The Serene Cup

Fresh Cup Magazine

September 2005

Bruce Richardson, columnist

Selling Hot Tea in the Land of Cotton

I’ve spent a good deal of my summer traveling in Tennessee, Georgia and Louisiana. It’s hot and especially muggy from all the hurricane rains. For decades, most southerners have sought relief from the oppressive summer heat by drinking “sweet tea” watered down with copious amounts of ice. It is the legal beverage of choice at every social event, church potluck, and family reunion south of the Ohio River. The quality of the tea has always been coincidental to the proportions of sugar and ice in the glass. While it is still the drink of the masses, this regional preference for cold tea seems to be losing ground as hot tea consumption makes a dramatic comeback in the land of Luzianne.

A hot tea invasion began brewing here a dozen years ago and it shows no signs of cooling off. Every little town in Dixie now has a tea room with a tea list that runs off the page. Atlantans, who have just learned how to pronounce cabernet sauvignon and shiraz, now have to contend with lapsang souchong and rooibos. Even Peachtree Street’s venerable Elephant Tea Shop morphed into America’s tea franchise poster-child with a new-age name. Teavana now has 26 stores in upscale neighborhoods across America.

Teavana has taken the clean, minimal Asian look of tea and incorporated it into the lives of tea consumers from Mexico to Minneapolis. They have bypassed the conservative English tea tradition and delivered green, white, oolong and black teas, along with decorative clay and cast iron teapots, to tea buyers from coast to coast.

Nowhere is the heat more oppressive than in New Orleans. Its premier hotel is The Windsor Court, part of the Orient-Express collection of international properties. Taking tea in the lobby has never been more popular. Pots and pots of hot tea are consumed there even in the sweltering months of July and August. There is something very refreshing and civilized about sitting with a cup of tea while a harpist serenades you in a quiet, comfortable oasis.. It seems a world away from the nightly mayhem and madness of Bourbon Street.

One of the south’s oldest tea rooms, The Bottom of the Cup, is just a couple of blocks off Bourbon Street. How do they get customers to drink hot tea? By telling their fortunes. (You can’t do that with iced tea!) Established in 1929 when it was illegal to charge for fortune telling, The Bottom of the Cup set up shop on Chartres Street to sell cups of tea and “give away” tea leaf readings. Seventy five years later, the same family employs six psychics to keep up with the demand for tea and tea leaf readings. You can even have your tea leaves read over the phone. Don’t ask me how they do that!

Meanwhile, in Dallas, Tempest Tea is causing a stir in the Texas tea movement by offering 75 varieties of loose teas and 16 flavors of hip new bubble teas and tea drinks. Since their Lover’s Lane strip mall store opened in 2003, college age tea drinkers have filled the sleek tea room in the late afternoon, while 30 to 50 year-olds pop in for a tea respite or a tea-to-go during the morning. A tea “happy hour” offers $1 bubble teas and green tea iced drinks from 6 p.m. until closing.

Remnants of regional preferences still are in evidence, but most of America is moving to a greater acceptance of tea trends, and a thirst for a much wider choice of quality specialty teas. Best of all, restaurants have finally heard the pleas for better hot tea service and are beginning to brew tea with the respect given to coffee.

Kathy Cary, a James Beard award-winning chef in Louisville, has added a selection of seven loose teas to the menu at her upscale restaurant Lilly’s. The teas are presented in cast iron teapots complete with infuser baskets.

Tennessee’s Blackberry Farm has been named the number one small hotel in America by Zagat S Blackberry Farm, Tennessee urvey for the past two years. Andrew Noye began a loose tea program there when he became beverage director three years ago. Afternoon tea takes place each afternoon in the main house. Brewed teas are combined with spirits to make a whiskey tea highball or a lapsang souchong Manhattan. Noye’s respect for specialty tea came from hearing the late Tomislav Podreka speak about tea during his culinary training at the Culinary Institute at Hyde Park.

“Tomislav’s passion for quality loose tea sparked my study of tea and my interest in providing premium well-made teas for our guests here at Blackberry Farm,” he said from his dining room overlooking the foothills of the Smokey Mountains. “Nearly one-third of our guests now order hot tea instead of coffee at the conclusion of their evening meal.”

Whether you are selling a cup of chamomile or a pound of Pu-erh, there are some specific ways to overcome regional tea preferences and introduce your customers to new tastes in the ever-expanding world of specialty teas.

Tips for marketing loose teas

Point of sale information. I love wine shops that have rating cards and tasting notes on their bins. The majority of wines I buy have ratings of 85 or higher, cost under $11, and have interesting tasting notes listed on the bin card. Evidently, this scheme works well for other wine buyers because a growing number of wine merchants use these cards to increase sales. We are overwhelmed by the aisles of wines that face us. We want someone, or some thing, to encourage us in our buying decision.

The same influences hold true for tea buyers. The smallest amounts of information – tasting notes, pedigrees, awards, food pairing – help assure customers that they are purchasing the right tea. Like the wine novice (including me), tea neophytes seek enlightenment whenever possible.

Sensory stimulation. Our buying decisions often are made not by logic, but by the stimulation of our senses. One of the early marketing techniques of the Republic of Tea was to provide retailers with small, stoppered vials of tea allowing consumers to see what was inside the package. You could even pull out the stopper and sniff the tea before you bought it. Customers immediately made judgments about the product by its effect on their senses.

One of North America’s largest tea suppliers, Metropolitan Tea, for years has furnished large glass display jars to their retailers because the visual appeal of blended teas has such an effect on tea buyers. The fact that light has a detrimental effect on tea is overcome by the increased sales these displays bring.

The majority of tea shops around the country shelve their tea in tins and then allow the customer to smell the tea and see color and quality of the leaf before buying. This is a great way to physically interact with the consumer. Customers often will make their decisions to buy before they ask the price!

Tea sampling. One of the best marketing techniques is the taste test. Sampling teas is guaranteed to raise the sales of dry tea. My wife and I operated a tea room for 14 years. We charged a set price for our full afternoon tea. Our customers could order any of 50 teas on our tea list at any time and a pot would be brought to the table at no extra charge. The object was to broaden our guests’ tea palettes. Often, they would leave our gift shops with several teas in their sack. A pot or two of tea was a small investment in selling $10-15 of packaged tea.

Tea education. I talk to people daily who tell me they don’t like green tea because of the bitter taste. Usually when I ask them how they make the tea, I find out that they use water that is close to boiling. Green tea needs to be made with water that is 30 degrees from boiling or it will taste bitter. Customers need a few tea basics to feel comfortable around a tea kettle. You can give them this information. Print a complimentary card or bookmark listing the temperatures and brewing instructions for the four tea families – white, green, oolong and black. Be sure your telephone number and website are included.

Perennial Tea Room, Seattle

Special events. Tea merchants are very sociable. They love to share their passion for their vocation. Established tea shops, such as The Perennial Tea Room in Seattle and Wild Lily in New York, host regular after-hour events to showcase new teas, products or books.

A book signing or tea talk by a tea personality always draws a crowd and brings publicity to your business. But, you don’t have to wait until a well-known tea master comes to town. You can host an hour-long tea tasting where you talk about the basic tea families and give brewing instructions. A little bit of tea knowledge goes a long way in building up customer loyalty.

For too long consumers have looked at tea as something to drink only in the afternoon with friends or on special occasions. The success of tea in America depends upon us turning to tea throughout the day. Make sure your customers have a tea to enjoy for breakfast, one for the afternoon and another for after-dinner. Show them a selection of four or five teas that they can stock in their cupboard for every occasion. Wouldn’t it be exciting if each customer went home with a package of tea from each tea family? They could host their own after-dinner tea tasting and share their new found tea knowledge with their dinner guests. That’s how the good news of tea will spread. That’s how you help insure your success as a tea retailer.

There is an adage about drinking hot tea, no matter what the circumstance. If you are cold, it warms you; if you are warm, it cools you; if you are tired, it refreshes you; if you are stimulated, it calms you.

Go forth and make tea disciples!

Bruce Richardson is the owner of Elmwood Inn Fine Teas in Perryville, Kentucky and a member of the Advisory Board of the Specialty Tea Institute (STI). Hi is the author of such books as The New Tea Companion.

This article and photographs are copyrighted materials. They may not be used in any form, electronically or in print, without the written consent of the publisher, Fresh Cup magazine.

Windsor Court Hotel, New Orleans

Afternoon Tea at the Windsor Court Hotel, New Orleans