OUR
story
The Chameleon Collective is a brand that stemmed from a father-daughter passion project in tea. Having been in the trade for many years, my father guided and taught me all that I know (and love) about tea, and eventually, I decided to create The Chameleon Collective. The brand has now expanded to having 9 luxury value-added blends since its inception, and supplies numerous cafes and restaurants in Sri Lanka, while also shipping overseas.
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Each blend is made personally by me, and the tea used is either a combination of medium and high grown Ceylon tea or premium South African rooibos. The tea bags used are high-quality biodegradable pyramid tea bags. I try my best to cater to all palates by offering teas ranging from herbal & fruit infusions to tea that is caffeine-free, and every blend curated can be enjoyed iced or hot, with or without milk. While the teas contain numerous nutrients and antioxidants, I am also proud to say that the blends do not have any sugar or preservatives in them, and I only use pure nature-identical flavours when needed.
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Whether you’re looking for tea for that first cup in the morning, brunch, high tea, iced tea, tea suitable for children, a pick-me-up, self-care sunday, tea for cocktails, something to curb your sweet cravings, or even a late-night sip before bed - The Chameleon Collective has got you covered.
the story in
detail
The Chameleon Collective began one afternoon during a phone call between me and my father, and out of the hundreds of conversations we've had in my life, that particular conversation that day caught my interest for some reason.
I was in college at the time, and being away from home didn't give me much room in terms of developing the brand immediately. So I created mood boards and planned out my ideas for the brand - I did what I could.
On eventually returning home a few months later, I immediately set to work on the brand's development. The first few months were spent studying everything that I could about tea as a product and the language of the industry and this was a pivotal time for me, even though I may or may not have realized it at the time, and even though I thought it grueling.
But now I realize how it has given me such a good base to start on, without which, I may have felt completely in over my head. Tea can be an exacting taskmaster. I learnt how to create blends, and how best to pair ingredients and flavours. It was through this process that I created my very first three blends.
Then, somewhere during the first week of December'19, I suddenly felt inspired to release some blends for the Christmas season. Given the tight timeline, the next two weeks were a whirlwind. We worked from morning to night creating and perfecting those first three blends for TCC - the beginning of a great journey. We released them as a seasonal offering, and the first few days after launch were fruitful. But even with 3 great blends, the weeks that followed weren't overwhelmingly successful.
We returned to the drawing boards to come up with new strategies and new ways to marketing ourselves. One of the major platforms that we were counting on to be a significant launch pad for us didn't prove to be so, and we had to re-evaluate our action plan.
With Valentine's Day looming, I thought that releasing a few new flavours would be perfect - and set to work on creating Valentine's-inspired blends. This ended up expanding our range from 3 blends to 6.
Covid-19 - something no one saw coming. With business closed and curfew imposed, this period had a huge impact on my progress with the brand. I choose to use this time to create 3 new flavours, hoping to hit the ground running when things settled down.
In April, I decided to pair up with delivery partners and attempted to resume business as usual. Physical stores, fairs, etc which were my go-to for exposure weren't an option anymore and I would have to think of something else.
MAY 2020 - Decided to make a website! But then realised that having a web designer do the needful would be time consuming and would cost a LOT, so made up my mind to do it myself.
Realised very quickly that I had thrown myself into the deep end with my website. Layout? Colour schemes? Coding? I had no idea where to even start.
I spent the next month reading pretty much everything I could on how to build and design a website. Began the process cautiously, learning as I went.
With the website coming along well, I got to work making sure my tea would be available for international orders. So I began, yet again, learning how to ship my tea, and successfully exported it!
And here we are - Live and available for purchase internationally! Publishing a website I put so much work into and built myself from the ground up, was an indescribable feeling.
In what can sometimes be seen as a crowded market segment, I continue yet to re-evaluate the brand to create a niche. We constantly revisit our blend repertoire and expand our range to cater to as many palates as possible.
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We also strive to maintain responsibility in our product. To this end, the raw materials used in the packaging are totally eco-friendly. In sourcing our ingredients, both tea as well as the botanicals, we strive firstly to source locally, thereby supporting the small-scale home garden farmers as far as possible. Behind the tea leaf, the ginger root, the flower botanicals or the myriad other ingredients we use, are narratives of gold. Through our product, I fervently wish, in time, to tell you their own stories of hard working lives and livelihoods.