Gaurav Saria: From a pre-independence tea legacy to Infinitea 

(Aug 23, 2026) Gaurav Saria comes from a fourth-generation tea-growing family behind Gopaldhara, a Darjeeling estate producing tea since 1881. With four tea estates in West Bengal, Gopaldhara, Rohini, Soongachi and New Glencoe, producing over three million kg annually, his family’s teas serve markets across India and overseas. In 2003, Gaurav founded Infinitea, a pioneering specialty tea room and kitchen chain with two Bengaluru outlets and an online loose-leaf tea brand offering more than 50 global varieties, and farm-direct teas from the family’s estates. 

Born in Kolkata in 1979 into a Marwari family, Saria attended Don Bosco School, Park Circus, which he credits with shaping him more than any degree he later earned. “There is something about a Jesuit school in Kolkata that gets into your bones,” he says in a chat with The Global Indian.

After finishing school, he left for Australia to pursue a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science. He graduated in 2001 and returned to India two years later with a very different idea of what he wanted to do.

Growing up in a business family in the 1980s and 1990s, Saria says the expectations were fairly straightforward: get a foreign education, earn in dollars and make the family proud. “There were no gap years, no conversations about passion or purpose. The script was written – get a foreign education, earn in dollars, and make the family proud. My father had that dream for me, and I followed it, at least the foreign education part,” he says.

A conversation with a university counsellor eventually helped him question the conventional career path. The advice was simple: follow what he actually cared about. “I was lucky enough to have the privilege to act on that advice. In 2003, I came back and opened Infinitea,” he says.

The international exposure shaped his vision

Gaurav’s interest in culture, music and the arts had been present from an early age. His exposure to different countries later reinforced that curiosity.

I am genuinely fascinated by how different cultures approach joy, food, community, and daily ritual. That curiosity never leaves me.

Gaurav Saria

The idea of spending his professional life behind a computer screen did not appeal to him. People, food and culture offered the interaction he was looking for. In that sense, Gaurav does not describe his move from computer science to tea as a career transition. He never actually worked in IT.

“I just studied it because that was what was expected and then went and did what I actually wanted to do,” he says. His professional life has since revolved around Infinitea, which opened on July 4, 2003, and grew into what he describes as India’s first chain of tea rooms and kitchens. Over the years, Gaurav has taken on almost every role within the business. Founder, investor, operator, tea master, chef and pastry chef are all part of his responsibilities.

Building Infinitea as a lean tea business

For Gaurav, the achievement is not simply that Infinitea has survived more than two decades in the demanding food and beverage industry. It is the way he has built the business.

I built a lean business. I stripped out all the structural fat that kills most restaurants: the unnecessary overheads, the bloated teams, the spending that looks impressive but generates nothing.

Gaurav Saria

That approach has shaped the way Infinitea operates, with an emphasis on discipline rather than scale for its own sake. His approach to food and tea has been similarly hands-on. He did not attend culinary school or follow a formal hospitality programme. The menu, tea programme, food pairings and pastry offerings evolved through experimentation and years of learning on the job.

His own relationship with food also changed over time. Gaurav was a strict vegetarian until the age of 25. Today, he runs a non-vegetarian kitchen. “If that does not illustrate what genuine curiosity can do, I don’t know what does,” he says.

Learning hospitality without formal training

Starting a hospitality business without formal training was also one of Gaurav’s biggest challenges. “No culinary education, no hospitality background, no MBA. Just a conviction that tea deserved a serious place in Indian dining and enough stubbornness to see it through,” he says.

The experience taught him that formal training can help, but it is not the only route to expertise. “Anyone can do anything if they are willing to. Training is useful. Willingness is essential. You can learn everything else on the job if you are honest about what you do not know and obsessive about getting better,” he says.

Bringing global standards to Indian tea and dining

His international exposure also influenced the standards he brought to Infinitea. For Gaurav, the lesson was not that India lacked talent. Rather, it was about expectations and the standards applied to the finished product. He now sees India’s expanding services economy, particularly food and hospitality, as a significant opportunity for entrepreneurs.

Global exposure recalibrated that bar for me permanently. I brought it back and embedded it into every corner of Infinitea. The services business in India is growing at a pace that most people are underestimating. It is also one of the few sectors that AI cannot dismantle. Food is good business. It is hard business but good business.

Gaurav Saria

His advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is direct: understand the risks, but do not be deterred by them. “For aspiring entrepreneurs: welcome to the fastest, scariest roller coaster on this planet. There is no safety net, no predictable outcome, and no manual. If that excites you more than it frightens you, you might be built for it,” he says.

Taking Darjeeling tea to a global audience

Gaurav Saria’s connection to tea gives his work at Infinitea another dimension. As a fourth-generation tea planter, he grew up with an intimate understanding of Darjeeling tea and the landscape from which it comes. For him, being a Global Indian is partly about presenting that heritage to audiences beyond India. A cup of Darjeeling tea can become a way of introducing someone unfamiliar with India to one of its distinctive products.

Being a ‘Global Indian’ means carrying India well. Showing the world what this country is actually made of: the depth of its culture, the quality of its produce, and the warmth of its people. When I serve a Darjeeling Muscatel to someone who has never heard of it, and I watch their face change, that is what being a global Indian means to me.

Gaurav Saria

 

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