In 2012 I started Teabox in Siliguri, a few hours from the gardens of Darjeeling. India grows some of the finest tea in the world, yet most of it was shipped abroad and sat in warehouses for months. Indians rarely got to taste it fresh.

We set out to change that: buy at the source, taste every lot, and seal the best within 48 hours of harvest.

In 2015 I got connected to Mr Tata's office, and a date was fixed. I would pitch Teabox, in person, to a man my whole generation had grown up admiring as one of the stalwarts of Indian industry.

I built the deck and rehearsed all night. I did not want to goof up. But nothing prepares you for a meeting like that.

We reached Bombay House fifteen minutes early. Third floor. We were seated outside his office and offered tea and coffee while we waited.

Ten minutes later, his door opened. Mr Tata was walking a visitor out, holding the door for him. Then he turned to us and asked if we were there to see him. I said yes, with a very nervous smile. He kept the door open and let us in.

The doyen of the Indian tea industry, holding the door while we walked in. That told me everything about him as a person.

He put us at ease straight away. I set up my laptop and opened with our first slide: "Same old new".

I tried a little small talk. I told him that while preparing, I had realised we had nothing in common except one thing: we both drink tea.

He laughed. "Young man, let me break your bubble right away. Unfortunately I don't like tea at all. I love my coffee."

My heart sank. How would someone who doesn't drink tea ever invest in a tea company?

I went through my seven or eight slides anyway, and closed by saying what an honour it was to share how we hoped to change a 200-year-old industry. He started to reply, then stopped. For a few seconds he said nothing. Then:

"I did not realise that you are a tea company till the time I saw the slide that contained the tea spoon. I thought you were a tech company."Mr Ratan Tata, Bombay House, 2015

That was all. His office would be in touch, he said.

Forty-eight hours later, we heard back. He was in.

I have thought about that line many times since. In one sentence, he saw that we were looking at a very old industry in a completely new way. That was what he backed.

A coffee lover, whose group ran Tata Tea, chose to back a small tea start-up. That investment in December 2015 became a turning point for Teabox. And we still work exactly the way I pitched it that day: