“I was so surprised people even showed up, tons of people came that day.”

The 19-year-old began making and selling the Taiwanese tea-based drink with chewy tapioca balls, in her New Plymouth Girls’ High School enterprise studies class three years ago, with friend Moana Matariki.

The idea came to Haseltine while she was dealing with homesickness, after she moved to New Zealand from Cambodia and couldn’t find the beverages in Taranaki.

She sold her homemade tea at school, at markets and trade fairs, and made it to the regionals of the national Young Enterprise Scheme awards.

When Covid-19 hit, and her former business partner Matariki dropped the class, she had to quickly adapt, so made DIY bubble tea kits instead.

With sustainable packing and natural, locally-sourced ingredients, they quickly became a hit.

So after graduating last year, and with the support of her parents, Haseltine used her revenue to lease a store on New Plymouth’s Brougham St, and buy new ingredients to run her own shop, while her parents helped finance the operational side of the business,

Her sister, Lina, now helps with the social media and marketing.

“The demand was just there,” she said.

“We were walking across the street and saw this lease space for rent, and it was just like ‘let’s just do it now’.”

She signed a one-year lease, to see how things went.

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