At the end of 2012, Starbucks purchased Teavana. That means that Teavana is officially in the Starbucks family of brands. Welcome Teavana!
The Starbucks brands now include Tazo, Seattle’s Best Coffee, La Boulange, and Evolution Fresh. (Technically, Starbucks owns the Torrefazione Italia brand as well.)
I am very excited to be able to start writing about Teavana too! So I thought I’d drop by and see what’s there. The closest store to me is the Teavana in Pacific Place.
Momentarily, I was worried that taking photos inside the Teavana would be a problem. Here in Seattle, I very rarely have any problem taking photos, as it seems as if downtown Seattle partners know the Starbucks photo policy. I took a handful of photos with my phone during my visit, and it didn’t seem to be any problem.
I went in and just pretended to be completely new to tea. (That’s not very hard to pretend. I am much more confident about my coffee knowledge versus my tea knowledge.) I wanted to know what kind of experience there was to be had at Teavana.
I pretty quickly found the large containers of iced tea for sampling – the store was sampling iced “Blueberry Bliss” sweetened with “German sugar.” I easily fell in love with this tea. It was so delicious. One thing I would like Starbucks to do is offer a few more iced teas in the store – or at least one more iced tea. A Teavana partner showed me the loose leaf Blueberry Bliss. One thing that I found interesting is that the only way you can buy Teavana is as loose leaf tea. It’s surprising to me that there aren’t any kind of packaged sachets available. I was delighted that you can buy an iced tea (made to order) in the store. I liked the Blueberry Bliss tea so much that I bought one in the store too. You can see the sample containers and the tea here:
I commented off-handedly that, “I’ll never be able to make my tea at home taste as good as yours,” and it was clear that the Teavana partner took this as a challenge to load me up with everything that I would need to make the exact same iced Blueberry Bliss at home too.
Emily, the Teavana partner helping me, was extremely good at telling me just what I would need. At one point, she said, “You’re going to need a pound of German sugar” and it more phrased as, ‘you’ll buy this too,’ rather than “would you like to buy the right sugar too?” So when it was all done, I had a special tea maker intended for making both hot and iced tea, some Blueberry Bliss loose leaf tea, a pound of German sugar (because one pound is the smallest size it’s sold in), a perfect tea measuring scoop, and small booklet with more information about Teavana teas and brewing tea at home.
Here’s my haul:
Just a few more photos from this trip into Teavana. (I added a couple of the pics to my Pinterest page, and hope to add more in the future.) Notice how pretty their special sugar is! This is just my first my Teavana story on this little site. I’m sure there will be more in the future. 🙂 Hope you enjoyed this first look at Teavana too!
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Teavana partners have very hard sales requirements, so if you note they will always try and hard sell you as much as possible, product of the way the store fires people for not selling enough
I hope Starbucks changes this policy.
You’ll note they also sell you most expensive down, another requirement.
I do not like loose leaf! I have the perfect steeper for use at work, and the mesh cups that sit in your own cup / french press / teapots and the little strainers you place in your cup etc. for various locations (work, home, travel). You need never both with teabags! though I admit they are less scary for new people.
Remember there is no wrong way to brew tea if you like it!
If you don’t, adjust the temp of the water, the amount of leaf or water and the amount of time to get stronger / weaker / less bitter 🙂
@AmazonV – I see what you mean. Totally. I kind of went into Teavana with the attitude ‘bring it on’ because I wanted to see what they’re like and so yep, Emily was definitely pushing things at me. “You’ll need a perfect tea measure too.” and it wasn’t a question.
If I hadn’t gone in with the attitude that I’m writing a blog article, and I’m just giving this whirl, I might have been saying “Hey wait!” and I can see how the hard sell would make for a bad store environment.
I didn’t do a real comparison and contrast to Tazo, but I definitely think Tazo is much more experiential and less hard sale! At Tazo you can buy food and beverage (and some interesting unique beverages like the sparkling tea), you can experience a tea tasting in a relaxed situation on the community table – Very different. Teavana felt much more product-oriented.
I am a huge fan of the Teavana Tea along with my mom and sister. We all have a variety of the sealed tins and a cabinet full off their teas,honey and sugar. Something I learned from one of their wonderful associates was that you can put your tea in the freezer too if it one you do not drink often to help keep it fresh. Score for keeping it longer and not worrying about wasting any of it. A personal recommendation if you like to drink something warm at night before bed try the Honeybush Vanilla with a teaspoon of the White Gold Honey! It is so calming and caffeine free. It is a must try. I started with 2oz and a jar of honey. I have since gone back and bought more of both filling up to 8oz because it is my must have at night these days. And the nice thing it is one that doesn’t break my pocket book because it does not have to be blended with another. Hope you enjoy and keep writing I would love to learn more!
I’m so glad to see you posting about Teavana! There was a period of time in my life when I (gasp!) eschewed coffee for tea, and Teavana was my go-to. I still keep a couple of teas around to brew when I’m working late at night.
It sounds like you got the full Teavana experience, sales staff and all, although I’m surprised they didn’t also force their airtight tea tins on you 🙂 The good news is their perfect tea maker will last you a very long time; I think I’ve had mine for 6 years now. Going back to the staff, I have found them all pretty knowledgeable about the teas they sell. It may be all scripted, but they can tell you the difference between white, green, red, black, and oolong teas, for example, with brewing instructions for each type.
My personal favorites, for what it’s worth, are Precious White Peach, Matevana, and Almondine. Enjoy!
Ok so many thoughts to this blog post! First, I so wish we had this around here. There is a very small store not too far from me but it was not doing well so have not checked to see if it is still there. Second, they would lose me right away if they did the hard sell on me. I do hope SB changes that. Third, favorite tea? Wow the White Peach I have had and like alot but any green tea variety is nice too.
@Michael – You’re in the Teavana home city right? That’s kind of cool. Next time in, I will definitely check out the Precious White Peach. That’s next on my list!
I love Teavana! I’ve been a Teavana fan for over 3 years and as a Starbucks partner felt a little guilty every time I made a purchase. I was elated when it was announced we purchased Teavana, no more guilt and maybe the opportunity to work on that side of the business. Right now I’m enjoying a mug of Slimful Chocolate Decadence and last night my bedtime tea was CocoCaramel Sea Salt.
@Melody I used to be! I moved to Denver in August, where the closest Teavana is 30 minutes away, so I started buying online 🙂
Oh, and one other thought… The Precious White Peach is perfect for at-home brewing. The next time you’re in the store, try an iced Peach Momotaro, and watch it bloom while it’s brewing!
@Cole JB Please do NOT freeze your tea! I own a tea shop and i promise if you keep it in an air tight tin, away from the light it will last you 12 months plus! (also avoid humidity, and moisture, which is why the freezer is bad, much like you should not do coffee in the freezer)
@Purple1 check out teavana ‘s website, so many teas! they unfortunately purchased a very nice tea store a while back and some very nice teas were lost/discontinued 🙁 is it the lack of local tea store you are sad about? hopefully there will be more Tazo blends to help with that!
@Melody I am finding a way to get to seattle this year, somehow, and visiting that Tazo store, I have a hunch it is what i always hopped teavana would grow up to be!
AmazonV I would love a local store like the Tazo store too. I have had Teavana’s teas and enjoy them too.
Happy Birthday Denise!!!!
@purple1: thanx for the wishes!!!!! am headed out now to see my mom and sister (who’s in from New Mexico, rarely get to see her!)
As for tea: not for me. I used to drink some tea every nite, for yrs. Slowly drifted away from it. As for the ‘hard sell’ issue, as I’ve already written about: nothing turns me the opposite way more than that!
Happy Birthday Denise!! Have fun with your family!
We love Teavana here. Have never noticed the hard sell approach here. But we go in with plenty of questions about different teas and equipment and feel like we get good quality answers and come away happy. Took advantage of the recent after Christmas sale and split up our purchase of several teas so that my daughter could have most of it when she went back to college a few days later. She is definitley more of a tea drinker than I am. She received one of the blooming teas as a gift and we just had to get a few more of those. Such fun to watch them bloom!
I am glad that @AmazonV rebutted @Cole JB’s recommendation to store tea in the freezer, her points are very correct. Teavanna teas have a lot of ingredients that have lots of oils and a delicate moisture content. Freezing will rupture the cell walls and you will find that the frozen teas will have a very flat and often bitter flavor profile.
I’ll reiterate to follow her storage recommendations.
In a way I wish Teavana was a little softer in their sell. A newbie can be overwhelmed, thinking that they have to have all this special equipment.
My faves??? Golden Monkey Black and Monkey Picked Oolong….. Now your talking!
Happy Birthday Denise!!! Now I know what the special occasion in RF was all about. 21st Birthday right?
I am so glad that you had fun at Teavana (we’re fans). I have not been to our local one since Starbucks took over, but now that I have Blueberry Bliss on my mind I may have to make a tea run on Monday. 🙂
I’m very excited about the new addition to the Starbucks family 🙂 I do still love tea even though coffee is my drink all day!! <3 Theres a Tevana store in Rancho Cucamonga and thats maybe two and a half hours away from where I live so Im hoping soon to go stop by and take it for a spin!! <3
Samantha I have been thinking about a follow up article to this soon! Wow. I have been having so much fun making iced tea. That German rock sugar is amazing – it a really flavorful sugar. And that blue pitcher designed for making iced tea makes it super super easy to make iced tea at home. I wish I’d bought the larger size. I have been having a lot of fun experimenting. One thing I realize, you need less tea with a black tea over the herbal ones. I attempted to make iced chai using the blue pitcher, and it came out a little too strong, making it in the same ratio of tea to water like the Blueberry Bliss. I really need to get back to Teavana – I want to experiment with more of their teas! I hope you get to a Teavana soon! And yes, I too think this was a great acquisition.