Dream Hives: The Guwahati Startup Making AS01 Mead With Assam Tea and King Chill

Dream Hives mead started with a stock of honey that nobody could sell.

During the second COVID-19 lockdown in 2021, online sales stalled and the jars piled up. Co-founder Dhrubajyoti Deka told YourStory: “We had a large honey stock and no way to sell it.” Today that stock has become AS01, a small-batch honey wine made in Guwahati and flavoured with Assam tea and Bhoot Jolokia, also called King Chilli.

It is a young brand with a lot left to prove. This profile sets out what has been reported about the founders, the product, the money and the competition, and says plainly where the public record runs out.

In this story (about 9 minutes)

A honey stock with nowhere to go

Dream Hives was founded in 2021 by Kaustoov Gopal Goswami and Deka, according to YourStory’s June 2025 profile. The two had been working with forest-dependent communities on a community beekeeping initiative in the buffer zones of Manas National Park in Assam. At first they packed and sold raw honey.

Then the second lockdown arrived. Orders slowed and the surplus grew. A food scientist introduced them to mead, Deka said, and it changed how they saw the product. Honey was no longer only a sweetener. It could be the main ingredient of something new.

Mead is a drink made by fermenting honey. YourStory calls it the world’s oldest alcoholic beverage and notes that the Rigveda mentions a fermented honey drink called madhu. For Dream Hives, the early work was a kitchen experiment that, per the same report, grew into a project with product testing, licensing and a circle of early adopters.

Before launch, the company says it tested its mead with 500 consumers in Assam, along with sommeliers and home brewers at events, festivals and expos. That figure is the founders’ own, as reported by YourStory in June 2025.

Two founders, one Delhi startup event

Deka was not new to building things. He was born in Sarthebari, a village in Assam’s Barpeta district known for bell metal and brass craft, and started Brahmaputra Fables in 2017 to sell Northeast handicrafts online. 30Stades reported that, as a postgraduate student at Pondicherry Central University in 2016, he noticed how little his classmates from other states knew about the Northeast. That pushed him towards the idea.

The beginnings were small. Deka borrowed roughly ₹25,000 from family and friends to pay for a website and the first products, YourStory reported in 2019. NE Now reported a turnover of ₹25 lakh by the end of the first year. By November 2020, EastMojo described a database of more than 3,000 artisans.

“tell the stories from the banks of the Brahmaputra”

Dhrubajyoti Deka on the idea behind Brahmaputra Fables, YourStory, June 2019

In 2018, at a startup event in Delhi, Deka met Goswami, who was working in renewable energy, mainly in wildlife conservation zones, YourStory reported. A shared interest in community impact led them to work together. Goswami describes himself on LinkedIn as a first-generation entrepreneur, and the incubator AIC-SMUTBI lists him as Founder and CEO of Dream Hives.

The same incubator page, which is company-supplied, says Dream Hives won a Young Innovative Entrepreneur award at the Assam Biotech Conclave 2022 and was selected for the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme at AIC-SMUTBI. StartupIndiaX has not independently verified those entries.

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What AS01 puts in the bottle

AS01 is the brand under which Dream Hives sells, or plans to sell, its mead. The official site lists two 750 ml meads at 10% to 12% ABV: an Assam Tea Mead and a Bhoot Jolokia Mead. It describes them as made from natural honey, with no artificial sweeteners, no artificial flavours and no neutral spirit.

Illustration generated with AI. Not the Dream Hives facility or its actual ingredients. Credit: StartupIndiaX, AI-generated.

Deka described the flavours to YourStory in June 2025. The tea mead has a smoky, tannic quality that he compared to wine. The King Chilli mead opens sweet and finishes with a controlled warmth. He also said these flavours are not available in meads elsewhere, a claim StartupIndiaX has not tested and one that sits awkwardly with Moonshine’s earlier experiments, covered below.

Sourcing is local by design, according to the same report. Honey comes from indigenous beekeepers in Baksa and Rangia, tea from small growers across Assam, and Bhoot Jolokia from farms in Morigaon.

YourStory also reported plans for a still bottle at about ₹800 for 750 ml, a carbonated 4% ABV can at ₹350 for 500 ml, and a non-alcoholic lemon premix called Nemo X. Those were plans in June 2025. StartupIndiaX has not found a confirmed retail listing.

Two details do not line up across sources. An April 2025 Assam Tribune report listed ginger and pineapple among the flavours, while later coverage and the website name tea and chilli. YourStory’s piece also gave 10% to 12% ABV for the still mead while describing the brand as a 6% to 8% low-alcohol option. Check the label for strength.

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How Dream Hives plans to make money

As of June 2025, YourStory described Dream Hives as pre-revenue. The plan it outlined was to start in Guwahati, Jorhat and Tezpur through bars, pubs and wine shops, then reach Bengaluru, Delhi, Goa and Mumbai within three years.

Deka positions AS01 as a low-alcohol craft alternative to mass-market liquor, with no added sugar and no gluten. Those are his claims, as reported. The company says it holds an excise manufacturing licence and runs a facility at Guwahati Biotech Park with a capacity of 2,000 litres a month.

A little arithmetic shows the scale. This is StartupIndiaX’s own editorial analysis, not a reported figure. If all 2,000 litres went into 750 ml bottles, that is about 2,666 bottles a month. At the planned ₹800 price, that is roughly ₹21 lakh in shelf value, before taxes, trade margins and unsold stock. Treat it as a ceiling, not a revenue estimate.

Revenue, margins, customer acquisition costs and team size have not been disclosed.

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Prizes, a seed grant and investor conversations

Money has arrived in small, public steps so far.

On 5 April 2025, Dream Hives was one of three Assam Startup-incubated companies to win the Startup MahaRathi Challenge at Bharat Mandapam in New Delhi, according to the Assam Tribune. Each won ₹3 lakh. Dream Hives took the agritech category.

“a significant milestone for the Northeast’s first meadery”

Dhruba Jyoti Deka, the Assam Tribune, April 2025

Goswami has said on LinkedIn that the company’s first institutional investment came through the Startup India Seed Fund Scheme via AIC-SMUTBI. The amount has not been disclosed. YourStory also reported that Assam Startup’s incubation programme gave mentoring, branding and funding support. NeateHub, an agritech incubator, has publicly backed the company, and a Fueler roundup lists Dream Hives in the first North East Growth Lab cohort run with IIMA Ventures.

The most recent headline dates from June 2026. In LinkedIn posts, the founders and NeateHub said Dream Hives was ranked the number one startup at the BHARATI Grand Finale on 19 and 20 June 2026, organised by APEDA with Startup India. APEDA’s own 26 June 2026 release confirmed that the first BHARATI cohort of 100 startups from 22 states and two Union Territories, picked from more than 700 applications, had concluded. StartupIndiaX did not find an official list naming Dream Hives or a number one ranking. Treat the ranking as a claim until APEDA confirms it.

Deka has also posted about conversations with NEDFi Venture Capital and the Assam Innovation and Startup Foundation. No priced round, lead investor or valuation has been announced, and this part of the story is still developing. No credible source has published a valuation for the company or a net worth for either founder, so StartupIndiaX does not estimate one.

Dream Hives timeline, 2017 to 2026

The timeline runs from Deka’s first venture in 2017 to the June 2026 BHARATI event. The last entry is a claim by the founders and NeateHub, not a confirmed result.

Where Dream Hives mead sits among India’s meaderies

Dream Hives is not India’s first meadery. Moonshine Meadery in Pune began production in 2018, according to Business Today, and YourStory reported in 2018 that it made 6,000 to 10,000 litres a month. By 2022, Business Today said Moonshine was sold in Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra, Assam, Rajasthan and Silvassa. Cerana Meads in Nashik, started by two biotechnology PhDs, was available in Mumbai, Nashik and Pune that year.

Moonshine’s early years show what Dream Hives faces. Business Today reported in 2018 that mead did not fit an existing excise category and that Maharashtra’s Excise Department created a honey wine sub-category under wine. StartupIndiaX could not confirm how Assam treats the category. A founder’s LinkedIn post says he met Excise Minister Atul Bora to discuss AS01 and that the minister assured support on licensing and compliance.

The flavour itself is not new. YourStory’s 2018 profile of Moonshine lists Assam tea among the flavours tried in its limited Mead Lab Series. What Dream Hives offers is place. Deka told YourStory the brand would stand out for its location and grassroots approach, and the website goes further, calling AS01 “Northeast India’s first and till date only meadery.” Outlets covering the April 2025 prize described Dream Hives as one of the first. Because Moonshine already sells in Assam, the claim is about where the mead is made, not who sells mead there.

What Dream Hives still has to prove

Four questions stay open as of October 2026. This section is editorial analysis.

First, sales. The June 2025 plan was a commercial launch in July to August 2025. An older version of the AS01 site carried a launching-soon banner, and StartupIndiaX found no independent report of retail sales since. In a LinkedIn post, Deka said the brand was now drawing attention in the market as well as nationally, but he gave no figures.

Second, scale. A capacity of 2,000 litres a month is small next to what Moonshine reported in 2018, and a three-city Assam start leaves a long road to the metros named in the plan.

Third, supply. Moonshine’s own site says most commercial honey did not ferment well, while honey bought directly from beekeepers did. Dream Hives sources from beekeepers in Baksa and Rangia, which fits that logic. Consistency at higher volume has not yet been tested in public reporting.

Fourth, exports. BHARATI exists to push agri-food exports, and the founders talk of taking AS01 from Assam to the world. No export shipment has been reported.

What other founders can take from the AS01 story

Start from the asset you already hold. Dream Hives did not set out to build a drinks company. A honey surplus in 2021 forced the question of what else honey could be.

Make the source part of the story. Honey from Baksa and Rangia, tea from small Assam growers and chilli from Morigaon give the brand a supply chain it can explain, even if the flavours are not unique.

Use the ecosystem early. Assam Startup mentoring, seed support through an incubator and a national challenge prize all came before any reported sales. Deka’s first venture also listed mentoring from the same Assam programme.

Test before the label is final. The 500-consumer pilot and sommelier tastings, as reported, shaped flavour balance and bottle design.

Treat the licence as part of the product. Moonshine’s category problem in Maharashtra shows how regulation can slow a first batch. Dream Hives says it holds an excise manufacturing licence and has sought government support.

Dream Hives is still at the stage where the story is a plan, a licence, a few prizes and a product waiting for its numbers. The next chapter will be written in bars and wine shops in Guwahati, Jorhat and Tezpur, not on stage. If you have tasted AS01, or you are building a food or drinks brand elsewhere in the Northeast, tell us in the comments. And if your startup has a story, send it to StartupIndiaX.

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