We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jaja Chen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Jaja, thanks for joining us today. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
Cha Community (formerly Waco Cha) is a boba tea cafe small business headquartered in Waco, Texas with shops in downtown Waco and downtown Temple, Texas and a boba tea truck and food truck. Our mission is to bridge cultures & create community through premium boba tea, pan-fried dumplings, and Taiwanese and Chinese food. Our values are community, diversity, and courage. We are both an Asian-American and immigrant-owned small business as our co-owners (Devin Li and Jaja Chen – myself) are from China and/or have ethnic roots and family in Taiwan.
Throughout our time in Waco, Texas, we experienced a lack of belonging and inclusion as Asian Americans due to the limited representation of authentic Taiwanese and Chinese culture and cuisine in Central Texas – particularly as the communities we’ve been a part of are less than 2% Asian. We dreamed of creating an authentic boba tea cafe experience and thus, launched our small business summer 2018 at the Waco Downtown Farmer’s Market (WDFM) in a small tent. One year later, we used the profit from the pop-ups to upgrade to a mobile tea truck. Spring 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we opened our first boba tea cafe in downtown Waco. We have since, as of March 2022, opened our second boba shop in Temple, Texas!
We strive to create premium boba tea and authentic Taiwanese and Chinese menu food options. Our boba tea ingredients include majority organic loose-leaf teas – never powders – and in-house syrups. Our food menu is a smaller fast-casual food menu with pan-fried dumplings that are handcrafted in-house and Taiwanese lunch box options.
Alongside our menu, we also host community gatherings through in-person gatherings such as our bi-annual Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) markets – featuring local BIPOC handmade vendors at our Waco shop, community & catering through our mobile tea and food trucks, and boba/tea and dumpling related merchandise – sourced from BIPOC vendors. We have partnered with the NAACP annually to host voter registration sites at our boba tea shop in downtown Waco and we have continued to utilize our small business marketing channels/social media platform to raise awareness about the importance of civic engagement and supporting local small business – particularly BIPOC founded/owned small businesses.
Our boba tea cafes are one way to continue celebrating the joy of Taiwanese and Chinese culture and foods and walking out in Asian representation and to be a boba tea cafe that is committed to racial justice, cultural integrity, and sustainability. We are proud that in spring 2021, our co-owner Jaja Chen testified in front of Congress with the Small Business Administration representing immigrant-owned businesses. That same year, summer 2021, our CEO Devin Li and Cha Community was recognized by Forbes as a Next 1000 company. We have been awarded small business of the year awards locally in Waco through the Cen-Tex Hispanic Chamber and have also been a part of the James Beard Foundation Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership cohort fall 2022. Last year, we received the Dream Big Award as the minority-owned small business of the year through U.S Chamber of Commerce.
Jaja, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
My husband Devin Li and I are co-owners of Cha Community. I am a child of Taiwanese immigrants who lived in China and Taiwan throughout the latter half of my childhood and Devin is a Chinese immigrant. As children of immigrants and Asian Americans in Central Texas (where there is about 2% Asian population), we understand what it feels like to not belong.
We both met at Baylor University and worked in the community prior to business. Devin was a former engineer who left the corporate world to become an Engineering high school teacher in Waco ISD and I was working as a social worker in local nonprofits and counseling centers prior to Cha Community and my now private practice as a clinical social worker.
As a teacher, Devin learned that many of his students, majority BIPOC, felt like the increased development in downtown Waco was not representative of the diverse cultures in Waco. We resonated with this and also saw very limited representation of authentic Asian culture and cuisine in Central Texas. We dreamed of creating a more diverse cafe experience and thus, launched our small business summer 2018 at the Waco Downtown Farmer’s Market (WDFM) in a tent with our savings. One year later, we used the profit from the pop-ups to upgrade to a mobile tea truck. This allowed us to increase our operations. Spring 2020, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we opened our first boba tea cafe in downtown Waco. Since then, with the support of our community, we have opened our second boba tea cafe in downtown Temple.
We’re a boba tea cafe that is passionate about not only authentic boba tea and food experiences, but also premium options. Our boba tea drinks ingredients include majority organic loose-leaf teas, real milks, and in-house syrups. We also offer dairy-free options without additional charge. Our food menu includes pan-fried dumplings, Taiwanese options like Taiwanese Cold Noodles, Taiwanese Gua Bao (steamed pork belly bao buns), and pork rice boxes. We also offer steamed buns and other Asian snack options at our boba tea cafes.
We are proud of pivoting our small business in the midst of the pandemic and growing to 25 team members. While we had to delay our first boba tea cafe opening in 2020 due to the pandemic, we pivoted our business by offering at-home dumpling kits and launched pan-fried dumplings and other food options to supplement revenue. As of March 2022, we have continued growing our business through TWO shops in downtown Waco and Temple (both of which opened during the pandemic!), community pop-ups through two food trucks, & event catering.
While many companies are having difficulties with hiring in the food & beverage industry, our turnover average is 3-4 years. We believe this is because of the inclusive culture that we have fostered. Community begins within and as a result, we ensure our team has living wages and receives training – including leadership & Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI)-related development and internal promotion opportunities. My role, specifically – as a small business co-owner – in the team is to oversee DEI trainings and Community Impact Work. I draw from my social work values and experiences & infuse them into Cha Community.
We are also proud to have engaged in national-level advocacy and recognition. In April 2021, I [Jaja] was invited to testify on behalf of our business at the Small Business Administration (SBA) committee through the House of Representatives. I shared on behalf of immigrant-owned businesses and ways to build back stronger from the pandemic. This opportunity allowed us to speak against anti-Asian racism on a national platform and to highlight this pressing racial justice issue.
Cha Community is committed to bridging cultures and creating community. Our commitment to creating community leads us to be an engaged local small business in both Waco and Temple, Texas (where both of our shops are located).
Out of our commitment to diversity, we have continued to use our social media platforms and our shop to increase awareness of local Black, Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC)-owned and led organizations. .For example, we have local Asian American and Black artisans display their goods on our merchandise rack. We also host profit shares to give portions of our boba tea sales to local non-profit and minority-owned/led organizations.
As a social worker, I help oversee our sponsorships and financial giving to local non-profits. Outside of our giving and partnerships with Waco and Temple local non-profit organizations, we also have co-founded the Asian Leaders Network in Waco to co-create community amongst Asian leaders in the Waco area and to increase Asian leadership and representation in the Waco area alongside cultural events. This path February 10th, we participated with the Asian Leaders Network events planning committee to collaborate with the Waco Downtown Farmer’s Market to host the first-ever Year of the Dragon Lunar New Year Market in downtown Waco.
While we have room for growth, at Cha Community, we believe that community is not only amongst people, but also with our earth. Ways that we seek to engage in sustainability practices include sourcing organic, fair-trade, and/or direct trade tea leaves for our boba teas. We use loose-leaf teas and strive to source from direct-trade farms that are Asian and/or minority owned. We also strive to recycle and/or compost our ingredients and products when possible.
For example, we recycle all products that are able to be recycled. In Waco, we partner with the World Hunger Relief farm to provide all our plant-based/compostable leftover ingredients and loose leaf teas for their composting needs at their farms. World Hunger Relief is a local non-profit we have built relationships with over the years through involvements in the Waco Downtown Farmer’s Market. Other ways we seek to engage in sustainability include encouraging guests to use reusable containers for a discount at our boba tea cafes or to sign up for our Cha Community Club. Our Cha Community Club membership includes a reusable mason jar and stainless steel straw set. We offer 10% discounts when guests bring back their mason jar set. Later this year we also plan to transition our dine in plastic cups to reusable glass jars and reusable stainless steel straws so that we will save on single-use plastic. “Local Waco composting partners” in regards to composting at Cha Community as we are currently in a transition period from World Hunger to another organization.
How’d you meet your business partner?
We are a husband-wife duo. My co-owner Devin Li is a Chinese immigrant from Guangzhou. I am a 2nd generation Taiwanese American who grew up in Norman, OK, China and Taiwan throughout my childhood. We met as students in undegraduate college at Baylor University in Waco, Texas in local international student events (though we were not international students). We connected initially through our passion for diverse cultures and love for travel and our Chinese cultural roots.
We did not originally plan to be business owners! I was studying as a social worker and continue to practice clinical social work as a private practice therapist in Waco and via telehealth throughout Texas. I specialize in trauma therapy and EMDR therapy. Devin’s educational background is in Mechanical Engineer and he worked as an engineer post-grad and then eventually changed his career to be an Engineer High School teacher in Waco ISD and local school districts.
Can you talk to us about how your side-hustle turned into something more.
We started Cha Community (at that time called Waco Cha) in 2018 at the Waco Downtown Farmer’s Market. We were a pop-up tent that started with three tables, a few cambros, and a few boba drinks on our menu. We used our personal savings to start our side hustle and bootstrapped the growth of our small business by re-investing the side hustle profits into the business. We eventually added on food options in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic to our menu. Waco Cha was a side hustle up until we grew our business each Saturday morning – via pop-ups at the Farmer’s Market – to be able to upgrade to a boba tea truck in 2019. At that point, Devin jumped into the small business part-time while continuing as a part-time teacher. I was transitioning to private practice at that time as a clinical social worker.
In March of 2020, right in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we opened our first storefront in downtown Waco. Devin jumped into full-time entrepreneurship at that time in 2020. Since then, we have scaled our business to a second storefront and now have 2 trucks utilized for catering and events. I have continued maintaining a part-time private practice throughout our Cha Community journey.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.chacommunity.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cha_community/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ChaCommunity1/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/81506948/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/cha-community-waco-2
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@cha_community/
Image Credits
Cha truck photo with Devin Li in it – Michael Cirlos Galaxy Lemonade (purple drink) – Michael Cirlos