Hauling furniture in a U-Haul at midnight, going back and forth with the city to build a boba shop in a historical bank and beefing with another boba next door.
These are some of the challenges first-time business owners Dominic Su and Dylan Chen faced when opening their boba tea shop, Teamoji, in Madison.
“You don’t know anything when you have never done this before. If you ask your friends, very few people will have this experience,” Su said.
For Su and Chen, despite the challenges they have faced, Madison is a promising market; that’s why they left Chicago to run the next franchise of Teamoji – a rising boba tea chain in which the first shop opened close to the campus of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Like that of UIUC, UW–Madison’s campus culture and student population offer a unique attraction to boba tea businesses.
When I came to Madison as a freshman in 2021, there were very few boba shops in town. As a Chinese international student, getting a taste of home was difficult. Now, a couple new boba shops have recently opened on State Street, joining big chains like Kung Fu Tea.
Boba, otherwise known as bubble tea, is a drink that originated in Taiwan. It is traditionally a mix of milk and tea with chewy tapioca pearls, but it has become a broader term that includes more styles of drinks. According to research by IBISWorld, from 2019-2024, the number of boba businesses has nearly tripled. As the industry grows, competition continues to intensify, adding to broader challenges, including inflation.
The Greater Madison Chamber of Commerce’s recent partner survey of Greater Madison employers showed optimism about the economy despite difficulties in accessing talent, increased operating costs and a need for more workforce housing, wrote Kevin Little, the Chamber of Commerce’s vice president, in an email.
“We know that small and new businesses drive net job creation in our country. We also know that to truly achieve sustained economic growth, it must be inclusive,” Little wrote. These two factors highlight the importance of supporting minority-owned businesses.
Le C’s Patisserie and Tea House
Le C’s Patisserie and Tea House looks like a cross between a French-style coffeehouse and an Asian boba shop. It offers a variety of sweets, including breads and cheesecakes that taste like a mix of these cultures, too. Its non-fruit boba can be ordered with six different levels of sweetness to satisfy anyone from tea purists to sugarholics.
Madison’s inclusivity is one of the reasons why Quinny Chen and Joan Cao decided to open Le C’s Patisserie and Tea House on State Street, said Patrick Liu, Le C’s spokesperson responsible for its marketing and technology.
In an interview with The Cap Times, Liu said Chen and Chao took a baking class in China and found they shared the dream of opening a bakery in the United States.
Initially launched with Elitea from Chicago, Chen and Cao introduced their house-made pastry on State Street in 2020. Since then, they have expanded their brand to Middleton and Milwaukee. Their pastries are sold to other partnered boba shops in the Midwest.
Liu said their State Street shop is designed to provide a “third space” where people can study and socialize, Liu said. They update their menu regularly with new flavors of boba and pastry. They also offer a customizable cake service.
Alana Pang, a senior employee at Le C’s, said the shop is very much a family-owned business and not a big chain. Chen often brings her daughter to work; when she was pregnant with her, a customer came by and asked if they were forcing a pregnant woman to work, and Pang had to explain that Chen was her own boss and she wasn’t being forced. Across from Le C’s, Chen’s sister, Sunny, owns a Korean grill.
Teamoji
Walking a few hundred feet from Le C’s, Teamoji is situated in a historical bank that isn’t as fancy one might expect
Just inside Teamoji’s front door there’s a large blue counter that says “ORDER HERE” with three self-ordering kiosks. Besides the classic boba and fruit teas, their offerings include mochi donuts, toast and Korean-style corn dogs. Walking further into the store, there are the three big-eyed mascots of Teamoji, each colored blue, yellow and orange. They make up the shop’s primary color scheme, and Su said the colors give people dopamine.
“It’s that happy feeling when you walk into an amusement park,” Su said.
Su and Dylan Chen, originally from Taishan, China, became friends after meeting in Chicago eight years ago. With a shared ambition to start a business and a connection to Teamoji’s owner in Champaign, they decided to franchise the brand in Madison.
Teamoji began construction at 502 State Street. in the middle of 2023.The historical bank proved to be more of an obstacle than a charm. It restricted Su and Dylan Chen’s freedom to change the building and delayed their opening from the end of 2023 to this June.
It was stressful during the year-long construction. Su said they were either getting the city to approve their construction or taking down what they had already built and rebuilding, but once the shop finally opened, it became easier.
Su said Teamoji’s offerings are unique on State Street and use authentic materials. He said, for example, they use real tea leaves compared to shops that use powders for their Thai tea.
Like Le C’s, their fruit teas don’t have sweetness adjustments. Chen said that’s because Teamoji uses good jams to add sweetness, reducing sweetness would also hinder the fruity taste. However, since customers have been suggesting less sweetness, Chen is working on a drink focusing more on the tea flavor and less on the fruitiness.
As first-time owners, Su and Chen faced a string of challenges, the most recent being a conflict with their neighboring boba shop, Jin Ji Jin Cha.
After Teamoji opened last June, Jin Ji opened in September. Chen said they share the same landlord and have signed an agreement that doesn’t allow Jin Ji to sell milk tea like Teamoji, only coffee and limited sweets. However, Chen said they have been selling light milk tea, which focuses more on the taste of tea than milk, and other similar products.
“For example, we launched egg tarts some time ago, and then they followed us and launched [egg tart] a while later. It’s this kind of bad competition, unhealthy competition.”
Jin Ji has declined a request for comment.
Chen said they have tried to reach out to their landlord, but they are in China and have yet to be available.
On the other hand, Le C’s haven’t faced the same kind of competition. Overall, they aren’t too worried.
“I think as long as it is healthy competition, it can promote the development of the entire market,” Liu said.
Serving the Community
After it opened during the COVID-19 pandemic, Le C’s had poor sales and plenty of free time. That’s when they started donating their pastries to the nurses and the homeless community of Madison.
“After all, we rely on this community, so we must serve this community,” Liu said.
Le C’s and Teamoji work with local student organizations, offering special discounts for members. One organization that works with Le C’s is Dancas Dance Crew, the largest dance crew of Chinese UW–Madison students focusing on various dance styles. Pang, the senior employee at Le C’s and the crew’s director of communications, helped connect the two.
Su said that Asian businesses like Teamoji opening in Madison will improve the local economy.
“It seems like if you don’t have some new stores, people won’t be willing to spend money,” Su said.
As to why boba businesses are coming to Madison, Liu thinks it’s the result of people finding it profitable, but he said that might not be the case anymore due to inflation.
He noticed Madison restaurants charge service fees to make up for lower tips. Although Le C’s isn’t experiencing the effect, and they don’t expect tips from customers at their shops, there has been a dip in tips from its custom-made cake service.
On the other hand, as winter arrives, Liu said a cold winter would reduce the number of customers coming to their shop. Even though they are popular with takeouts, platforms charge varying commissions, with Uber Eats taking as much as 30%.
Liu said less traffic in the store combined with selling more hot drinks during cold weather, which means more content per cup, could reduce their sales margin by 50%.
Still, Liu said businesses like Le C’s can boost Mainland China’s cultural influence in the long term. Especially when compared to South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, which already have a strong influence in the Midwest.Being less influential in the Midwest, Chinese food often requires localization. Pang said that since locals prefer sweeter flavors, Le C’s has adjusted its boba’s base sweetness to be sweeter while offering less sweetness for Chinese customers and those who prefer it. This is similar to many of Madison’s Chinese restaurants having a section for American Chinese food.
Pang said it’s a good balance to satisfy both Chinese customers and locals who want to try Chinese food.
Student Workers
Pang started working at Le C’s two years ago to make money that’s not provided by her parents. Compared to her other office job on campus, she felt that work at Le C’s was more relaxing because of its Mandarin-speaking environment.
She was born in California and grew up in China. “Technically, I’m kind of an ABC”— American-born Chinese person—“but I still think I’m a pure-blooded Chinese; I have a pure-blooded Chinese stomach,” Pang said with a laugh.
Liu said most of Le C’s employees are Asian, and about 70% are Chinese.
To Pang, another perk of working at Le C’s is unlimited free boba and limited pastries per shift. Pang said employees have abused the perks, taken too many pastries home, and given friends free boba, even during training.
Getting those perks isn’t easy.
Le C’s barista training involves a 10-hour unpaid internship and 40 hours of paid training. During those 40 hours, employees must memorize all the boba recipes and be tested on five randomly chosen flavors to pass their training, Pang said.
However, Liu said Le C’s is never short-staffed. Just now, seven to eight people are waiting to be trained.
As for Teamoji, Su said its hires range from students who don’t get enough money from their parents to those who just enjoy making milk tea.
“Some students may not be short of money at home, but they are bored after school, so they come to work part-time,” Su said. He’s got two employees who come back to help the shop even when they are not assigned to a shift.
To Pang, not many employees stay at Le C’s as long as she has. Working at a boba shop doesn’t offer high wages and isn’t particularly good for resume building, but it is a relaxing job that doesn’t give her any pressure.
“I think it’s a very easy job once you have memorized all the menu items, and mainly, after you’ve become friends with everyone, you will be happier at work,” Pang said.
Future
Liu said Le C’s next step might be opening a new branch in Verona. Besides working for Le C’s on the weekends, Liu is a software engineer. He said it has gotten easier.
As first-time business owners, Chen said they weren’t very experienced and had to pay a lot of “tuition” to run their business through trial and error. They plan to remodel parts of the store to better fit their customers, one thing being that some Madisonians prefer talking to a barista more than a kiosk. Chen said they might replace some of the kiosks with more seats.
Still, he thinks these “tuitions” are worth it. He has learned more about running the boba business and has become less of an introvert.
One day, Teamoji received a catering order from the Madison studio of PUBG, the developer and publisher of the popular video game PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. Being big fans of the game, Chen and Su delivered the order to their office.“It feels pretty special,” Su said. “I never thought that working in this industry would give me the chance.”
