Picking Leaves
How tea shop pros choose the leaves they put in their customers' cups BY PETER SUROWSKI
Making a great cup of tea starts long before the kettle's put on to boil. Choosing your suppliers, picking which varieties to stock and spotting the best leaves is the foundation of a great finished product. Specialty Coffee Retailer talked to tea shop owners across the country to find out how they decide what will and will not end up in their customers' cups.
THE SOUTH
neighborhood is hemmed between one of the city's ritziest neighborhoods, with rolling hills and multimillion-dollar homes, and its college town, packed with bungalows, loſts and art studios. This keeps Montague's clientele
diverse. "I have poor college kids who come in and say, 'I have $5, what can I get,' and I have customers who will drop $100 and not even think about it," she says. When it's time to choose new products,
MonTea Lexington, Ky.
She brews her tea for her customers, so Danielle Montague says let them choose what teas to stock. She runs MonTea, a hip tea shop
about a mile up the main drag from the University of Kentucky. The shop looks more like an IKEA
showroom than grandma's house. The light woods and pale green colors are gender-neutral, and the shop—which does most of its business selling loose- leaf, but also has a few seats for sipping and sampling—attracts a diverse clientele, from college students to tea connoisseur to morning caffeine fiends. The shop is in a mismatched-but-
eclectic row of independent stores on the area's main thoroughfare. The
she goes to these customers. "I just listen to what they ask for. Something different, something bolder," she says. She stocks 80 or 90 teas, and when
she gets in something new, she puts an invitation on Facebook to come try a sample for free. Letting her customers try the tea and
help her choose new products makes people feel attached to her shop, she says. "It gives people ownership of the teas
we sell," she says. MIDWEST
TeaLula Park Ridge, Ill.
Sheila Duda, the owner of TeaLula in Park Ridge, Ill., gets better teas by cutting out middlemen.
She says tea retailers should buy as close
to the source as possible for two reasons. First, it saves money. More importantly, it gives the buyer more control. "To get the best tea, you have to know
who's bringing it in," she says. Her shop hides on a side street about
a block away from the local train station and a short walk from the ambrosial
Cumberland and Hodges parks and their lush, overgrown surrounding neighborhoods. TeaLula is on a drab commercial block, though, on a lightly traveled road, but her customers don't mind. They come for the tea. Her shop is a destination for Chicago's
tea lovers. Its decor is urbane, with its twirly wrought iron, wood-and-sage color motif and neatly organized displays. No tablecloths, lace or pink is in sight because, she says, that might alienate her clientele. "I don't want people to think of old ladies in white gloves," Duda says.
November 2011 • www.specialty-coffee.com | 33
