Quala-Tea

We wanted to prepare a physical concept to show Nela for the presentation. Therefore Jake used a laser cutter to test the design on a flat piece of wood.  Then in order to to create a mockup he cut together another wooden block an the shape of the chocolate block complete with the design inspired from the labels we designed. Using the wooden Mockup; Jake also made a plastic mould which in turn would be used to create the actual chocolate blocks themselves.  

Our first official presentation to Nela directly would be after the break in week 7. Apart from putting together our presentation over the break we were all given different areas to research into. This research aimed to expand on what we information we got from the previous two interviews, but more importantly what we were going to use to convince Nela of our idea of expansion/collaboration: Our roles were: Do millennials want things fast, or are they slowing down? (Rosamund) What are other brands who have a product that can be used in many ways (India) Is a multifunctional element what appeals to consumers today? (Michael) Is there anything in the market already like a iced chai? (Freedom) What demographic is she currently targeting, what demographic would we be opening it up to? (Jake) How have other small businesses built their brand, looking at those models.  (Danni) All of the research we would gather would be incorporated into our week 7...

We had two meeting with our tutors and Nela in week 6. These were the notes we took from those meetings: Meeting with Jennifer: Look at consumerist psychology Don't just make assumptions, do research Maybe she has been focusing on an older demographic We are coming at it from our demographic, to attract millennials, iced chai would be a way. Look at tank model. Preparing in front of you. Do we show what goes into it? The organic. Glass - not a fast product, something that can be recycled. Gives value. Nela doesn't want instant. We have done something with packaging that isn’t instant. We need to make sure that there is nothing on the market already like it. Any claims make sure they aren’t just assumptions. Iced tea / iced chai latte. Different. Give off different feels.   Have a tasting in week 7. Where would we source that? At sunday market people make soy milk themselves. Frame the syrup in a different way. Does it not just sit in the tea section? ...

We were told in our week four presentation that we needed more visuals to support our ideas. So while we waited for any possible collaborators we were contacting to get back to us; we made some concept designs for the Iced Chai and Chai chocolate. This fed into the break as well: The following concepts were designed: A label design for 'Nela's Iced Chai': The design followed the style of and colour she already used. This was due to our previous observation of her products already standing out on shelves because of the existing style and colour. A label design development by Freedom for the Chai tea with ingredients included, was used for presentation.

Before we could could focus on exploring collaboration opportunities for Nela's Chai; we needed to narrow down our ideas. Therefore, after the experiments we gave our thoughts on the taste of all the products as well as ranking them: _________________________________________________________________________________ Thoughts: Cookies: - The peanut butter cookies were very average. Felt the peanut taste was much stronger than the Chai. It also kinda lost its flavout when baked so probably wouldn’t make again. The mix however, tasted a lot like speculoos spread (had the same consistency). - Choc chip cookies were much nicer, the Chai flavor was good but should add more next time. This could be a good idea for Nela to invent her own recipe rather than collaborate. Iced Chai: -        Enjoyed this combination. The milk balanced that Chai flavor really well and it would be a good option for Nela to either create her own recipe o...

We met up as a group on the Monday between weeks 4 and 5 to experiment with Nela's recipe and attempt to expand the product to further. We all brought different ingredients to test and Jake bought Nela's Chai tea leaves and liquid chai from the local Moore Wilsons and on the day we made and taste-tested the following products: Chai Tea/Iced Chai: Chai Ice-Cream: Chai Chocolate: And a variety of Chai cookies including:  Chocolate chip, Peanut Butter and Chocolate/Nutella:  The session was very successful. We had created a interesting variety of new Chai based food products that we could now pitch to Nela in terms of expanding her brand. What we needed to delve into next was companies that she could collaborate with.

We presented during the workshop slot on Wednesday our approach, which was collaboration with other companies in Wellington and expanding the product to different variations such as craft-beer or gelato ice-cream. Our Slides are below: The feedback we got on the presentation included the following which we took into account going ahead: Focus down the idea more It has a good solid groundwork Suggesting changes to Nela is alright What is the ‘WHY’?

We spent some time this week looking through Nela's website to see how well she was currently advertising her product. The website was fine, it had a simplistic layout and was unfinished in places but there was still the ability to purchase her products online. However, after finding a list of her distributors on her website we went out to several of them to see how Nela's chai was being distributed. What we noticed about cafe's was that they just served chai tea/lattes without any mention of the name/brand. In supermarket type areas such as Moore Wilsons; her product was overwhelmed by others on the shelf and not very easy to find. We did notice a positive which was that the style and colour of the packaging allowed for the product to be easily spotted. We took these factors into account when further brainstorming our ideas for out week 4 presentation.