Summer 2007
Steeped in Success By Poornima Apte

Invite Your Customers to Stay

Jan Acker, community relations manager at Stash Tea, has the following ideas for marketing tea in your store:

Place some loose-leaf tea in a cup that customers can see and smell - the fragrance of tea always helps sell. Customers are also surprised to see how different, different varieties of tea look.

Introduce your customers to tea by including a tea bag or two as a thank-you gift in their shopping bags.

If you store your tea bags in jars, attached a fresh, opened tea bag to the underside of the lid, so the customer can smell the tea when she opens the jar.

Brew a pot or two for in-store customer events.

Peter Hewitt, chief executive officer of Tea forté, recommends cross-merchandising teas with related goods: porcelain cups, books on tea. "You want to set a little stage to sell your teas," he says.

Sell Tea, Make Money

Robert Boewe has seen it happening. Over the years, an increasing number of customers at Spice Merchant, his store in Wichita, KS, are looking for and enjoying tea. In the rest of the world, for decades, tea has been the second most widely consumed beverage, behind only water. The United States, however, has only recently woken up to tea’s enormous attractions and benefits. American consumers might be latecomers to the (tea) party, but they are certainly making up for lost time. According to the Tea Association of the USA, a trade group based in New York City, Americans consumed well over 50 billion servings of tea in 2006. The numbers are expected to trend up. Joe Simrany, president of the association, predicts a strong growth for specialty teas, with annual sales increases of 10 percent to 15 percent.

Drink to health

While the interest in tea is fueled by many factors, one of the most important reasons for its rise in the United States is the array of health benefits associated with the beverage. Tea contains flavonoids, naturally occurring compounds that are believed to have antioxidant properties. Antioxidants are widely believed to help prevent cancers and maintain overall health. The current body of research shows that tea helps maintain heart health and fight a variety of cancers.

Suzanne Brown, a tea-marketing expert with Brown Marketing Communications, based in Atlanta, agrees with other industry experts about tea’s popularity being particularly driven by its health benefits. Brown acknowledges that consumers need to be discerning when making choices. “When studies show that tea helps cancer, you can’t start drinking cups of tea and expect to get cured. It’s not a panacea. It’s one part of a healthy lifestyle,” she says.

Simrany says that while consumers have the right to be skeptical about many health claims, the research on tea’s health benefits is diverse and solid. “You can’t really go wrong with tea,” he says. “When you think about it, we are basically talking water and some flavoring that comes from a vegetable product.”

Diversi-tea: white, green, black

As the public has increasingly become aware of the health benefits of tea, the array of specialty tea choices for the average consumer and retailer has widened dramatically. For example, Stash Tea, a distributor based in Tigard, OR, offers more than 200 varieties of loose-leaf tea and tea bags.

There are black, green, and white teas—all come from the same plant. Differences in the types of these teas are a result of different processing methods. Some teas are also distinguished by the regions of the world they are picked from. Then there are the herbal teas, which are not “teas” but mixtures of herbs, spices and other products. Established tea vendors like Tea forte in Concord, MA, and Mighty Leaf in San Rafael, CA, also offer herbals as part of their tea selections. “Herbal teas don’t have the same proven health benefits of regular tea, although there’s a lot of folklore associated with herbal teas—like chamomile tea helps sleep, et cetera,” Simrany says.

Other tea choices include flowering or blooming teas offered by companies like Primula Tea in East Brunswick, NJ, and Teaposy, where flowers unfold after the teas are steeped. Teaposy, a distributor based in Victor, NY, offers a variety of flowers that are embedded in white teas.

Tea education

If the dizzying variety of teas available is intimidating for the gift retailer looking to get into tea for the first time, Simrany advises starting slowly. “Stock a green tea, an oolong or a Darjeeling, teas that are more popular, to begin with,” he says. Educating customers about tea also leads to stronger sales, according to Simrany.

Linda Villano of SerendipiTea, a Manhasset, NY-distributor that sells only loose-leaf tea, recommends that retailers make the process interactive. “Present the tea to the customer in a way that is accessible. If a small bit of the product is displayed near the packaging, then the customer can see and smell (which is very close to tasting). We ‘buy’ with our eyes first—loose tea is beautiful, the different textures and varied colors of the leaves provide opportunity for discussion and provide simple visual appeal,” she says.

Jan Acker, community relations manager at Stash Tea, recommends that retailers get samples, bring their friends together and try the teas before they order supplies. She recommends starting with jasmine and Darjeeling loose teas. Acker says that retailers also want to figure out if they want to start off with loose tea or tea bags first.

“Although some tea drinkers do prefer loose teas over tea bags, the general population of tea drinkers needs to be considered when a retailer stocks tea in his or her shop,” she says.

Tea as gifts

That’s precisely what Heather Carpenter, owner of Shore Birds gift shop in Tiburon, CA, did. Carpenter knows her clients look primarily for gifts in her store. She sells the Tea forte tea bags because the entire package looks attractive, she says. Tea forte packages its tea in triangular “silken infusers.”

“It’s a perfect hostess gift,” Carpenter says. Attractive packaging is not the only way vendors are distinguishing themselves in the marketplace. Gary Shinner, chief executive officer of Mighty Leaf, says the company’s quality tea is accentuated by its emphasis on artisanal style and sustainable business practices. “It starts with the specially handstitched tea bags, to the teas—the whole thing is one beautiful sensory experience,” Shinner says.

What (only) women want?

When Simrany recently went out to Sunday brunch with his wife and mother-in-law, he ordered tea and the women ordered coffee. But when the orders came back to the table, it was his mother-in-law who was presented with the tea. For Simrany, the experience confirmed what he sees as a common misperception about tea: Many Americans think the drink is for older women. “In the United States for a while, there used to be this image that tea meant afternoon tea, where women wear hats and gloves and sit down to tea, but there is very little of that these days,” Brown says. “These days, men are just as interested in their health as women, and they are drinking tea,” she says.

Peter Hewitt, chief executive officer of Tea forte, says the company’s Earl Grey teas are very popular among men. Acker, of Stash Tea, has also observed that there are certain teas that appeal more to men. “Our English breakfast, Irish breakfast and Earl Grey—all robust black teas—are some that men prefer. Lapsang Souchong tea, pan-fired until it obtains its distinctive smoky flavor, is another favorite,” she says.

Even if more men are drinking tea, Tricia McIntyre, founder of Bag Ladies Tea, in Allston, MA, markets her tea bags exclusively to women. Bag Ladies Tea features tea bags with quirky quotes on them like: “Never go to bed mad. Stay up and fight.” The teabags are packaged in tins labeled “Forget Him,” “Sisters” and more. McIntyre says women enjoy her company’s tea products not just as a food item, but as gifts they can give each other. “What we really sell is fun, a way in which we can get a laugh from our experiences as women,” she says.

Selling the tea experience

The popularity of tea has spawned many associated items. Most tea vendors sell the tea experience as part of their tea. Tea forte, for example, has tea trays, individual teacups and dessert plates among its many other offerings that complement tea. Teaposy, too, offers a wide selection of glassware to use in conjunction with its flowering teas.

Shinner, of Mighty Leaf, says the tea experience is great therapy to offset the fast-paced nature of our everyday lives, and believes it is this quality in tea that also makes it particularly appealing to consumers. “It’s a very Zen experience. It’s like yoga in a cup,” he says. Brown attributes the popularity of tea in day spas to this tea experience. “It’s the health and luxury aspects of tea that make spas a real hot market for tea,” she says.

In fact, teas are so hot that Edie Sherman, co-owner of Crazy Rumors in Brooklyn, NY, wholesales lip balms in a wide variety of tea flavors, such as spiced chai and peppermint lemongrass. Sherman says the popularity of tea has really perked up sales for the company’s products. Reading the tea leaves

Industry experts predict that the tea market will continue to be hot. Simrany predicts that consumer education on teas will expand over the years, and that demand for specialty teas will increase. “There’s a desire in the consumer to be more adventurous, to explore upscale products. We have seen that happen here with wines, beers, cheeses, chocolate. It’s now happening with tea,” Simrany says.

Boewe, of Spice Merchants, agrees. “We have seen tea sales really grow,” he says. “There are new companies, new flavors, new packaging. Tea really is the new chardonnay.”

Poornima Apte

Poornima Apte is an award-winning experienced freelance writer and editor. Learn more at wordcumulus.com.




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