TeaChat

It seems that Teavana is buying its way into the Canadian market:

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/teavan ... 2012-04-16

Sad to see the loss of a Canadian company to a foreign entity.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

... well ... looks like they are a match made in heaven ... or hell.

The B&M photos of Teaopia look spectacular ... however ... looking at one category of tea, say unflavored green.

Looking at the Teaopia site, there are 8 non flavored green teas, take out the 2 matcha, and the genmaicha which is "virtually flavored" ... this leaves 5 looseleaf selections. One is gunpowder, one is decaf. 2 are Chinese sencha.

The site offers an opp with one click to "chat live with our Tea Master." Which I did. The tea master however could not tell me anything about the sencha except they were from China. The one description did not say it was from China, I asked about this and was informed, "We don't always call out the countries of origin in the descriptions."

Figure the value of each store is around 500 K based on the purchase price (crude methodology on my part albeit), and the best they can do is Chinese sencha and gunpowder?

I am not trying to pick on Teaopia, but they do seem very much like a Teavana.

While Teaopia throws the rank of Tea Master around very loosely, cheaply, Teavana offers us Teaologists.

the company offers new tea enthusiasts and tea connoisseurs alike its "Heaven of Tea" retail experience where passionate and knowledgeable "teaologists" engage and educate them about the ritual and enjoyment of tea.

riiiiiight ...

Chip wrote:I am not trying to pick on Teaopia, but they do seem very much like a Teavana.

Sadly, Teaopia is pretty typical of the (very few) larger tea chains here in Canada. The smaller, independent, tea shops are a bit better, but not by much.

My regret in reading the news was that someone or company within Canada didn't buy Teaopia and turn it into something better.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

Teavana is a plague.

Its sad to see even a mediocre business get devoured by that slime of a company.*




* Read: Sociopathic Numbers Racket.

Ha!!! As far as Teaopia Edmonton is concerned, they're lucky their brand was bought out before I could torch the damn place

sherubtse wrote: My regret in reading the news was that someone or company within Canada didn't buy Teaopia and turn it into something better.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

At a price tag of 26 million, not really much chance of that happening unless one of us had hit mega millions.

Best to start from a TeaSeed and grow a new and better company. But to be that big, it still has to have that mass appeal. It is a tough formula to hit in a Western market and still become really big. Maybe it is just not possible ... today.

Here is an article with more info on the sale:

http://www.worldteanews.com/page.cfm/ac ... ntryID=507

Interestingly, the head of Teavana thinks that Canadian tea drinkers "are more sophisticated in their choices" than their American counterparts.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

sherubtse wrote:Here is an article with more info on the sale:

http://www.worldteanews.com/page.cfm/ac ... ntryID=507

Interestingly, the head of Teavana thinks that Canadian tea drinkers "are more sophisticated in their choices" than their American counterparts.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

... forked tongue ...

Chip wrote:

sherubtse wrote:Here is an article with more info on the sale:

http://www.worldteanews.com/page.cfm/ac ... ntryID=507

Interestingly, the head of Teavana thinks that Canadian tea drinkers "are more sophisticated in their choices" than their American counterparts.

Best wishes,
sherubtse

... forked tongue ...

The head of Teavana must be one stupid head.
Canadian tea drinkers are right on par with American tea drinkers.
in my experience. I seriously hope this guy gets busted for fraud or something like that.