification.
What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they start a food or beverage line? What can be done to avoid those errors?
We advise not to purchase any stock before having a strong logo and packaging design. Also, research your product and create the story that defines your niche. Don’t sell yourself short — you are an expert on your product.
Let’s imagine that someone reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to produce. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?
We advise to put your concept on paper and outline a plan and a general budget to bring it to market. Can you introduce the product via a farmers’ market or a boutique? Do you need to consider an investor? Take slow steps initially or else you will burn out. Lots of people will give you advice, but find a mentor who you have full confidence in. Don’t spend any of your budget until you have confidence in yourself and your product.
Many people have good ideas all the time. But some people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. How would you encourage someone to overcome this hurdle?
Test your product and branding out on friends, family, and small groups to find out if your idea works and is sustainable. This will help you build your confidence and become an authority on your product. Take a calculated risk for your next step. We are believers in leaps of faith!
There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?
We did not hire a consultant for Herbs & Kettles, but we may possibly have had a smoother transition from local market to a national e-commerce model if we had. Consultants can be very expensive so I think it depends on your product, your expertise, and what complementary knowledge the consultant can bring to your business equation.
What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?
We have not yet considered a venture capitalist. We want Herbs & Kettles to be a family-owned business so we can enjoy it. Yes, the extra capital would be great, especially to support our marketing efforts, but we do not want to answer to someone else at this point.
Can you share thoughts from your experience about how to file a patent, how to source good raw ingredients, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer or distributor?
We are fortunate that we can travel direct to the source. We personally meet with the tea growers India. Nearly all the teas in our Herbs & Kettles collection are from farms that we have personally visited. We are learning every day. We know the importance of sourcing whole leaf (vs broken leaf), single-batch, single- origin tea leaves. We have tasted the difference when we do not curate and select with these parameters.
Here is the main question of our discussion. What are your “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand” and why?
1 — You must have a high-quality product.
Customers today are very well-educated about what they drink and eat. If you create a product with high-quality ingredients, you will rarely disappoint your customers. We source our teas directly from small tea growers we personally visit in India.
2 — You must have something people want or are looking for. How does your product benefit the customer? Does it make them feel good, feel healthier or provide another benefit? We considered this carefully as we were creating our custom blended tea, herbal mixes, and golden lattes.
3 — You should have a good story behind your brand. The story behind your brand allows customers to connect with you. In our case, Herbs & Kettles reflects our heritage and culture. We also like to share how we support single-origin tea farms in India.
4 — Your logo and packaging should be strong. We love our Herbs & Kettles packaging which features a chaiwala animal (Indian tea seller) to represent the story of the tea variety and region. The chaiwala also symbolizes the biodiversity in India. We give a percentage of our sales to support wildlife preservation in India.
5 — You should have authenticity and transparency for your brand. Our story is unique and true to our experience. We encourage you to consider your brand’s story and ensure it is an authentic representation of you and your brand.
Can you share your ideas about how to create a product that people really love and are ‘crazy about’?
The Herbs & Kettles brand began from our passion and enthusiasm for custom-blended teas, spices, florals, and herbs to make tea we loved first. Once we landed on teas that we were crazy about, we knew we could share with others and enhance the growing tea culture. Make sure you love your product — you are your first customer, always!
Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
We have two efforts we are very proud of. First, we work with small, independent tea growers that we personally visit and ensure that they care for both the land and their workers. These visits re-connect us with our home country, and we take time to understand our growers and go out into the fields with the workers. Second, we give a portion of our sales to support wildlife biodiversity in India.
You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I would love to inspire everyone to make their health a top priority — from consuming food and beverage that are good for you, to taking time for mental health.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
Poorvi Chordia Of Herbs & Kettles On 5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.