Timothy Gardner and Kevin Ung are getting more space and visibility for their tea drinks with an international following.
The co-founders of Milk Tea People will relocate their shop to a 2,800-square-foot corner storefront in Denver’s Market Station development at 16th and Blake by midsummer.
“Our current space is really, really small. We have eight seats in there,” Ung said.
Milk Tea People operates in a 1,000-square-foot space elsewhere at Market Station, tucked away in a pedestrian-only alley. Public records show that build-out costs for the new space will be around $1 million.
“We have guests come from China, Japan, all over the world,” Gardner said. “We’re now one of the things they have to do [when visiting Denver].”
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston and the Downtown Development Authority, which is tasked with investing $570 million into downtown projects and businesses, announced in the summer that Milk Tea People would receive a $640,000 loan to aid the relocation. They did not share where the store would move, beyond saying it would be along the 16th Street Mall.
The loan was smaller than Milk Tea People had requested. In its application, the business asked for $1.5 million toward a $1.8 million relocation.
“We want this space to just be a place where people can just come in and take a breath from all the different noises in the world, from traffic. … Our design language is to be as simplistic as we can,” Ung said.
The cafe serves drinks in one size for around $9, as well as “wafchi,” a mix of waffle and mochi, the Japanese rice cake. Gardner and Ung plan to add more to the menu in the new location but are still deciding on the specifics. The two also plan on adding at least 15 new employees to the 10-person operation.
Gardner described Milk Tea People as a “restaurant that serves drinks.” It makes everything from scratch, with workers in the back chopping fruit and pureeing it while those up front help customers select from one of the two dozen drinks on the menu. Matcha is sourced from Kyoto and Uji, two Japanese cities, and its tea leaves come from provinces all over China.
The two self-described “teaologists” met at the gym while both were living in Colorado Springs. Ung worked for his family’s Chinese restaurants and Gardner had owned clothing and video game stores.
The pair became fast friends and started considering opening a boba tea spot after seeing a long line for the drink at a mall kiosk. But they ultimately decided that boba detracts from tea.
“Through our research and development, because [boba is] a starch, it takes away the flavor. And to bring the flavor back, we had to add in sweetener,” Ung said.
The two settled on selling tea instead. It had been a lifelong dream for Ung, who recalled watching the rise of Starbucks in his youth and wondering why there hadn’t been a comparable format for tea-based beverages.
Milk Tea People opened in July 2021. Downtown was dead then, because of the pandemic. And the two were tucked away from the street, out of sight from the mall.
“It was a scary time for us,” Ung recalled.
But they kept going. Life began to return to the streets and people started to learn of the funky tea shop in the alley. Gardner said the cafe went viral thanks to Chinese social media platform Rednote. Chinese locals who had traveled to Denver raved online about the drinks on the platform.
“I feel forever blessed, with our guests, because a lot of our marketing efforts have been word of mouth,” Ung said.
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