Sip, hang out, talk and relax
A trip to Asia in 2010 proved life-changing for seven Orange County friends in a rut.
The group took four months off from their corporate jobs and traveled to Thailand, India, Vietnam, Korea and Taiwan, where they tasted teas, coffees and other drinks.
Their minds were awakened by more than just caffeine. They became inspired to leave their jobs to open their own café, 7 Leaves, in Garden Grove.
“From our travels, we made a lot of friends and learned a lot of recipes that we brought back home,” said Viet Do, 32, who opened the coffee and tea shop with six family friends. “We made drinks for our friends and families, and they said it was really good and we should do something with it.”
The friends opened the first 7 Leaves in Little Saigon in January 2012. Today, the company boasts five locations in Orange County — two in Garden Grove and one each in Cypress, Fountain Valley and Tustin — and has about 150 employees serving various cold brews.
7 Leaves has become popular for its milk teas, such as the Mung Beach Milk Tea and Thai Iced Tea, and its coffees, especially the House Special Coffee, which is a traditional Vietnamese coffee with a nutty and smooth flavor.
To ensure the quality, 7 Leaves has a simple menu of 16 drinks. Each concoction is made with “only the best and freshest ingredients” and no artificial flavors, said co-owner Denny Ly, 29.
Food selections are limited to pastries, including sweet macarons and crispy strawberry croissants. This allows the business to focus on the drinks.
“Our intention was just to create great-tasting drinks without compromises,” Ly said.
Each drink is made ahead of time.
“People always ask why we have to pre-make our drinks, but drinks like our Mung Bean Milk Tea or House Special Coffee take hours to cook and brew,” Ly said. “Unless people are willing to wait five hours for a drink, there’s no way we can do it. We have to allow the time for it to cook and for all the flavors to be extracted. With that concept, we don’t just make our drinks. We cook them.”
Tradition is key at 7 Leaves. Instead of a powder, the Thai Iced Tea is brewed with real tea leaves and steeped and brewed the same way as it is in Thailand.
The business also plans to introduce healthy, low-calorie drinks in the coming months.
Despite the business’ popularity — it sells hundreds of drinks a day — the owners have no immediate plans to offer franchises.
“Franchising would take away from the quality of the drinks,” Ly said. “We’re very afraid of that. We know when you franchise, you’re letting go of a lot of the decision-making and diversity. In our minds, we wouldn’t be able to control that. We wouldn’t want to franchise until we’re ready to do it, and we know we’ll still be able to keep this very simplistic menu with a family environment.”
Ly said he is often told 7 Leaves is the Asian Starbucks, which flatters him even though that isn’t the direction he is aiming for now.
The seven owners, who are 21 to 32 years old, said their ages have been an advantage.
Co-owners Michelle Nguyen, 23, and Dalena Truong, 21, both Cal State Fullerton students, were inspired to study business marketing and communications, respectively, after working at 7 Leaves.
“I think there’s a cultural movement for the younger generations of entrepreneurs,” Do said. “It’s a different mind-set. It’s not just about making money. It’s also about how we do it.”
Do said 7 Leaves’ goal is to be a place where people not only order drinks, but also stay to enjoy them. One of its Garden Grove locations — the largest of the five — has about a dozen tables and chairs for people to relax, talk or work. A communal printer is free to use, though donations are accepted for the paper.
“Most businesses want to get you in and out so they can make as much money as possible, but we create an environment where we want our customers to hang out here,” Do said. “There’s a reason why we all left the corporate world. We wanted to do something that was kind of different.”
The business philosophy is summed up by a famous Ghandi quote hanging on the wall: “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
7 Leaves Locations:
9786 Westminster Ave. in Garden Grove
13481 Euclid St., suites B and C, in Garden Grove
9111 Valley View St., No. 101, in Cypress
9475 Warner Ave. in Fountain Valley
13771 Newport Ave., No. 12, in Tustin
All locations are open from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. Sundays; 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays; 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. Fridays; and 8 a.m. to 11 p.m. Saturdays.