KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 18 — Stacked up like a tower of Jenga blocks, the sandwich cookies would tempt any dessert lover to topple them… if solely to take a chew out of 1.
The style would possibly shock: as a substitute of tooth-achingly cloying, there’s a deep inexperienced tea flavour with only a trace of sweetness. Every is constructed from a special flavour of Japanese inexperienced tea: matcha, genmaicha (inexperienced tea blended with roasted popped brown rice) and hojicha (roasted inexperienced tea).
These treats are the specialty of BuTian Desserts, a homegrown desserts purveyor primarily based in Kuchai Lama.
Based by three sisters — Yeo Suan Ning, 23; Yeo Suan Ern, 28; and Yeo Suan Meng, 31 — through the first lockdown final yr, BuTian Desserts stands out from the group because of their promise of low-sugar desserts.
Every sibling contributes her personal experience: Suan Ning is a enterprise main, Suan Ern the accountant whereas Suan Meng has a background in promoting and graphic design.
Whereas none of them had prior expertise in meals and beverage (F&B), Suan Ning factors out that all of them shared a deep ardour for baking.
She provides, “The pandemic and the next lockdown merely gave us the chance to discover our curiosity additional.”
As a result of lockdown, many retailers had been closed, together with dessert retailers, and the Yeo sisters felt disadvantaged.
Suan Ern says, “There was nothing that would fulfill our candy tooth. We figured that we might really attempt making our personal desserts. We let some family and friends attempt too and a few got here again asking whether or not they might buy the desserts!”
Thus a brand new enterprise was born. Its identify comes from bù tían, which when translated from Mandarin, actually means “not candy.” The trio got here up with this model identify as they needed prospects to know their desserts tasted simply pretty much as good when the flavour isn’t overwhelmingly candy.
Suan Meng hastens to make clear that they do use sugar of their merchandise, albeit lower than typical dessert recipes would require. She explains, “In any case, desserts are supposed to be candy and BuTian is only a model identify connoting much less sugar content material, which is now the development amongst well being aware meals lovers.”
Whereas BuTian Desserts is now well-known for his or her Japanese inexperienced tea flavoured sandwich cookies, they first launched their enterprise promoting triple-layer muffins and fruit tarts. At the moment, in response to Suan Ning, these stay their basis.
It is sensible, for the triple-layer recipe is a format that’s simply repeated with different flavours. Take their matcha triple-layer cake, for example. Every is structured in order that the bottom is constructed from a matcha gateau, the centre constructed from matcha chocolate, whereas the topping is one in all wealthy matcha cream.
Suan Ning provides, “Our triple-layer muffins, notably our matcha, genmaicha and hojicha, helped garner probably the most curiosity from our prospects and probably the most gross sales for us. Realizing what our prospects are all in favour of, we figured we must always proceed utilising the three Japanese inexperienced tea flavours and combine it with a brand new product.”
Needing one thing that differed from their present sequence of merchandise, the Yeo sisters researched and tried out numerous potentialities, together with French macarons and Japanese desserts.
Suan Ern shares, “Finally we discovered the style of macarons missing and we had been usually overwhelmed by the sweetness. For the few Japanese desserts that captivated us, we felt that we might enrich their flavours whereas nonetheless producing variations that had been much less candy.”
After quite a few experiments, they determined to borrow an identical idea from the macarons that they had studied, whereby they sandwiched a inexperienced tea primarily based filling with sq. cookies slightly spherical meringue shells.
Suan Meng says, “The fillings that we produce are wealthy and far thicker when in comparison with comparable desserts elsewhere. We needed our prospects to indulge within the intense flavours of matcha, genmaicha, and hojicha.
Their new launch was an immediate hit with prospects. At the moment their sandwich cookies, notably when offered in a field set of all three flavours, are a signature product.
There are different delights, after all. Prospects can also order a “blended cake” constructed from slices of various fruit tarts. In addition to the Japanese inexperienced tea trio, different triple-layer muffins embody black sesame, darkish chocolate, Earl Gray and even a dalgona espresso cake (maybe impressed by Squid Recreation, the not too long ago widespread Korean sequence).
Their success is all of the extra outstanding when one considers that BuTian Desserts was only a aspect gig for the Yeo sisters within the early days as they had been nonetheless finding out and dealing from dwelling.
Suan Ning recollects, “Our operations within the early days had been fairly disorganised as we weren’t used to this. Correct time administration was a problem as we needed to juggle each with our research and day jobs for this enterprise.”
Recognising that promptness in responding to buyer queries was vital, they drafted a correct schedule and dedicated to following it strictly. Suan Ern says, “Surprisingly, or maybe unsurprisingly, a easy timetable really helped us in managing our time. We had been ready then to steadiness our work and research in addition to fulfilling our prospects’ orders.”
Beginning a brand new enterprise within the aggressive F&B business is rarely simple, what extra throughout a worldwide pandemic and nationwide lockdown. However true entrepreneurs look previous the issue and search for alternatives.
Suan Meng observes, “Whereas our attain has been slightly restricted by these components, we might nonetheless depend on phrase of mouth to extend our model presence. Additionally, initially we took restricted orders manually via social media platforms. At the moment we’ve our personal web site and system to take orders.”
Nonetheless some sacrifices had been required to ensure that them to get a foothold available in the market. Suan Ning explains, “As our capital was slightly restricted and margins had been fairly tight once we first began, we needed to settle for and ship extra orders even when time was not in our favour.”
And as with most fledgling startups, BuTian Desserts had a really lean operation with lack of manpower being a continuing woe. Suan Ern says, “We’d sacrifice our sleep with a view to fulfil our prospects’ orders. Luckily for us, many proceed supporting us. This allowed us to increase our enterprise and rent extra personnel to ease our burden together with rising our manufacturing output.”
Transferring ahead, the Yeo sisters plan to supply an area for his or her prospects to dine-in as they at present solely do takeaways. Suan Meng says, “By doing this, our prospects can have the choice to eat our merchandise beneath probably the most supreme situations, as most of our merchandise might soften if uncovered outdoors the fridge for too lengthy.”
There are additionally plans for BuTian Desserts to introduce new merchandise and flavours to their menu. Appears to be like like all their arduous work is paying off — whereas their confections may be much less candy in comparison with different cake retailers and pâtisseries, the Yeo sisters are lastly tasting the candy style of their well-deserved success.
BuTian Desserts
18-1, Jalan Indrahana 1, Taman Indrahana, Kuchai Lama, KL
Open each day (besides Wed closed) 1:30pm-6pm
Tel: 011-3320 6680
Internet: butiandesserts.com
FB: facebook.com/butiandesserts/
IG: instagram.com/bu_tian/
