In the corner of a lobby, a group of friends starts prepping for Chai & Cha’s latest pop-up at Yugo Austin Rio’s Women Owned Business Market.
They deliberately place pink and green ceramic bowls on the counter with sifters inside and chasens in front of each bowl. Golden homemade vanilla syrups rest on a corner. A deep blue syrup sticks out among them, matching the bright baby blue cold foam that sits next to the usual matcha cold foam in the fridge, revealing the pop-up’s latest drink curations.
As the event nears, co-founders Tarnoor Kaur and Linda Nguyen go behind the counter with their friends to work. In front of the bar, customers line up for the duo’s 12th pop-up of the 2025 – 2026 academic year.
Amid the rush of whisking, calling out drinks and adding finishing touches, laughter fills the space behind the bar.
“I think for us, our biggest thing going into the pop-up was that we wanted this to be a fun thing,” Tarnoor Kaur, sophomore early education major, said. “We didn’t necessarily want it to feel like work. We’re best friends, and so our whole motto was this pop-up is built on friendship.”
Sophomores Tarnoor Kaur and Linda Nguyen first started their pop-up Chai & Cha in their apartment in late August 2025, with the two of them handing out free curated drinks. In the 2026 spring semester, they’ve found a more collective approach.
Freshman Srisamarth Kolnati met Nguyen after becoming a part of her student organization family in the Filipino Students Association at the University of Texas. “Lyn asked our fam, ‘Hey, do you want to help out?’ I was like, ‘Duh, of course,’ so she rounded up a bunch of us, plus a couple of her friends,” Kolnati said.
Since then, Kaur and Nguyen have looked to their friends for help with the pop-up.
“I feel like it’s definitely made the experience more fun because it helps make you feel a lot more comfortable, and whenever you feel like you’re stressed out, you kind of look around and you’re like, ‘I’m OK, I have a support system here right now,’” Kaur said.
The two have been asked about hiring employees for the business, but they take pride and joy in the fact that they can handle both the creative and operational aspects of Chai & Cha themselves.
“I feel like the funnest part of doing the pop-ups is the posting; we put a lot of effort and time into making all the curated advertisements or the pictures, the photo shoots of the drinks,” Nguyen said. “I feel like specifically this semester we got really into it and did a lot of fun stuff.”
Their creativity in the presentation is also reflected in their drink flavors. The pop-up featured a blueberry matcha, blueberry chai and a blue coconut matcha.
“Our whole thing is that we want to be creative, and we want to give people something different,” Kaur said. “I don’t think we’ve ever had a repeated menu. Every pop-up, we’ve had something different.”
As for the future of Chai & Cha, Kaur and Nguyen will begin preparing to start student teaching in their junior spring semester. This will leave them less time to handle the pop-up.
Despite their tighter schedule, the two plan to continue their business this fall, hoping to host one pop-up a month, either through organizations or on their own, Kaur said.
No matter where the wind takes the two for their pop-up in their next two college years, Chai & Cha will always stand out as a significant story for them to share.
“I feel like once I’ve graduated and when I’m married and I have kids, I’m gonna tell them I ran a matcha pop-up in college,” Kaur said. “I feel like it’s something to be proud of.”
