Tea Avenue

What Tea Avenue does

Tea Avenue is a privately-held Sri Lankan café chain and retail tea brand operated by the De Silva family, headquartered in Colombo. The company operates approximately 12 café outlets across Sri Lanka — concentrated in Colombo with newer presence in Kandy, Dambulla, and Galle — under two formats: flagship "Tea Avenue" cafés (including a 24-hour Jawatta location) and the more accessible, halal-assured "Daily Brew" sub-brand. Its core offering combines proprietary Ceylon tea blends (signatures include Standard 36 and Silver Tips, backed by nearly a century of family tea expertise since 1936), a Spanish-roasted coffee blend drawing on 12 origins, a full gourmet café food menu, and an e-commerce retail line of packaged teas priced LKR 1,900–5,200 per 100g. Sister company Empire Teas (founded 2000) supplies the café chain with tea, providing vertical integration into Sri Lankan tea export.

Revenue is generated across four streams: in-café food and beverage sales, online retail tea product sales, franchise fees and royalties (including a master franchise agreement with FranGlobal targeting 100 outlets in India over five years), and corporate meeting venue rentals at Jawatta and Kotte outlets. Customers include individual walk-in consumers, online retail tea buyers, corporate clients booking private meeting spaces, and franchise partners at Master, Area, and Multi-unit tiers. Distribution combines company-owned cafés, franchised Daily Brew outlets, an e-commerce storefront at tea-avenue.com with PayHere payment integration, and strategic captive locations including the John Keells Properties TRI-ZEN residential development (897 units) and a co-branded café at BYD premises.

The go-to-market is direct-to-consumer physical retail augmented by franchise-led scaling; no institutional investment, M&A activity, or external funding rounds are disclosed, and the technology footprint is limited to standard e-commerce and payment infrastructure with no AI/ML components.

Name

Tea Avenue

Legal name

Tea Avenue Private Limited

Website

https://tea-avenue.com

Company type

Private

Founded year

2016

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

51–100 employees

Short description

Tea Avenue is a privately-held Sri Lankan café chain and retail Ceylon tea brand operating approximately 12 outlets nationwide, offering premium tea blends, café food, meeting venues, and a franchise program now expanding internationally into India.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Specialty Tea Café Services

NAICS

Snack and Nonalcoholic Beverage Bars (722515), Restaurants and Other Eating Places (7225)

SIC

Retail-Eating & Drinking Places (5810)

akta.pro primary industry

Tea Rooms & Tea Cafes (THAFADAF)

akta.pro secondary industries

Milk Tea & Flavored Tea Beverage Shops (Non-Boba) (THAFAKAI), Specialty Coffee & Tea Retail (Beans, Leaves, Accessories) (CRAHAGAI)

Keywords

• Specialty tea café
• Ceylon tea retail
• Café franchise program
• Private meeting venues
• Sri lankan coffee shop

Headquarters

HQ city

Colombo

HQ country

Sri Lanka

HQ region

Asia

Offices12 records

Markets served

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Supply Chain, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Technology or R&D, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Café Food & Beverage Sales: Revenue from selling premium teas, specialty coffees, and gourmet dishes across all Tea Avenue café locations in Sri Lanka. This includes both in-café consumption and retail tea product purchases.
2. Retail Tea Product Sales: Online and in-store sales of packaged tea products including Silver Tips, Standard 36, Ceylon Black Tea varieties, and Green Tea blends. Products sold through e-commerce platform with delivery across Sri Lanka.
3. Franchise Fees & Royalties: Revenue from master franchise partnerships (e.g., FranGlobal in India for 100 outlets), area franchise agreements, and multi-unit franchise licenses. Includes setup fees, ongoing royalties, and procurement system revenues.
4. Meeting Venue Rentals: Revenue from renting private meeting spaces at Tea Avenue outlets including Board Rooms, Ginger Room, Earl Grey Room, Chamomile Area, and Kids Area with hourly minimum spend requirements.

Pricing tiers

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels5 records

Marketing channels6 records

Core offering

Tea Avenue operates a network of company-owned and franchise-operated specialty tea cafés across Sri Lanka serving premium Ceylon teas, a proprietary 12-origin Spanish-roasted coffee blend, and gourmet dishes, under flagship Tea Avenue and accessible Daily Brew formats. The company also sells branded retail tea products (Standard 36, Silver Tips, Earl Grey, Jasmine, Chai, Soursop, Forest Berry, Apple Cinnamon, Mint and Chocolate, Pure Green Tea, Sparkling Ginger) through its e-commerce store, rents private meeting venues (Board Rooms, Ginger Room, Earl Grey Room, Chamomile Area, Kids Area) at flagship locations, and licenses its café concepts through Master, Area, and Multi-unit franchise programs internationally.

Product overview

Tea Avenue is a modern Ceylon tea lifestyle brand that operates as a network of café locations and a retail tea product company. The core offering consists of Tea Avenue café/restaurant spaces across Sri Lanka (Jawatta flagship, Union Place, Kotte, Colpetty, Attidiya, Malabe, Pepiliyana, Trizen, BYD, Kandy, Dambulla) where customers enjoy artisanal teas, coffees, and gourmet dishes. The company also sells retail tea products including Silver Tips, Standard 36 (signature Ceylon black tea), Soursop, Pure Green Tea, Mint and Chocolate, Jasmine, Forest Berry, Earl Grey, Chai, Apple Cinnamon, and Sparkling Ginger through its online store. The subsidiary brand Daily Brew offers franchised café formats for broader accessibility across Sri Lanka and internationally. Additional services include private meeting venues with various room configurations and a franchise program for partners.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Daily Brew: A modern tea café concept designed to make premium tea and café experiences accessible across Sri Lanka, offering affordable, high-quality global café favourites with a Sri Lankan twist, fully halal assured.
• Empire Teas

Products and services

• Tea Avenue Café Concept Modern Ceylon tea lifestyle brand operating a network of physical cafés across Sri Lanka (flagship and Daily Brew formats), serving premium hand-selected Ceylon teas, a 12-origin Spanish-roasted coffee blend, and gourmet dishes in a contemporary café atmosphere for individual consumers, families, students, professionals, and tourists.
• Daily Brew Café Format An accessible sub-brand café concept offering high-quality global café favourites with a Sri Lankan twist, fully halal assured, designed to make premium tea and café experiences accessible across Sri Lanka to students, professionals, families, and tourists.
• Standard 36 Ceylon Black Tea Signature Ceylon black tea blend perfected by the De Silva family, delivering a bold, unadulterated traditional Ceylon Tea taste ideal for brewing milk tea. Tasting Notes: Brisk and strong with a malty finish. Priced at LKR 1,900.
• Silver Tips Premium Black Tea Premium Ceylon black tea sold online via the Tea Avenue e-commerce store at LKR 5,200 per 100g, the highest-priced signature SKU (TA009) in the retail tea collection.
• Retail Tea Collection Complete e-commerce tea collection of Ceylon black and green tea blends sold across Sri Lanka via tea-avenue.com, including Earl Grey, Chai, Forest Berry, Apple Cinnamon, Jasmine, Pure Green Tea, Soursop, Mint and Chocolate, Sparkling Ginger, and Standard 36 Pouch, each handcrafted for home brewing.
• Private Meeting Venues Rental of private meeting spaces at Tea Avenue outlets (Jawatta and Kotte) including Ginger Room (8-10 guests), Board Room (6-10 guests), Earl Grey Room (up to 15 guests), Chamomile Area (up to 30 guests), and Kids Area (10-12 children), priced via hourly minimum-spend with additional hour rates and modern comforts for corporate meetings, private gatherings, and events.
• Franchise Program Tiered franchise offering (Master, Area, Multi-unit) for country, regional, and individual investor groups, including formats Full Café, Rebrand Existing, Hotel Tea Corners, Mini Cafés, and Event Stalls/Kiosks, with disclosed 24-48 month ROI targets, break-even analysis, forecasting, location scouting, and menu engineering support from HQ.

Quantifiable outcome

• Plan to open 100 Tea Avenue outlets in India over 5 years through FranGlobal partnership
• +1 more outcomes

Named customers3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Integration1 record

Feature3 records

Partnerships

Three partnerships are on record, tiered core, flagship and minor.

• John Keells PropertiescoreStrategic or Co-development Partner · 2 January 2026John Keells Properties, Sri Lanka's property developer, partnered with Tea Avenue to open Tea Avenue Daily Brew as an exclusive café amenity for residents of the TRI-ZEN residential development in Colombo. The 897-unit complex features a specially curated menu designed for TRI-ZEN residents, positioned as an enhancement to daily living within the development.
• FranGlobal (Franchise India Group)flagshipChannel Partner/ Reseller/ Distributor · 1 January 2025Tea Avenue partnered with FranGlobal, the international business arm of Franchise India Group, for master franchise expansion into India. India is described as one of the world's fastest-growing tea markets. The partnership aims to open 100 Tea Avenue outlets over the next five years, bringing signature blends, warm ambience, and lifestyle-driven café culture to major Indian cities.
• BYD (Automotive Partnership)minorStrategic or Co-development PartnerTea Avenue operates a café location at BYD premises, described as a modern stop to recharge where refreshing brews meet the forward-thinking spirit of BYD, crafted for those on the move who value sustainability and style.

Scale indicators4 records

Recent moves14 records

Expansion highlights6 records

Direct peers

• Dilmah Ceylon Tea Company: Sri Lankan family-founded tea company with the 't Lounge' and Meridian cafe concepts serving premium Ceylon teas and light food domestically and internationally. The closest domestic analogue to Tea Avenue: vertical tea producer, heritage brand, cafe operator targeting premium tea consumers.
• TWG Tea: Singapore-based luxury tea brand with company-owned tea salons and a global franchise network serving premium teas, light meals, and retail tea products. Operates the same combination of cafe, retail tea, and franchising that Tea Avenue is pursuing in Sri Lanka and India.
• Chaayos: Indian chai cafe chain offering customizable milk-tea beverages and light food across multiple cities with technology-enabled ordering. Direct comparable to Tea Avenue's Daily Brew format and the most relevant benchmark for Tea Avenue's planned 100-outlet India rollout.
• Chai Point: India's largest organized chai retail chain with cafe and office/IoT beverage delivery formats. Operates a comparable combination of physical cafe outlets, franchise-style expansion, and bulk tea supply (BTW brand) that maps closely to Tea Avenue's cafe-plus-Daily Brew-plus-Empire Teas model.
• The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf: International specialty cafe chain with tea and coffee as co-equal pillars, franchise-led global expansion, and retail tea sales. Closely aligned with Tea Avenue on cafe concept, menu breadth (tea + coffee + food), and franchise distribution model.
• Barista (Lavazza): Indian cafe chain serving premium coffees, teas, and food across multiple formats; now owned by Lavazza. Operates the same premium cafe franchise model targeting urban professionals and families, mirroring Tea Avenue's positioning and franchise-led India ambition.

Broad incumbents

• Teavana (Starbucks): Starbucks-owned premium tea brand historically operating tea bars and retail tea products globally. Comparable as a larger, more capitalized premium tea and cafe offering; though largely rolled into Starbucks stores, it defines the upper bound of the segment Tea Avenue is competing in.
• Costa Coffee: International specialty coffee and tea cafe chain with a global franchise network. Comparable as a broader, more established incumbent in the cafe franchise category where Tea Avenue plans to compete through master franchise partnerships in South Asia.
• Cafe Coffee Day (CCD): India's largest domestic cafe chain by store count, offering coffee, tea, and food with extensive franchise penetration. Provides a benchmark for store-level economics and franchise-driven scaling that Tea Avenue's India rollout must match or differentiate against.

Others

• Empire Teas (sister company): Founded 2000 by Lushantha de Silva as a leading Sri Lankan tea exporter and sister company supplying Tea Avenue's cafes. Not a direct competitor but a directly comparable Sri Lankan tea brand in the upstream and B2B tea segment that gives Tea Avenue its supply-side differentiation.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat4 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights7 records

Customer concentration

• YouTubeyoutube.com/@teaavenue8386
• Facebookfacebook.com/TeaAvenue1936
• LinkedInlinkedin.com/company/teaavenue
• Instagraminstagram.com/teaavenue1936
• Xx.com/teaave1936

Compliance1 record

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Tea Avenue