Metro East – Lindsey Valentini: Mistress of tea
Lindsey Valentini was never much of a tea drinker until just a few years ago when she stumbled upon the idea of starting a tea company after a few sour jobs in corporate America.
Valentini, 28, operates the Tea District out of her home in Inver Grove Heights. Since starting the business in 2005 with her own capital and beating the pavement at gift shop trade shows around the country, the young entrepreneur today has projected gross sales for calendar year 2009 of more than $350,000, a strong increase from the $8,000 she earned in 2006.
The success has not come easily. “It’s been a lot of work, and it’s often been emotionally draining and exhausting,” Valentini reports. “I was traveling nonstop for 450 days going to shows, some of which last eight days. I would be standing there from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. sampling tea to visitors to my booth. In 2007, I sampled 40,000 cups of tea; in 2008 I doubled that number.”
In 2007, in fact, she attended 15 trade shows; in 2008, the number grew to 30. She’s managed to get the attractively packaged cans of tea into dozens of gift shops and grocery stores around the country.
Locally, Tea District’s classy cans of Chai, Peach Blossom Green Tea and many other varieties can be found at such gift shops and grocers as Lunds & Byerly’s, Bachman’s, Como Zoo, Minnesota Historical Society and St. Patrick’s Guild.
Early on a one-woman show, Valentini designed the colorful tea cans and came up with many of the mixed tea recipes herself after much experimentation. She designed the marketing materials, logos and graphics and those choices are reflected on her website, teadistrict.com.
