Tea in tea bags is made from tea dust and fannings leftover from broken tea leaves. The dust doesn't have the oils and aroma of loose leaf tea."Most tea bags—70% to 80%—are bleached with chemicals and have plastic particles in them," said Chandran. The chemicals and plastic are bad for the environment, are bad for you, and add a funny taste to the tea.
Chandran started selling Tea Drops at farmer markets. Working a day job for eBay, then weekends and evenings for herself became overwhelming. She decided to go all-in on Tea Drops and quit her day job. She financed the business using a home equity line of credit on the house she had recently bought and also used the money she saved to go to business school. Her mother came out of retirement to help, too.
There was a huge learning curve that year. Chandran and her small team were killing themselves working so hard. Chandran didn't come from money. With no friends and family from whom to raise capital, she sought venture capital. Chandran read Brad Feld and Jason Mendelson'sto learn about the process and terminology. She read the book over and over again.