Sales fundas they wont teach you at the IIMs

Now thats a cliche post title, but fits in best here.

Like most of the cubicle dwellers, we too hate our office canteen. In fact there is not much available in our office canteen. So almost everybody in my office visits a friendly neighborhood ubiquitous 'Chai ki dukan'. This shop/stall is run by a middle aged couple, who now know us very well now. They cater to a strong 8-10 office crowd in a half kilometer radius. Their menu includes tea,samosa,bread pakoda, and various chips and snacks like kurkure, lays etc (not to forget the gold flakes and the milds!)

We love going there in winters. A hot tea, warm sunshine, a small lawn in the front with lush grass and flowers all around gives us a well deserved break from the hard work we do in the office ;)

Now coming to the point, the tea served here is too sweet. We keep pointing to the guy who makes it and he comes up with lame excuses that its not easy to keep tab of the exact ingredients while making 50 cups of tea together. And come to think of it, sugar being the most costly ingredient,it should have been used sparingly. I think we annoyed him a lot by our relentless prodding and he finally told us why his tea has more sugar than the sugarcane juice.

He says that since the tea is too sweet, more often than not people end up buying namkeen, chips and various snacks to compensate the extra sweetness. Moreover he keeps those chips packets just at an arms length on the counter so that you dont have to ask for it and simply pick one on your own.
Also, he added that he has done his calculations for the past months and the rise in earnings due to this is far more than the drop because of customers doing away with the extra sweet tea.
I took a moment to recall our buying pattern over the last month. And yes, we did buy those kurkure packets a lot with the tea.

Wow,we were impressed!