LAFA Interviews: Bokachá

I have lived in Turku, Finland for a little over a year and only recently did I discover that there is a new Vietnamese coffee shop & bubble tea location downtown!

Located at Brahenkatu 5 - they are easily accessible and have quickly become a huge favourite among my friends and we even meet there for our Crafty in Turku nights!

I have been there on numerous occasions and decided when pursuing the idea of interviewing local business owners that they (if they were willing!) had to be first on my list and luckily for me - they agreed to do a sit-down interview one evening!

I arrived in the evening ready with the list of questions on my phone and also pen and paper (I am a bit old school perhaps!) and quickly ordered a Peach Tea with Apple Boba served cold.
I was very fortunate enough to also sample their Coconut Mango Crepe cake and got settled in with Uyen Le - one of the owners of Bokachá!

The business is run by 2 friends who met in the International Business Bachelor Program in Rauma in 2014 and while Uyen moved to Turku in 2016, her colleague Trinh Nguyen had moved to Turku the year prior.

Both owners are from Vietnam and are used to drinking bubble tea 3-4x a day which is considered perfectly normal in Vietnam and while living in Finland - there was nowhere to have Bubble Tea - other than one shop in Helsinki.
According to Uyen - the Helsinki location did not provide the preferred taste as to what she was used to and since there is a large Vietnamese community - it made sense to try and open up a shop that could offer authentic bubble teas and Vietnamese coffee!

They chose Turku because it is not a huge city like Helsinki but it also isn't very small either.  They both love living here in Turku and don't want to move anytime soon!

Tell me about the products you have and what your plans are for the customers in Turku!
We serve Vietnamese coffee with coffee beans imported from Vietnam, bubble teas of course and crepe cakes along with some other desserts like cheesecake.
Almost everyday we are making a new flavour of crepe cakes and they take approximately four hours to make per cake!
We are hoping to give  Finns and everyone else a real authentic taste of Vietnamese coffee and bubble tea culture. It is a great way to explore new things and about 70% of our customers are trying something totally new and they have a chance to experience Vietnamese culture.

For a first time customer - both to your location and never having tried bubble tea or Vietnamese coffee before - what would you recommend?
Our coffee beans are imported from Vietnam and they are Robusta - a dark coffee bean which has a more smokey flavour, compared to the typical Arabica beans mostly found in majority of the European coffee shops.
In Vietnam bubble tea and coffee shops are typically blended together - there is no separation like there can be in the coffee shops in Finland at least.
You can find a whole street in Vietnam full of bubble tea/Vietnamese coffee shops everywhere!

For a tea we would recommend a Bokachá milky tea or the Taro milky tea.
For the Vietnamese coffee we have a Coconut Coffee or the Vietnamese Latte and with the fruit teas we can also recommend the Summer or Special Tropical Teas.
For  a truly Vietnamese experience we have the Café Phin which is the Vietnamese drip coffee and it takes time to prepare and enjoy - and due to this we cannot offer it as a take-away item.

Do you plan to expand your company as a franchise elsewhere in Finland or even within Turku?
Currently not now. If we were to win the lottery then we would love to open a shop in Tampere as we find it has the fastest growing rate in Finland and not too large.  We are also familiar with the area!

What has the general response been to your products and location since opening?
It is fairly black and white! Mainly people enjoy the products and we have many customers advising us that they heard of us from their friends or Instagram posts - either our own or from a friend or family member!
Often customers will come in and if there is a language barrier (as we don't really speak Finnish) - they will simply show us the photo on their phone of what they would like and we have had one elderly customer come in with her order written on a slip of paper from a friend who knew what she had to try!

Was it difficult setting up Bokachá and gain customers?

Yes it was extremely difficult.
We had started discussing the possibility of opening up a Vietnamese cafe back in 2018 and it took until Mid-November 2019 before we finally opened!
To establish a company we had to fill in so much paperwork by hand because we did not have OmaPosti to do things electronically.
Many forms were to be re-done because they were very specific with how they had to be filled and we used Google Translator (Finnish to English) to translate these documents and also sought advice from our Finnish friends too.
Due to paperwork alone we had to wait approximately 1.5-2 years before we could open.
With the banking side of things - we needed a business account in order to run our business and in order to have a business account - you had to have a business...!

Something that others might not know either is that we were students here on a studying visa and we did not have ANY Kela benefits! So we are both on student visas and  had to prove that we had 7K€ in our bank accounts.
Once we graduate then we are granted a "Job-Seeking visa" which is only good for one year and if you do not have a job - you are to go back to your native country.
Once you have graduated from a Finnish university then you are only expected to have approximately 2K€ in your account and a job.

To gain customers we promoted a lot via social media like Instagram and Facebook.


What do you want your customers (both new and returning) to know about your company?
That we are a Vietnamese-style coffee shop and in Vietnam coffee and tea shops are fused together.
We source as much of our resources locally as possible and the items we are not able to get here - we order from within the EU.

Living in the country known for their coffee drinking habits  - do you find most Finnish customers are enjoying Vietnamese-style coffee or are they preferring the bubble tea alternatives instead?
Yes it seems more and more customers are coming back and not just for the bubble teas.  They also often bring their friends back with them.

What are the PROS and CONS, or challenges of having a uniquely based expat business in Finland?
The pros is being able to introduce Vietnamese culture to the customers and we are offering something special that many customers have not tried before.  It is a unique look and perspective because having bubble tea in Vietnam is like having Starbucks (or some other popular coffee) anywhere else in the world.  You will always see someone in Vietnam carrying a bubble tea cup just like you see someone with a Starbucks cup elsewhere!

Another pro is that we are able to encourage customers to try different toppings in their drinks and not just serve them coffee.
This encourages conversation and education while explaining the different options we have.

There are not many cons other than setting up the business was difficult, the language barrier occasionally can happen as we do not speak Finnish - primarily with much older customers - but it has been quite alright so far.

Do you feel you mainly get customers that who know the type of product you have already and are happy to finally have access to it locally - or moreso customers that are completely new to the Vietnamese coffee and bubble tea concept and want to try something new?
We actually get a lot of exchange students and other expats that are so happy to find a bubble tea shop and Vietnamese coffee in Turku.

Would you say that Bokachá's products are targeted to a specific group or type of customers or a specific age group?
Well, originally we were aiming to target people between 16-35 years old but we have noticed we are getting people of all ages from as young as 11 to elderly customers.

In Vietnam on average for bubble tea - young children start drinking it around 5 years old and Vietnamese coffee around 15 or 16 years old.

What advice would you give to another expat entrepreneur hoping to open up their own small business in Turku?
Have a really great business plan that can work and even if you are not so fluent in Finnish - just GO FOR IT.

Anything else you would like to add about yourselves or your business?
We use fresh real tea, ingredients and fruit juices in all of our teas and we do import our coffee beans directly from Vietnam.

You can enjoy bubble teas hot or cold because the boba's do not melt.  They are made from tapioca and other than the cheese topping and taro milk tea - most of the teas can be made vegan.

The company name BOKACHÁ is a blended word of both Chinese and Vietnamese language meaning:

BO (bubble) KA (coffee) CHÁ (tea in Chinese)

They are not a franchise of any kind and completely a local business in Turku!

They do not serve any alcohol and do plan to change the menu according to season and have different special offers.
Also! They have a loyalty stamp card that you can ask for at the cash register - 10 stamps = 1 free medium sized drink (but excludes special drinks).

I inquired where they saw themselves in the next year and within the next five years and was advised they wish to be more stable within their first year of business and hopefully within the next five years there would be one more location in Turku while possibly having one also in Tampere.

So if you are in the city of Turku and looking for something delicious to try in a peaceful atmosphere among friends - look no further than BOKACHÁ!

Much thanks to Bokachá for giving me time for the interview, permission to take photos and the deep insight of what it is like to be an expat opening and running a business in Finland!


Learning About Finland Again

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