John Chen loves bubble tea. He likes the fancier kinds, like Malted Blizzard Tea, Honey Milk Black Tea, and Cranberry Black Tea. But he also attests to the value of classic flavors like Milk Latte, simple but a staple in terms of his business.
Chen is an owner and manager of The Old Teahouse in Collegetown, on Ithaca’s North Hill. He is only part-owner, though, giving credit to his three brothers, who worked together with him to open The Old Teahouse in September of 2001. It was a family effort made by the four California-raised brothers.
You get to make the rules, but you also take direct responsibility for your business’s performance."
- John Chen, on owning and managing The Old Teahouse in Collegetown.
Chen and his brothers first came to the United States when Chen was five or six, but they made the final move to California when he was 10 years old. Until then, Chen had been going back and forth between the U.S. and his native Taiwan, the birthplace of bubble tea.
“Each year I fly back to Asia,” Chen says, to find the new bubble tea flavors.
Bubble tea started in Taiwan over 20 years ago and spread in popularity throughout Southeast Asia and Hong Kong. Bubble tea did not then have the tapioca balls it is known by today. Initially, bubble tea referred to the bubble of foam that layered the top of the tea because it was shaken up in martini glasses. When small tapioca balls were added to the tea, Chen says, it became known as pearl tea.
Soon after, larger tapioca balls were put into the tea, making it what we know as bubble tea today. Eventually, bubble tea made it over to the United States, first being introduced to the coastal areas and infiltrating into the U.S. interior from New York and California.
Before bringing the bubble tea phenomenon to the Ithaca area, Chen attended Cornell University and graduated in the class of ’98 with a degree in architecture. His brother, Richard Chen, also came to the Ithaca area to attend Cornell, but John is the only one who stayed on this coast.
Employees of the tea shop, (from left to right) Cesar Mariņo, Radka Mincheva and Alex Komurek. Photo by Christina Bosilkovski
After graduating, the two brothers bounced ideas off of each other and began to scout out possible locations for a bubble tea shop. In 2000 and 2001, retail space near their desired location of Berkeley was hard to find, so when Chen flew up to assess the possibility of the Ithaca location, he found that “this was a perfect starting point.”
Before the shop could be opened, Chen redesigned the architecture to give it a more comfortable feel. What is now The Old Teahouse with its olive green walls, low amber lights, and ottomans in the corners was once a Taco Bell with white walls and florescent lighting.
Chen worked hard to open the shop and jumpstart the business with his brothers. That beginning time of his business was “a strange time,” Chen says, because 10 days after The Old Teahouse opened, the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon were hit in terrorist attacks.It was a time of mixed feelings, between the opening of a new family business and the larger implications of a War on Terror that Americans still feel the effects of. Chen saw it as the beginning of a new phase in his life, a phase in which he both acquired more responsibility and realized that larger forces put some things out of his control. He could control the family business, but he could not force the American economy to do a turn-around.
The Old Teahouse became successful enough for the brothers to open another shop within a year of the first’s debut. The second shop is located at the University of California-Davis, where Richard Chen handles the management duties.
Managing your own business requires self-control and a good work ethic. You get to make the rules, Chen says, but you also take direct responsibility for your business’s performance. When Chen needs to leave the shop, Jose Komurek, a native Venezuelan who has been working at The Old Teahouse for two years, takes on the preparation and oversight tasks. Komurek likes to mix the flavors and create his own concoctions, his favorite being Coffee with Banana, followed by Sesame Coffee and Blizzard Tea. He has held a variety of jobs in the Ithaca area, but he likes working with Chen because, he says, Chen is so nice. “I’ve had a lot of bosses, but this one [John] is the best,” Komurek says, smiling abashedly.
Michael Lee, a senior Economics major at Cornell, agrees that Chen is a good boss who treats his workers well. Lee has been working at The Old Teahouse for two and a half years, and he likes to stick to the more common flavors, like Strawberry Milk. He says that Chen makes juggling a full course load and work easier because he was once a student so “he understands you.” He works with everyone’s schedule and, Lee says, “is very dedicated to the store.”
Lee mentions in particular the Chinese New Year celebration he looks forward to every year. Each year, Chen takes his employees out to dinner to celebrate the Chinese New Year, and they go to the mall together sometimes too. Lee characterizes Chen as the flavor Taro Milk Black Tea because it is a staple in the Ithaca community. Taro Milk Black Tea is “like an institution,” and that is what Chen is to this city, Lee says.
