Read the following text and answer the quiz below.
[1] Few would guess that Busy Brew, Hong Kong’s first plant-based canned coffee brand, is run by a 23-year-old. One could be tempted to see it as an entrepreneur fairy tale. A student spots a gap in the market and builds a cult following for her canned oat milk lattes. Then she lands incubation funding and watches the product fly off the shelves in some of the city’s largest retail chains.
[2] But Nikita Kuwadekar, the founder of Busy Brew, will be the first to tell you that the journey has not been easy. Kuwadekar was born in Hong Kong, where she was also raised, with a congenital condition. She needed open‑heart surgery while still in secondary school. Determined not to fall behind, she overhauled her diet, cutting dairy and sugar to accelerate her recovery.
[3] The physical benefits were immediate. Kuwadekar’s skin cleared and her energy returned. But she also made a discovery that would eventually shape her career. “I realised I was lactose intolerant, and that like, 90 per cent of Asians and almost 68 per cent of the world are too,” she said. “That’s nuts. Because everything around us is dairy: bubble tea, coffees, every canned coffee on the shelf.”
[4] As a first-year student at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Kuwadekar noticed the only grab‑and‑go coffee options were loaded with milk powder and sugar. “If you look at the ingredients of what’s on the shelf, it’s actually pretty terrible,” she said, citing stabilisers, additives and preservatives. The gap in the market became impossible to ignore. “Coffee should be accessible, and it should be healthy,” she said.
[5] Kuwadekar was 19 at the time. Faced with spending up to HK$60 on an oat milk latte every day, she thought: “Why doesn’t this exist in a can?” She entered various university pitch competitions with her idea for Busy Brew. This helped bring in funding. Then she entered an incubation programme by Hong Kong Science and Technology Parks Corporation. The organisation was set up by the government in 2001 to foster innovation and technology development. It gave Busy Brew the resources to become a company.
[6] Kuwadekar spent more than two years refining her recipe through relentless customer testing. She eventually landed on a vanilla oat milk latte formula with zero additives. Now, the drinks are stocked at Hong Kong chains like City’super and Louder, as well as the online retailer HKTVmall.
[7] In 2026, Kuwadekar won the Spirit of Youth Award at the 13th Spirit of Hong Kong Awards. She is part of a generation rewriting the rule book on climbing the career ladder – by not climbing it at all. For many young entrepreneurs, the appeal of starting a business is not only about going against the corporate grind but also about aligning work with personal values. Kuwadekar’s business is the product of her own health journey. “Anytime I see someone drinking it, I genuinely feel like I know them,” she said. “The community we’ve built is incredible.”
Source: South China Morning Post, September 15
Content provided by British Council
