How To Start & Run A Successful Tea Room/Shop Business? – 2022 FAQs

What is a tea room?

Tea and other light snacks are the primary fare of any establishment referred to as a tearoom or, more specifically, an Asian-style teahouse. Although the purpose of a teahouse or tearoom may shift depending on the region in which it is located, in general, tearooms and teahouses serve the same purpose as coffeeshops: they are hubs for social interaction. The term “tea room” may refer to a number of different types of places depending on the culture.

How to open a small tea room?

Make sure you know what to think of when opening a tiny tea room:

• Consider the business model
• Prepare the business plan
• Calculate the finance
• Develop a marketing strategy
• Think of a good name
• Build up the connections
• Source the suppliers
• Pick the right site
• Design your tearoom with the customers in mind
• Hire the right people
• Set up SOP
• Train your team
• Start promotion
• Get ready for opening
• Keep evaluating & learning for improvement

What should be included in a tea room business plan?

A tea room business plan usually includes:

• Executive Summary
• The company summary (aims and objectives)
• Products/Service Description
• Market Analysis
• Location and Competition
• Strategy and Implementation
• Management Team
• Financial Forecast
• Marketing Strategy

How to get a good name for tea room business?

Getting a good name for your tea room business is important. When you are brainstorming the names, do research and think of the relevant words and phrases that can be used.

• Make sure to keep the name simple and easy to pronounce/spell/write/spread.
• Choose a meaningful name to you and your potential customers.
• Avoid words that can limit your business growth.
• Choose a name that can differentiate your business from your competitors.
• Use a name with visual association, so it will be easier to brand and remember.

If circumstances allow, you should always get feedback, from basically everyone: your trusted friends, teammates, potential customers or to the masses through social media.

What are the good names for tea room business?

Here are some good name suggestions for your tea room!

• Iced Taste
• Herbal Afternoon
• The Tea Veranda
• Tangy Tea
• My Cookie House
• Pastry Jar
• Dear TeaHouse

How much will it cost to start up a tea room business?

It depends on where is your tea room and how big is it. In general, your cost will include:

• Salary
• Rent
• Administrative Charges, such as tax, legal fee, permits & licenses fee
• Insurance Coverage
• Supply cost
• Renovation fee, such as new ceiling, painting the exterior, decorating and signs
• Kitchen installation, equipment & electronics fee, such as electric wall kettle
• Running cost, such as electricity and water bills
• Furniture fee, such as like chairs and dressers
• Accounting and Payroll
• POS Technology
• Marketing

How to run a tea room on a budget?

One of the most important remarks to cut budget is that you rent the place but not own it. Owning the building means you have to pay the mortgage and maintain the property. Some prospective owners run a tearoom from their home. It will be a good way to start from low budget, just remember to have separation and time off from the business when you can.

Another way to save money at the start is to keep the renovation of the existing site as much as possible. There are many cheap ways to ‘dress up’ and stage an old site in a tasteful manner and save a lot of money before earning much from the tea room business.

How much does a tea room charge customers?

Tea rooms predominantly make profits by selling light refreshments and brewed tea to customers. The price of a cup of tea charged varied greatly depending on the quality of the tea, the competition and the shop location. Taking a tea shop business in NY as an example, one cup of green tea costs US$2.85. Many fancy tea could be charged higher than this.

Is a tea room business profitable?

A small tea store might break even at $300,000 in sales with rent at $75,000 (25%) and labor at $90,000 (30%). However, as sales rise to $500,000, rent stays steady at $75,000 (now 15% of sales) and labor and other factors rise, but more slowly than sales. Tea retail can be incredibly rewarding and very profitable, but it’s definitely not easy.

To increase your tea room profitability, consider adding the following income streams:

• Sell tea & tea gadgets online
• Organize group events & classes such as tea tasting
• Rent out the tea room space at low traffic hours as event space
• Upsell cakes, ice creams, & other higher profit margin items
• Sell books & other tea products at check out
• Get into local wholesale
• Think of ideas for recurring subscription model

What tea lovers must have should a tea room sell?

• Tea Advent Calendar
• English Afternoon Tea Chocolate Truffles
• Tea Bath Brew Pockets
• Tea Infuser
• Tea Kettle
• Tea Plant Print
• Matcha Bowl Set
• Tea Honey Spoon
• Tea Herbs Garden Kit

How to choose the best location for my tea room?

When choosing the location to set up your tea room,

• Get a storefront with windows so people walking by can appreciate the atmosphere your tea cafe provides.
• Stay close to a busy street with plenty of parking.
• Avoid purchasing a tea cafe that already exists, as it will be difficult to overcome the poor reputation the previous occupants may have developed. Instead, choose an empty building or a going-out-of-business location that is not a tea cafe but can easily be converted into one.

Your tea room location should depend on your overall go-to-market strategy. For example, many business owners who are good at online marketing deliberately set their tea room a quiet area so to enjoy low rent and a slow space in which customers feel comfortable staying for the whole afternoon.

What are the license needed for a tea room?

The tea room business must comply with local licensing, building, and utility ordinances regarding sink configuration, water temperatures, permissible food preparations, training and certification in food handling, electrical standards, signage limitations, occupancy capacity, and accessibility requirements. The tea room must remain up to code at all times. Make sure you keep yourself updated with the regulations and policy.

What are the equipment needed to start a tea room business?

The basics include plates and cups, eating utensils, sugar and cream dispensers, tea baskets to hold the tea while steeping, honey dispensers, teapots, saucers, strainers, glasses and pitchers. Tables, chairs, table linens and napkins are also necessary. You might also want to sell packaged tea products, like blacks, greens, oolongs, flavors, blends, chai, and tisanes and containers for them.

What to include in the tea room menu?

There are many types of tea that could be served:

• Cream Tea: serving tea with scones, jam and clotted cream
• Light Tea: serving tea with sweets, such as cookies, cakes or pastries
• Full Afternoon Tea: consists of three courses
• Champagne Tea: a full afternoon tea served with a glass of champagne
• Bubble Tea: take away tea that is really trendy

How to market a tea room business?

For traditional marketing methods, try

• Install a big clear signage
• Offer deals in the local newspaper & magazines
• Get interviewed by local TV & radio
• Crossover with other local businesses for promotion
• Host media & charity promotional events
• Use text message marketing
• Create design features that people want to take photos with
• Create incentive for customers to come back

For online marketing methods, try

• Have a website
• Be active on social medias
• Have a strategy for your customers to spread the words for you
• Plan for online search results
• Manage your online reviews

One of the easiest way of marketing is to use Google My Business (GMB). GMB enables you to be found on Page One of Google without a huge budget. In fact, it costs nothing at all. Just claim your business listing from Google and follow their instructions. They allow you to link posts that feature the keywords you want to be found for and build a supplementary website in minutes.

How to bring the tea room to social media?

First you need to identify which social media to target, all if you have the resources for all of them.

If your business is targeting ONLY the local community then facebook will be the best. If your business is selling online to anyone in the world, then Pinterest, Youtube, Snapchat, Tiktok, IG can all help you a lot. These social medias have followers of different age range, you need to understand your potential customers and find the best way to communicate with them.

Once you have identified the social media to use, take an hour out of each day or week to create content, and interact with your followers through live streaming. You can try these ideas to have a special tea time with your followers.

• show them a specialty tea and how to taste/prepare it.
• introduce what’s coming to the store
• ask them what they are doing for the holidays
• ask them what gifts they want
• ask what they’d like to see from your business

You can dress this up any way you like, but make each video unique and specific. Let users know what time and what days you will be going live in advance and schedule events across social media so users will be able to register and get notifications.

How to make space efficient in a tea house?

A popular idea for teahouse design is to get the space as open as possible, that all the equipment and the staff being as visible as possible. Having a sleek design allows customers to watch the tea-brewing taking place while talking to them. This raises the amount of interaction they have. Good visibility enables a good customer experience – but not everything needs to be in view!

What are some famous modern tea room design examples

These Japanese teahouses are well designed for aesthetics and beauty:

• Kengo Kuma, Teahouse
• Terunobu Fujimori, Takasugi-an
• Tokujin Yoshioka, Kou-an Glass Teahouse
• Sun Wei, Bamboo Courtyard Teahouse
• David Maštálka, Teahouse
• Kengo Kuma, Oribe Tea House

Where can I find some innovative tea room ideas

• Artisanal Tea Bars in San Francisco
• Organic Tea Bars in Sydney
• Biju in South London
• Floris London in London
• Yakumo Saryo in Meguro
• Baoputang in Beijing
• teaBOT in Toronto
• The Boba 7 eatery in Los Angeles
• Pierre Herme Paris in Hong Kong