For Nastassia Law, soup is a way of life.
Sixty years ago, her grandfather was a Chinese traditional doctor and ran an herbal remedy store in Kowloon City, Hong Kong. “My family were all nurtured by these natural remedies,” says Law. Growing up, she witnessed the way these traditional Chinese medicinal ingredients—like goji berries, jujubees, honey dates, dried yam and tangerine peel—were able to boost her family’s health. Her parents were also in the herbal remedy business. Today, Law—the third generation—has the privilege of having learned about healing herbs and soups from her family all her life.
Cut to 2022, when she launched Souperwell alongside her husband Edwin Cheng. The brand specializes in Chinese medicinal soup kits with a western influence in the form of a textured pea protein that’s included in each kit so that the soups can provide extra protein and be plant-based for vegans (typically, these soups are made with chicken or pork broth). Law also includes English and Chinese text on all packaging and instructions that explain to westerners who haven’t grown up with the soups what they’re drinking.
Souperwell currently has 13 soups, each with a specific health function like digestion, cough relief, anti-fatigue and period management. The soups all contain functional ingredients that are based on generations of knowledge.
Cheng says that their customer base is primarily Chinese people who know and love traditional soups and gravitate towards the brand for convenience, and second-generation Chinese people who grew up drinking soups but don’t know how to make them themselves. “They try the soups and really enjoy how easy it is and it’s a nice way for them to get comfortable with this kind of product,” he says. “They know the taste and the function, they just don’t know how to put the herbs together.”
A lot of their customers, says Cheng, get overwhelmed trying to pick out the herbs in a shop—even at a modernized supermarket like T&T. The soup kits sold by Souperwell are a stepping stone towards independently making soups. “They’ve moved away from home, they like drinking soup and want to make it for their own families and they don’t want to rely on parents or grandparents,” Cheng says.
Plus, Souperwell uses premium products to maximize the health benefits of their soup kits. They also don’t include any preservatives. For Law and Cheng, it was important that Chinese kids living in the diaspora and hoping to learn about soups have access to good ingredients—even if they don’t know where or how to shop for them.
The brand also focuses on education: how to cook the soups and what the purpose of each ingredient. Law grew up watching her grandfather teach her father all about herbs. Similarly, Cheng’s mom taught him about what healthy ingredients to use. “But with the language barrier, it can be difficult—like they might not speak perfect English or, for Edwin, he doesn’t speak perfect Cantonese,” says Law. “It becomes an overload of knowledge to transfer. That’s where Souperwell can jump in.” Which, ultimately, says Cheng, will help “to bring the culture forward to the next generation.”
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