Teavana up to no good?

[disillusioned]

I am college educated currently pursuing a masters degree and have taken a part time job at Teavana. Everyday I work I get the sinking suspicion that Teavana is more or less pulling wool over the eyes of myself and the customers. The information that is fed to me through the training manual and my manager all sounds well and good but I have started to question how true it is. Especially when it comes to the reason our teas are priced so high, how come we are the only company in the US that seems to even carry that tea and the "quality" of our cast iron collection. According to my manager and the training manual all of our cast iron tea pots are handmade in Japan for us and some of them are even "exclusive" collectibles, yet we received a box of them the other day that had Joyce Chen stickers on them. Does anyone know what the real deal with Teavana is? Is there any reason our website lists higher prices for certain items than they cost in store? Is there a reason our Silver needle is priced at almost triple most online stores? Is there really a reason that cast iron is a healthier way to brew your tea compared to glass, ceramic or other methods? Lets talk and help me figure this company out. I was excited to start working for a company that seemed to care. But increasingly I feel they are an evil corporation.

[Pentox]

Hm, this sounds quite interesting. I'd love to be able to read through what they tell you to tell other people, but I suspect that's high treason in Teavana land.

One thing to realize is that teavana does have a retail presence, which most other tea vendors do not have. The cost of running a retail presence does increase their pricing schemes, although in the world of online retail the business model is quite different and strange.

As far as the quality of your cast iron selection I suspect that there may be ones from both sides of the quality spectrum. I would suspect that some of your pots probably are made in Japan and the "exclusive" is very similar to many other exclusive offerings. Laptops for example. If you have a similar model with just one param tweaked, you can make it exclusive. So if you have your pot painted blue instead of red, you can make it exclusively yours!

As far as pricing discrepancies, I would initially think that would be the store line not updating their pricing to match web. That's more of a question of your POS system and online website system.

Silver Needle has a HUGE spectrum of quality. Chances are though that your SN is not 3x as good as someone else's though. Teavana is probably tacking a bit on just because SN is a bit of an unusual tea and they think they can justify it.

Cast Iron doesn't really have much of a health difference. It does brew tea a bit differently due to the high heat capacity, but no health difference that I know of. Anything that may come to mind is incredibly trivial.

Give us all the dirty inside info!

[disillusioned]

Well I haven't had to sign any confidentiality agreements or been giving anything saying that I need to keep quiet so I'll answer any and all questions. The pricing discrepancies I was referring to are actually quite interesting. Online you can buy a Korean Celadon Teapot set with a teapot and 2 teacups for 139.99 in store the set comes with 5 teacups. My manager told me that cast iron actually creates a mineral build up which increases the health properties of your tea over time. Whether that is true or not remains to be seen.

[Geekgirl]

Yeah, several Teavana employees have told me (and others) that the caffeine in white tea is very low. In fact it says on the website that white teas "have very little caffeine." Inaccurate.

White tea is the least processed tea, so it is very high in antioxidants and very low in caffeine. Studies show that antioxidants in white teas help to reduce the risk of cancer, particularly lung, colon, and skin cancer; antioxidants also strengthen your immune system and help with metabolism. White tea is also excellent for hydration of the body and the skin, which acts naturally to reduce the signs of aging (fine lines and wrinkles). And white tea also aids in detoxifying your body.

[disillusioned]

That is exactly the line we are told to give out to customers. We are instructed to say that you would have to drink 100 cups of white tea to equal a single cup of coffee in caffeine content. While going through there training manual I did notice that there caffeine amounts were inaccurate they list the average cup of coffee as having 120-150mg of caffeine.

Yeah, several Teavana employees have told me (and
others) that the caffeine in white tea is very low. In fact it says on the website that white teas "have very little caffeine." Inaccurate.

White tea is the least processed tea, so it is very high in antioxidants and very low in caffeine. Studies show that antioxidants in white teas help to reduce the risk of cancer, particularly lung, colon, and skin cancer; antioxidants also strengthen your immune system and help with metabolism. White tea is also excellent for hydration of the body and the skin, which acts naturally to reduce the signs of aging (fine lines and wrinkles). And white tea also aids in detoxifying your body.

[ABx]

Yeah, several Teavana employees have told me (and others) that the caffeine in white tea is very low. In fact it says on the website that white teas "have very little caffeine." Inaccurate.

White tea is the least processed tea, so it is very high in antioxidants and very low in caffeine. Studies show that antioxidants in white teas help to reduce the risk of cancer, particularly lung, colon, and skin cancer; antioxidants also strengthen your immune system and help with metabolism. White tea is also excellent for hydration of the body and the skin, which acts naturally to reduce the signs of aging (fine lines and wrinkles). And white tea also aids in detoxifying your body.

I think you have to be careful with that. While I agree that silver needle often provides higher caffeine in the infusion, there's a lot of other white teas which do not seem to have nearly as much caffeine as other teas. If you were to average it out, I think that it would be fair to say that white tea (at least the infusion) probably has less caffeine overall.

Prices are a tricky thing. There's a wide range of quality, as mentioned previously, and location will often have a lot to do with it. Tea shops in New York, for example, almost always have much higher prices than a shop in a small town. I don't know Teavana, but I would be willing to bet that if you look at a website for a shop in NY that has *top* quality then the prices would be a lot more.

As for the cast iron, tea is known to inhibit absorption of iron, and brewing in a cast iron pot would give you a little extra iron to off-set that. I personally think that it's probably a bit of an exaggeration to say that it's really an extra healthy way to make tea, but it's valid enough. In today's health crazed world people will take any little thing as a miracle when they could just take a multivitamin to get a greater amount of all these things combined. So it's not surprising, and in fact a good business practice, to play on this stuff a bit, as long as they stay firmly grounded in reality. Contrary to popular opinion I have absolutely no problems with corporations doing things to grow the business, as long as they don't take things too far or sacrifice too much. If I encounter a business that I really like then I want them to do well, offer more, and stick around - so I like to see them make smart decisions that help them do that, and most of those decisions are psychological moves to appeal to more people. Just as long as they're not disseminating misinformation. Example: tea is a healthy beverage that will help improve your health and have more energy - good. Tea will magically make you loose 100 pounds in one month while you watch tv! - bad.

[heavydoom]

why are you disillusioned?

[Chip]

Welcome to the grand illusion,
come on in and see what's happening.
Pay the price, get your tickets for the show

... America spells competition,
join us in our blind ambition ...

Realistically, Teavana has accessability with huge overhead. As a result, they are a good entry point due to the accessablity in malls, etc. But I suspect they are unable to retain the customer base, losing a large percentage of customers once they do a little research on their own. Plus the teas that I actually saw looked inferior at best.

Joyce Chen is pretty low end stuff, and they charge Iwachu prices. Plus some of Joyce Chen stuff, if not a lot, is made in China, not Japan.

I was in a Teavana several weeks ago, it is a cool place, but clearly the sales staff is geared to approach walkins as ignorant newbies with money. I know the poor guy was required to bug anyone until they bought, but a seasoned tea drinker will soon see through the facade. Interestingly, he never asked what tea I liked, for instance, instead shoving various brewed Chai samples. They are there to control the discussion which is typical sales, but not to ask the right questions.

I have no problems with capitalism, but I also believe in free speech.

[disillusioned]

why are you disillusioned?

I believed I was going to work for a company that was truly interested in helping tea reach the masses, and matching the right item to the right customer. But the longer I work the more I see that it is just another greedy corporation as my manager keeps telling me we need to stop being order takers and start telling the customers what they actually should want.

[heavydoom]

why are you disillusioned?

I believed I was going to work for a company that was truly interested in helping tea reach the masses, and matching the right item to the right customer. But the longer I work the more I see that it is just another greedy corporation as my manager keeps telling me we need to stop being order takers and start telling the customers what they actually should want.

i think i know what you mean. you truly cared for the customers, what they wanted, not forcing the customers to buy the most expensive tea in the name of the capitalism which your company wanted you to do.

[Pentox]

Hm as far as the Celadon teapot set goes, I would be tempted to (hopefully) believe that the reason is due to a change in the product from the supplier. Web stores typically operate from the same location as the distribution warehouse, so a product change would affect them first. And then as the stores would sell out of the 5 cup version they would receive in the 2 cup. I would imagine such a change from the vendor would correlate with a drop in cost, but a less scrupulous store will retain the higher price to increase margin.

As far as a theoretical mineral buildup, I would believe that to be quite a stretch, especially since I would believe that all cast iron sold by Teavana is going to be coated/lined. Any mineral buildup would be against the coating and not involving the actual cast iron. I'm calling BS on it being better for you.

100 cups of white tea vs 1 cup of coffee is ridiculous. Although I wouldn't go so far as to say that a cup of coffee having 120-150 mg is wrong, it's misleading without having all of the brewing params of the coffee and the tea together. Coffee numbers vary greatly because coffee itself varies greatly. 120-150 is within reason for a small and light cup of coffee. But to say that it's 100:1 would mean your cup of white tea would be packing 1.2 -1.5 mg of caffeine. Which would make me wonder if they're brewing tea with one teaspoon of SN for like a 32 ounce pot at 140F serving in a thimble.

[disillusioned]

why are you disillusioned?

I believed I was going to work for a company that was truly interested in helping tea reach the masses, and matching the right item to the right customer. But the longer I work the more I see that it is just another greedy corporation as my manager keeps telling me we need to stop being order takers and start telling the customers what they actually should want.

i think i know what you mean. you truly cared for the customers, what they wanted, not forcing the customers to buy the most expensive tea in the name of the capitalism which your company wanted you to do.

Exactly, my manager insists that we tell every customer our favorite type of tea in the store is our monkey picked oolong because it is $25 for 2oz and she even gets upset when we tell customers otherwise

[auggy]

I can't really comment on the other items, but since we are talking about Teavana...

Apparently my tea love got SIL interested in it so she went into a Teavana at her mall. She tried some tea and liked it but then the employee started telling her that she should switch from her regular coffee to tea because coffee drinkers smell bad and coffee increases one's toxicity while tea detoxified (and apparently doesn't make people smell bad). Are these anti-coffee points ones they typically use to sell tea? It strikes me (and her) as odd. And fairly annoying.

[heavydoom]

i avoid places like teavana. true heads will know the true tea seller. heads will prevail. heads know.

[disillusioned]

One of the main points we are told to express to people is how unlike coffee, the caffeine in tea affects you jitter free. They also liken all caffeine content in tea to a cup of coffee. For example the white teas we are told posses about 1% the caffeine of a cup of coffee, green teas 5-10%, oolongs 10-15% and black teas about 20%. We are also told to direct coffee drinkers towards our sample of MateVana and Rooibus chai since it has a coffeeish flavor and a decent amount of caffeine.

I can't really comment on the other items, but since we are talking about Teavana...

Apparently my tea love got SIL interested in it so she went into a Teavana at her mall. She tried some tea and liked it but then the employee started telling her that she should switch from her regular coffee to tea because coffee drinkers smell bad and coffee increases one's toxicity while tea detoxified (and apparently doesn't make people smell bad). Are these anti-coffee points ones they typically use to sell tea?