I know it’s been a little while since my last CHIP Conversations episode but I am happy I finally had time to edit this interview I did over Zoom with the people behind the best boba shop I have ever been to, Milk + T (Milk and T). Although I have only been there once, there is no denying that this was my favourite boba spot beside the great quality drink I had but because of what they stood for and how they truly make an impact that most business owners don’t even do. In this video, I have a genuine talk with Stacey and Christine about Milk and T to discuss things they enjoyed and things that they have learned through hardships with this endeavor as well as insight into the Boba industry and so much more! If you prefer to read instead of watching the video below, then please read further below. Please feel free to like, share, and subscribe to the channel while following the blog on social media (Tiktok, Instagram, and Facebook).
Introduction
Tagan: from delivering the first boba truck in the world I believe and then to delivering boba class as a SpaceX, I know you guys are definitely the innovators when it comes to boba but that’s just kind of touching the surface of it and in this video in this interview I hope to kind of get into more of what’s under the surface and more about your stories. So prior to doing that can you just briefly introduce yourselves?
Stacey: Of course, well thanks for having us here first of all my name is Stacey I’m the CEO and founder of Milk and T.
Christine: I’m Christine I’m a partner Milk and T.
Stacey: and my wife!
Tagan: and for me like the way that I found out about milk and T is that I’ve seen some of your videos before but then I came into the shop like in little Tokyo back in 2022 and even though it was just like that one time right I immediately told people like this is my favorite boba shop because for me it’s just like you deliver a great product but in addition to that what you do is like what you stand up for right. I believe I saw in one of the signs it was something about Asian owned queer owned and woman-owned and those are very three very important things. From your perspective, I just want to highlight and maybe get into what those mean to you and why you feel so proud about displaying that.
Stacey: I think you know when you like to sign up for like a bank account or a credit card and there’s always all these like little check boxes around you’re like are you Asian are you queer or I’m like I was always like why do I have to tell you to know these big corporations like what I am are my identity and I realize it’s because it’s a minority factor right so I’m like well how can I turn from being a minority to kind of having it work for me. So that’s when we realized like being a minority is kind of badass like you don’t really blend in with the crowd you kind of stick out and to have us or to be able to kind of use that in our marketing was I think more powerful than what we thought it would be in the beginning because at first, we were just like yeah we check all these boxes cool let’s tell everyone and then everyone was starting to say like hey that’s me too and we’re like oh shit that’s actually really powerful, so yeah.
Christine: Just having people relate to that was really important just because we would get a lot of like kind of like you where everyone would be like oh this is so cool like you guys are like queer you guys run a business you guys are women and yeah you never really think about it unless someone’s like I want to do that too and then being able to set that example is pretty great that’s awesome.
Accomplishments
Tagan: I think you’ve definitely built a community and for me as well your social media is amazing. It’s hilarious it’s authentic it’s you and I don’t know, I like it’s something that it kind of lacks right in today’s world regardless if you are a small business your big corporation so that’s why like it’s just kind of you definitely connected with a lot of different people and you’ve achieved a lot of different things as well like was there any moment in your career because I remember I think I saw like the boba waisted collection. I remember seeing different things like that but was there anything where you’re like “Okay like yeah like this is pretty cool” And I know Stacey you mentioned badass I think that’s a perfect adjective for both of you but was there any moment in both of your careers where you’re like okay like this is dope?
Stacey: Milk and T like we did that for me was definitely what I think started as just a product for me and turned into more community-based and that wasn’t something I was looking for in the beginning all I just wanted was you know a cool boba shop that I could hang out with you know have a safe space and not be judged and it just kind of turned into so much more of a community kind of factor and you know everyone started identifying with us and we started making friends and you know our customers were really awesome but yeah it didn’t it wasn’t what I thought it was gonna be from the beginning.
Christine: I guess for me it would be that’s very humbling because I was gonna say as a community but I guess on a bigger scale being able to collab with certain companies and even just do the boba classes at like SpaceX that was a really wow factor for me. Just because we did collab with vans during the pandemic and sometimes when you’re so busy doing all these things like wearing all these hats you kind of forget all the cool things that you were able to do and all the cool people you met along the way so for me it was definitely the vans collection and then being able to like actually walk into SpaceX and then teach a bunch of a bunch of like engineers how to cook boba while we were just like this is so insane like you guys are like maybe one of the smartest people in the world and we’re literally here teaching you guys how to like cook boba. From like an induction burner in the middle of SpaceX.
Stacey: Yeah that was a pretty notable moment I would say.
Industry Insight
Tagan: Now I can only imagine that like it’s just that’s pretty surreal. I remember I think in one of your t-shirts or something like that it said like support your local boba barista. I feel like community is something that you champion, both of you. But, I do want to ask I don’t know if a lot of people really know what goes into a boba industry, a boba shop, or a boba industry and stuff like that is there any insight that you will be able to share about that maybe something that might surprise the general public or the general consumer?
Stacey: I think a lot of people get into it for money obviously, I don’t think running a restaurant or any food and beverage is for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of resilience patience some of that we are still trying to find ourselves not gonna lie but it’s not easy it looks. Just a sugary drink right that people are like oh wow such high profit margins but there’s so much more that goes into it and I’d be sitting here for hours telling you, but the basic thing is yeah it takes a lot of hard work and patience to open up any business.
Christine: I think there’s one thing Stacey said just getting into the business so I go in much later but she would always say something along the lines of like don’t do it for the money, do it because you love it. Otherwise, if you do it for the money you just kind of like constantly chasing it’s just an endless chase as opposed to you doing it because you love it. It makes a whole difference and it’s just like a difference in demeanor and even just your motivation to keep going as opposed to running out of fuel because you’re literally just exhausted from just trying to chase the cash.
Pride
Tagan: 100 percent and I think both you, Christine, and Stacey, like you said that in the past like being authentic and doing it because you love it it’s like the passion right and it shows right in what you do in how you deliver things. Like I said it’s always authentic to you and like with this as well like I remember I think last pride or the year before you mentioned about like you know replying to maybe some negative comments and stuff like that and I loved how like you definitely stood on business. I just wanted to also talk about that because even in like talking about franchising talking about anything that you do it’s like you know you’re proud queer our own business we support the LGBTQ community right and we want to make sure that always gets reflected. I think you’ve always established that. what advice would you give to others in that community who are trying to be their own entrepreneurs or even consumers who may be looking into supporting the LGBTQ community and why it’s important to do it besides just like June?
Stacey: I love that you touched on the comments honestly when we had a negative comment because of our LGBTQ stance or just because of our identity what used to hurt me in the beginning now, I get kind of happy because I’m like “You want to play games? let’s go!” Not only does it provide content for us. Because then we repost it because that’s just the type of company we are we like to put them on blast but I know there’s a lot of companies out there that kind of are like you know if I respond to this you know what if I have clients or customers who don’t feel that type of way and go on follow me but I just always remind ourselves that even if we lose followers because of how we respond to something it just means that those aren’t the customers for us and that’s not the demographic that we’re looking for. So even if we dropped down to 40k followers because we said hey we support LGBTQ initiatives and stuff that’s fine because those weren’t the followers or customers we wanted in the first place. So I think just sticking to your beliefs and not necessarily bending over backward for your customers is a really important I guess tactic… to use throughout your business so you just don’t forget who you are or where you came from and why you’re doing this.
Christine: To add on that I think it also just like reinforces that we started Milk and T as a safe space and we continue to defend it as a safe space so whoever does not agree to that is just basically like if you say everybody’s welcome by the end of the day you’re not kind if you’re not open to just accepting people for who they are then this is just not the space for them.
Women Entrepreneurs
Tagan: There’s another thing another aspect that I also want to highlight as women entrepreneurs I also feel like sometimes there’s just a weird negative connotation to that right I don’t think people really understand kind of like the biases and stuff like that as well especially how inequitable things can be so I also want to ask about you about your experience as woman entrepreneurs especially like investing into women-owned businesses like how has that made a positive impact for you and maybe something that you can share to other women entrepreneurs?
Stacey: So something that Christine said is it is all about creating a safe space right so little story for you in Beaverton in our old store on one of our walls it had run by woman in like huge letters and I remember this guy came in and took a photo of that gave us a one star on yelp and said this place only hires woman. Everyone was laughing because like that’s obviously not true we have men on our team and then so I have one of my employees his name is Michael. He texts me and he’s like I swear I’m not a woman just laughing and we posted that on Instagram and we responded to him we’re like you know Michael swears he’s not a woman he identifies as male so I don’t know what you’re talking about we’re run by women as in we’re owned by a woman but you know we hire anyone who’s qualified. So I went on a little bit of a tangent there but that just it just reminded me of that story it’s all about creating a safe space that’s basically what it is.
Christine: I think what also comes from that is just like the community you built around that so we were able to build just like so many or like yeah we were able to build like so many connections because of just being outward and being invited to so many networking events where we were able to meet other badass women who are just taking the reins on things and just being able to learn from each other is what’s super valuable at least on my end and both our ends. I think were just able to uplift each other and just create a natural support system.
Stacey: Yeah and especially when we owned a food truck like driving one of those things whether you’re male or female is frightening if you don’t have any experience. It’s basically a giant UPS or Amazon truck right but you have a kitchen in the back so yeah pots pans everything you’re cooking things back there and there was this one time we parked and our other business partner Baya hops out of the truck. She’s like four foot 10 on a good day and she hops out and some guy goes no way are you driving that and she’s like you just I just parallel park but yeah there’s no one else in there I’m driving and he’s like no like where are the men and she’s like we don’t need men, it’s just us! So I think a lot of people underestimate women and what they can do i think sometimes they forget that they came out of their mom and I don’t think that was easy it goes there’s a lot of pain involved in that and women can do a lot more than what some men think.
Hardships
Tagan: Hundred per cent. Yeah, my mom reminds me of that. I do want to talk about something else. Because you know from 2022 to now a lot has changed and I know we kind of talked about it maybe before as well like how resilient both of you are and how you’re able to pivot in this. Because chip lifestyle like chip is an acronym that I use to describe my life from my perspective and my motto which is challenging hardship into perspective and I feel both of you do the same with milk and tea can we just maybe talk about that right now about how things have changed but you’re still being able to find a positive perspective and how you were able to do that?
Christine: I’m not gonna lie it’s been a tough year for both of us. I was actually gonna say first step one cry, and then step two, tack on the horse!
Stacey: Yeah that’s pretty accurate. I mean long story short all of our brick and mortars are closed right now as for milk and tea as a company we are solely e-commerce and boba classes and we do catering so in-person catering so weddings, birthday parties, corporate events, things like that but our brick and mortars are closed and it took me a really long time to realize that that’s what I wanted. I would say 2015 you know we started the brand it was all passion driven i didn’t care about money or anything like that and it wasn’t until 2020 when COVID hit that everything just kind of like turned 180 what was once passion just became pure survival it turned into panic attacks you know me figuring out you know how am I gonna keep all the staff you know hired and not have to lay anyone off? How am I gonna pay rent? I’m gonna pay all these bills you know what what there was a month where we used to make fifty thousand now we’re making ten thousand like how are we gonna survive? I don’t see any way out of this obviously we made it through but it wasn’t without a lot of pain and suffering like mental pain. So we got through that 2022 our sales started picking up again but the passion just wasn’t there anymore but the survival instincts stayed and the panic attacks stayed but the passion was gone so you know through talking with Christine over the years we came to realize that we just or I just wasn’t happy doing this anymore and neither was Bea she had found another passion in another business so we had all just kind of like gone separate ways and the business was obviously suffering we weren’t creating the social media content that you sort of see back prior to 2020 if you did see us we weren’t as happy as we used to be so that’s when I made the decision like you know what I really want to pursue real estate commercial real estate and I know it’s going to be a hard path but I don’t think I can pursue real estate and physically own the stores. I just don’t see that as being feasible so we made the tough decision to close all the stores despite whether or not they were profitable well we sold the stores and now we’re near.
Christine: I would say a lot of pivoting definitely took a toll on us like Stacey said mentally and there’s kind of like no way of escaping that especially with like through the pain with a company you just kind of have to keep going despite whether you want to or not just because there’s like so many other people that rely on you and being able to be strong for so long I think especially on stay season at least was very resilient of her but that also takes a toll even massively so being able to just kind of step away is i think one of the biggest challenges that we had to face and just like the biggest truth we had to accept and accepting that truth didn’t mean that we wanted like we just didn’t want anything to do with milk and tea because it is still alive although most people think it’s dead it’s just a point where even badasses have to rest and have to reevaluate what their priorities are and right now we’re trying to prioritize mental health and just kind of take a step back and see where we go from here.
Stacey: Yeah but that being said we realized our little Tokyo store wasn’t performing as well as it was anymore and we’ve figured out that not only was Little Tokyo oversaturated with boba like there’s literally 15 other shops all in the area I might be exaggerating a little bit there’s a lot of shops, we’re right next to a gong cha nothing against other grade but we’re literally 10 feet away from them that. Plus just our marketing wasn’t there anymore like we weren’t creating seasonal drinks or anything like that so we realized that we needed to make a pivot because we still had some time left on our lease and that’s when we decided to franchise a café 86 definitely a lot different than owning your own brand you now have to follow the rules and the regulations of a franchise and that’s something that we didn’t really think too hard about that we are now Realizing and slowly figuring out but we made the change we’re now at cap 86 in Little Tokyo but we still have milk and tea as well.
Tagan: First of all I gotta say like I love how genuine you both are because I think it takes a lot of courage to say all that stuff especially when you mention how like it goes from passion to survival two very different things and sometimes something has to give so i really do appreciate you being honest with that like was there a point where you’re like okay like I know like you still have milk and tea in that like cafe 86 and stuff like that and but is there some days where you’re like okay like you know what I think this was for the best this was like maybe like going to these classes the bobo classes cause you mentioned your mental health right and prioritizing that because i think a lot of people don’t realize even for myself like I’m like alright like sometimes i get so burnt out right and it’s usually like I’m not lying like it’s when i did that reel right about my milk and tea experience and then you guys commenting and stuff like that i was just like dude like that’s what i like because it’s like it was authentic right it was like real people real thing and that’s what i wanted to do like just actually help people like those little moments right even though it seems like very minimal or very small in the scheme of things to me that means a lot for you. Stacey is like in the real estate and you Christine really kind of facilitating everything, especially with the classes there those moments where you’re like okay like I’m gonna use this to continue moving forward right and getting that new perspective or that mindset was there like any moments that stood out to you like since that hard decision?
Stacey: Yeah I mean I’ve only been in real estate for I think seven months now so I’m still very new to everything I’m like a little new in this world but because I specialize in ten in representation I’m basically helping people sign leases or find spaces for their coffee shop or their dental office or whatever business that they have and they always ask me for advice they’re like you know do you think we need a sink here do you think we need a grease trap a hood and had I not had 10 years of prior experience owning my own food and beverage I wouldn’t be able to assist them the way that I do now so I think it’s come full circle I’m able to help people because of my experience and it does give me joy that I’m able to do that. So yeah even though I’m new I think I have a big career ahead of me I believe that too.
Christine: I was gonna say I think for me on my end what keeps me going is this. Half the classes we teach it’s like sometimes I think it’s ridiculous because people literally book I sit till I teach them how to cook boba when they could literally learn it on YouTube but then you kind of like see the joy in people’s faces as they’re learning about the cultural aspect and then just the history and the shared culture that surrounds boba so being able to teach those classes educate people but also like lead like a team. I feel like I’ve put myself in a position where it’s consistently challenging but in like good ways so it also kind of shows me what i made of this so every time we do book a class and we get a really great review or even someone reaches out and says hey this was the best class I’ve heard it kind of makes me not take it for granted because like we built this and like people are genuinely like wanting to book us because they like love us and they just like believe in us so that’s really reassuring on our end.
Conclusion
Tagan: I can’t you know let this interview conclude without asking you, what is your favorite boba drink? It doesn’t have to be a milk and tea drink it’s just you know favorite boba drink.
Stacey: Do you want to go first? I’m a very basic person i think this is how I answer every single time someone asks me that it’s always green tea with boba half sweet no matter where i go if there’s a new spot that opens up i have to get that because that’s the base level for me if you can’t get that right i don’t know if your shop needs help the basic level of drink making right!?
Christine: yeah i knew she was gonna say that i’m more of a coffee person i will say but when it comes to boba it’s always gonna be like either just the classic like black melty for me or even just like a thai tea it just always hits the spot and like the sugar levels always look pretty great.
Tagan: for sure yeah i think i’m more aligned with you Christine choosing the thai teas like usually they have sweet tooth and everything. For sure yeah but the boyfriend though that one is fire.
Stacey: yeah we have it in café 86!
Tagan: Honestly because I know I think you guys even went out to support Hypland, the opening of that I think I saw that too and so if I do ever go back I’m definitely gonna grab that because I love how it’s like you know what like you guys take different flavors and mix it and like yeah like it’s just awesome like I think like the quality of what you get to like that’s what I love about you guys. Okay you guys have an eye for everything and you’re thinking more about you know the consumer and what they like instead of just what you know helps the books know before we wrap up was there anything that you like to share with the audience or readers because it’s gonna be on the blog post as well.
Christine: Thank you for the constant support and like you yourself taken is it taken yeah it’s taken oh okay you taken like constantly like reaching out that like I know that we take a while to answer. Sometimes half the time it’s like oh god I did not answer his message but constantly seeing you reach out meant a lot to us because it’s like okay he really wants this let’s just spill out the time and just do it yeah yeah no we appreciate the opportunity to talk to you yeah there’s finally getting to meet you.
Tagan: For sure no like even like in December I was trying to like alright like let me see what I could use and I’m like you know what I literally brought all the gear and stuff too so I was just like alright, but it’s all good honestly with everything that you’ve gone through I really appreciate you taking the. time to really talk to me and do this so I really am looking forward to it I know this is gonna help some people and like inspire people as well so thank you so much I do appreciate it!
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