Masala Chai
The cup the whole counter runs on. Whole spice, a full rolling boil, no shortcuts.
Spiced, milky, familiar
Food and beverage, franchise
The Tea Toast Co.
A tea house chain across eight towns in Maharashtra and Karnataka.
- Role
- Design and build
- Year
- 2022, redesigned 2026
- Timeline
- Three weeks
- Stack
- Next.js, Tailwind, Framer Motion
The brief
What we were actually solving.
The Tea Toast Co calls itself a sanctuary for tea lovers, and it has grown into eight locations with more opening. The tea range is the real asset: Moroccan Mint, Soothing Chamomile, Masala Chai, Kashmiri Kahwa, Rose Green, sold loose in tins and pouches as well as poured in store. The site had to do three jobs at once: make someone want to walk in, sell tins to people who cannot, and put franchise enquiries in front of the right reader without shouting at everyone else.
What was wrong
Three problems the old site could not fix on its own.
01
The tea was buried
The single most distinctive thing about the brand, a named tea range with real provenance, sat below the fold and read as a list. Nothing about the page told you these teas were sourced and blended rather than bought in.
02
Eight locations, no way to find one
Belgaum, SGU, Kolhapur, Jaisinghpur, Ichalkaranji, Sangli, Viraj Junction and Satara were a run of text. A visitor in Sangli had no fast way to confirm there was a branch near them, which is the only question most of them arrive with.
03
Franchise and customer competing for the same page
A prospective franchisee and someone deciding where to have chai want completely different things. Both were being served the same homepage, so neither got a clear next step.
The approach
Four moves, in this order.
order matters more than anything
- 01
Lead with the cup
The hero is a single cup and one sentence. It is the thing people photograph and the thing the brand is named after, so it earns the first screen on its own.
- 02
Give the tea range a room of its own
Five named teas, each with its own card, origin note and a tin you can buy. The range stops being a list and starts being a reason to choose this place over the cafe next door.
- 03
Answer the location question in one glance
A town grid with the open branches and the one that is coming, so a visitor confirms in a second that there is a Tea Toast where they live.
- 04
Split the two audiences cleanly
A dedicated franchise band, visually separated and written for an operator rather than a customer, with its own enquiry route. Everyone else scrolls past it without friction.
The build
This is the site, not a picture of it.
The frame below is running the real front end at desktop width, scaled to fit. Scroll inside it.
theteatoastco.inNew design
Hey Teatoasters!
A sanctuaryfor tealovers.
And for everyone else after a moment of peace and tranquillity in the middle of a busy life. Traditional Indian tea culture, brewed with care, set on a modern table.
Brewed to order
Every cup made with care, and with precision.
BelgaumSGUKolhapurJaisinghpurIchalkaranjiSangliViraj JunctionSataraRaichur, opening soon
The rangeFive teas we brew
Five teas we brew
every single day.
Some came to us from the other side of the world. Some have been on the stove in this part of the country for as long as anyone can remember.
Loose leaf. Tins and pouches.
Moroccan Mint
Gunpowder green leaf and fresh mint, sweet and cooling. Borrowed from a long way west.
Cool, sweet, green
Kashmiri Kahwa
Saffron and almond over green leaf. The slowest cup here, and worth sitting down for.
Golden, delicate, warming
Soothing Chamomile
Whole flowers, steeped without hurry. The one to order when the day has been long.
Soft, floral, caffeine free
Rose Green Tea
Green tea and rose petal. Light enough for the middle of a slow afternoon.
Light, floral, bright
Sourcing
Carefully sourced from around the world, and brewed with care and precision.
Traditional Indian tea culture and modern dining, in the same room. The leaf is chosen first and everything else follows it.
Take the tea house home.
Every tea on this page is packed at the counter, weighed the way we weigh it for the pot.
Tins and pouches
Find usEight towns, and
Eight towns, and
one more on the way.
Every Tea Toast Co. is run by people from the town it sits in. Walk in, take the corner table, stay as long as you like.
MaharashtraKarnataka
The open ring is still being built
Belgaum
Now openSGU
Now openKolhapur
Now openJaisinghpur
Now openIchalkaranji
Now openSangli
Now openViraj Junction
Now openSatara
Now openRaichur
Our next room is on the way. Follow along and you will hear about the first pot.
FranchiseRun the room.
Run the room.
We will look after the tea.
We are looking for operators who know their town, who want to be in the room every day, and who care whether the second cup is as good as the first.
01
A tea programme you cannot buy in
Teas sourced from around the world, blended and packed for your counter, with the training to brew them.
02
A kitchen built around toast
A short menu a small team can run well from the first week, on equipment that fits a modest counter.
03
A room drawn for your site
Layout, furniture, signage, menu boards and the small printed things, designed before the doors open.
04
Somebody on the other end
People you can reach before opening day and, more to the point, on an ordinary Tuesday six months later.
The system
Type and colour, decided once.
Typeface
Fraunces
Display, paired with Inter for reading.
A soft, slightly wonky serif for warmth against a clean grotesque for everything you actually read. Tea is a slow drink and the display face should not feel like a tech company.
Palette
Brewed
#B85C1E
Butter
#E0A65C
Cream
#F7EDDD
Roast
#2B1C10
Leaf
#5B7A4C
Services
- Website design
- UI and UX
- Art direction
- Front end build
Delivered
- Responsive website
- Menu system
- Franchise enquiry flow
- Location finder
Outcome
The redesign has not been live long enough to report a measured result, so there is nothing here yet. When there is a real number, enquiries, calls, footfall, it goes in this space and nowhere else. We do not publish figures we have not counted.
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Read itWant one of these for your business?
Tell us what the business does and what the current site is not doing for it. One reply, from the person who would do the work.