A film-maker and an importer of electrical equipment have joined forces to launch a drink made out of tea and tapioca.

Gavin Blowman and Fabian Pohl believe that fashionable 15 to 25-year-olds will make a dash for Chooba - a mixture of caffeine-free red tea and chewy tapioca pearls.

The Sunderland entrepreneurs will import the ingredients from Taiwan, China and Scotland and sell them on to cafés and retail wholesalers, where they will be freshly mixed at point of sale into a drink to the duo's recipe.

They had the idea for the business after both encountering similar drinks abroad.

Mr Blowman, who first tasted it in Australia four years ago, said: "Fabian and myself discovered independently that this drink tastes great, along the lines of an Earl Grey, and came up with the idea for launching it on the European market at different times." Mr Pohl, who ran his own electrical equipment export import business from China for a year, where he first tasted it, originally approached Mr Blowman to help design the website for the drink, which they claim helps reduce the risk of cancer.

"I realised it was the same product I had thought about launching, so we went into business together," he said.

Mr Blowman, 29, said: "We have spent the last six months sourcing the ingredients and developing the flavour, together with designing the bubble packaging in preparation for next month's launch."

This is also a career departure for Mr Blowman, who is a web designer and has successfully run a gambling site for the last three years. He has also made documentary films, including Gagging For Sex which won the Royal Television Society Award for best regional documentary.

"Obviously this is a new direction for the two of us but we are convinced people will take to the product. We have imported the tea from China but have sourced a lot of other natural ingredients from all over the world to adapt the taste for the European market," said Mr Blowman.

"We haven't even officially launched and we have had interest from four potential wholesale customers already."

Through a business contact, the pair met North-East entrepreneur Geoff Spencer, who launched the high fashion herbal drink Purdys, a range eventually bought by Cadbury-Schweppes. "Geoff has been very encouraging and seemed impressed with our product," said Mr Blowman.