While the going got extreme, this Doc went to tea and fabricated an Rs 11 crore turnover business

Life offers a lot of exciting bends in the road and springs numerous unexpected, yet wonderful treats. To Dr. Rupali Ambegaonkar - who finished her MBBS from Lokmanya Tilak Clinical School, Sion, Mumbai, and her MS in Muscular health from GS Clinical School, Mumbai - her girl's ailment constrained her to enjoy some time off from her calling and at last transformed her into a tea sommelier. Rupali began The Iron Buddha Organization as an ownership firm in 2010 with Rs 30 lakh from a 100 sq ft office and a 20,000 sq ft bundling unit in Mulund, Mumbai.

To Dr. Rupali Ambegaonkar - who completed her MBBS from Lokmanya Tilak Medical School, Sion, Mumbai, and her MS in Orthopedics from GS Medical College, Mumbai - her daughter’s medical condition forced her to take a break from her profession and eventually turned her into a tea sommelier. Rupali started The Iron Buddha Company as a proprietorship firm in 2010 with Rs 30 lakh from a 100 sq ft office and a 20,000 sq ft packaging unit in Mulund, Mumbai. Her company imported tea leaves from China, which were blended and packed in different flavors in Mumbai, and sold the tea under the brand name Tea Culture of the World (TCW).

Today, the Tea Culture of the World comes in 80 exquisite flavors, blended with hand-plucked tea leaves from Japan, China, Vietnam, South Africa, and different parts of India. Their products are available both online and in retail outlets that include 37 company-owned stores across the country. We now have 110 employees, says Rupali, 45, who had grown up in a middle-class family in Mumbai with her mother, Chhaya Deshmukh, and an elder brother.

“Ours was a modest middle-class family, where I and my brother were brought up with limited resources,” says Rupali. “Juhu is a posh area, and we were living a middle-class life there. Rupali studied at Vidya Nidhi School in Juhu till Class 10. She completed Class 12 from Keerti College, Dadar in 1995, and then went on to do her medical studies She was finally integrated into normal life when she started going to school at the age of six, and I finally got the time I needed for myself.”

Instead, she went on a trip to China, where a local guide presented her with a box of special tea. Back in Mumbai, she had almost forgotten about it when her maid checked with her about six months later if she needed the box, or if it could be discarded. When my stock finished, I asked my friends who were traveling to China to buy more of it, says Rupali, who smelt a business opportunity in the tea and made a visit to China to explore the idea further.

A business model took shape during her four-month stay at a tea estate in China. She returned to India and started her company in 2010, importing Chinese and Japanese tea. She advertised through Just Dial and sold the tea to customers in Mumbai. “We got orders mainly from restaurants or from clients who connected with us through Just Dial,” says Rupali. Now we have tea bags too, and sell tea leaves starting from 50 gm packets,” says Rupali, and goes on to explain about the expensive varieties they sell.

We have tea that costs about Rs 50,000 a kg. Lotus tea, grown in Vietnam, is another exquisite flavor that is sold at Rs 60,000 per kg. “I started preparing tea blends. In 2014, she moved to a 1 lakh sq ft factory in Bhiwadi, Mumbai. The proprietorship firm turned into TCW Tea Private Limited in July 2017.“Covid time was tough, as we had to lay off people, and shut some stores, but I didn’t cut the salaries of employees.

The contract to supply to defense stores kept our boat afloat,” says Rupali, recounting her journey during the dreadful days of the pandemic. Before the pandemic, online sales were only 10%, but today 25% of our sale is online.” TCW products are sold on their website and also on other major e-commerce portals. Interestingly, TCW tea bags and pouches are made with soilon, a 100% biodegradable bioplastic.

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