Lessons learned from tea business successes and failures

 

I'm not the most natural person to be writing on this topic, since I don't sell tea, or earn any income from writing about it, but as usual this topic came up in online conversation.  A few tea sales ventures that looked like they were definitely going to succeed ended up not working out, in spite of taking novel steps that poised their businesses to do so, and there are lessons to be learned from this. 

The main lesson, as I take it, which I communicated to an online friend developing a tea business, is to stick with it, to give the venture time to build up, and accept not making profits early on.  I think all of these examples of "failures" described here would have eventually been success stories if they had stuck with it.  Let's see though, by examining those cases, with the obvious limitation that I'm guessing about why these businesses didn't succeed in time to continue.  The vendors didn't tell me the reasons, even though I did talk to two of them a little about that subject.

A few opposite examples of success stories are included at the end, not so much to contrast approach, but really just to show how similar approaches can work with either a bit more background work foundation or more time allowance to build up a business.

Temple Mountain Tea:  

This vendor made a great tea reference, a tea flavor wheel, so many years before the Australian Tea Master's group made their own quite good version.  It's this one:

Their last Facebook page post was in 2014, so they were there pretty early for this latest round of ramping up of specialty tea interest (much as that goes by distinct cycles).  Just for timeframe reference Phyll Sheng's blog (not his real name?) was active from 2006 to 2007, back when Marshal N was getting started in blogging, which I take to be one of the earliest online documented specialty tea interest "waves."  He posted some again in 2016 and 17.

We might speculate that they were starting early enough that uptake was limited.  I don't know though; maybe as awareness and demand ramps up vendor market entry does too, and maybe that was as good a time as any to get into vending.  The unique point here is that this vendor at least took time to make a great practical tea reference, and then later didn't keep on with tea vending.  They were probably busy doing something else; tea businesses are often set up as a side interest.

Tea Setter:

Again the theme here is that a vendor took a very promising and successful novel approach, only to see that not work out in terms of business longevity.  This vendor, a business owned by Matt Kitchen, reached out to the blogging community and was very well promoted by a lot of online posts back when they were active.  Here is an example, a Tea For Me Please post, or this one tops a Google search for the vendor name.  As the vendor name indicates they were promoting sales of teaware and also loose tea, with a shu pu'er being reviewed in that post (oddly not referenced as sheng or shu, but that can happen, especially back in 2013, before a standard list of details about versions became more customary).

So what went right, and wrong?  Tea theme issues or vendor mentions have always came and went in tea blog and tea group discussion circles, and this vendor was the talk of those right around then.  It seemed a great way to gain promotion.  Most of that talk was positive, with some reviews less positive about a shu version tasting a bit fishy, if I remember right.  I doubt that was any singular reason for this vendor dropping the theme (assuming they have, but the vendor name being Google-proof definitely implies that, beyond those reviews).  

I would guess that patience for the business to become profitable to a certain level was more of a concern, since tea demand would've been limited, as is still true today.

Lots of vendors across a broad time period have made good use of social media forms to promote awareness of their brand, I just don't remember any one of them generating this much positive buzz at one given time.  Tea related social media was more limited and consolidated back in 2013, so it would be hard to get the same proportion of online tea community attention today, for the forms and channels being a lot more diverse.  Bloggers seem to not have the influence that they once had, and my own blog gains far less readership than it did two or three years ago.

Tea Journeyman:

This example would be familiar to anyone active in online tea discussion at that time period (Kevin's review posts ran from 2013 to 2018, with the business active in a narrower window between those times).  It was a competent and well-developed blog, and a mature and well-formatted tea business attempt.  Kevin took training courses to support background knowledge, so he could've made some sort of sommelier / expert / master claim, but given how those tend to be received in the tea industry he mentioned that without overextending a related status claim.

My review of a Satemwa Malawai white tea version sold by the Tea Journeyman indicated that business had closed by 2015.  I had bought a Harendong Indonesian tea from him then too, which should indicate how trendy the vendor sources he was carrying was, since both were very well regarded.  Harendong must still make great tea, but again the buzz about new and interesting types, origins, and producer sources keeps changing over time, and those were "hot" back then.

Given how much I respected Kevin's blog content and his business approach I don't want to add too much speculation here about what parts worked and what didn't.  I'll cite his own 2018 explanation a little related to putting time into a tea interest and move on:

Yes, the tea reviews have been few and far between lately here. Life gets busy sometimes, and unfortunately taking time to prepare reviews is not always a priority.

I remembered there being more to that; maybe I was remembering a reference from his "about me" section as combined:

Other personal notes: I received my Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration and Accounting from Clarion University of Pennsylvania. I am a licensed agent/broker of property, casualty, life, accident, and health insurance in the states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and New Jersey. I also hold the Certified Insurance Service Representative designation through the National Alliance for Insurance Education and Research, and earned the Certified Insurance Counselor designation in 2018 through the same organization. 

So he had career objectives to focus on around the time he stopped blogging, and maybe family or other obligations as well.  It may have been great for him if a tea business could've "blown up" in short order, but a recurring theme here is that it takes dedication, time, and a long view to make a tea business work.  He was really active from 2013 into early 2015 but it's still not long, probably less than two years of business attempt.

And that's already most of the story, about tea vendors who experienced interesting and positive successes, but not eventual business success.  I wanted to contrast those with three other vendors who have lasted through the long haul, very successful businesses, in order to guess at what differentiated them.

Yunnan Sourcing:

It's not really a fair comparison, referencing one of the most successful Western vendors there is. I think there is good insight into business perspective and developing a tea business background step by step in his Scott Wilson's example though.  This Tea Epicure post (surely formerly World of Tea) blog post by Tony Gebely tells part of that story:

...I came to Yunnan in 1998 and just fell in love with the place, especially the tea and the food. In 2004, I got fed up with being in the states and decided to pursue my dream of living in China and doing something with tea... 

We have a tea room in the Kunming Wholesale tea market. It is a place solely to drink tea. We have a library of more than 600 pu-erhs that are available to try! Our eBay store is our only online presence at the moment. Most business is conducted outside of eBay. In fact, individual customers with small orders can contact me directly and get at least 10% (or more) off the retail price. We will open yunnansourcing.com and yunnansourcing.us before the end of 2009. The latter site will feature products that will ship from the USA instead of China...

So Scott took five years to build a business from an onsite presence in a main Chinese tea market, up to an Ebay store, and then finally onto China and US based sales sites and businesses, only after that.  In writing about talking with an even earlier pioneer of tea sales, David Lee Hoffman, I cited a tea blog post that looks to include an image of Scott in that market in 2008, but it's not labeled as such.

Of course it's not really fair to go back and select one of the most successful tea vendors and then say a narrow set of inputs led to that success, when luck, or good timing, or any number of other factors could've came into play.  To me the success seemed to relate to putting the right work in, over time, but that's just a personal read on it.  In retrospect there was a gap in China based sales options that didn't extend to "the West." Moving to China is a bit extreme; of course I'm not implying that's the appropriate or essential level of commitment and input.

What Cha:

To me this is a positive success story, about a vendor starting out at almost exactly the same time as the Tea Setter and Tea Journeyman business, drawing on almost exactly the same business theme as the Tea Journeyman, probably matching products back then in many cases.  I'm pretty sure this vendor followed a pattern of carrying teas I reviewed not so long after I posted about them some years back, but really why not use blogger references as sourcing leads?

Their "about us" page adds detail about their theme:

I started What-Cha in 2014 with the goal of sharing my love of tea and it's incredible diversity and unique taste with others.  I wanted What-Cha to be different and unique from other tea stores and to serve both the tea producers and consumers.  To that end, I have tried to abide by the following principles:

Unique Sourcing:  It is my belief that too many companies rely on a small pool of wholesalers from whom to source their teas from. This is negative for consumers who find a lot of the tea stores selling identical teas to each other and a huge problem for tea producers who are forced to give large discounts to wholesalers due to their negotiating power derived from how much of the tea market they control.

This is why I have chosen to source all my teas direct from the producer where possible... 

This is exactly what Kevin Craig of the Tea Journeyman business was doing, and a founding principle for Tealet, and so on, a very common theme.  This makes perfect sense, only one step extended beyond producers venturing into selling tea directly.  Execution is everything; they made it work, which probably took a lot of doing.  For being based in Britain Brexit must have been something of a business nightmare for them, but they're still around, surely making adjustments as necessary.

Alistair, the owner, mentions a commitment to keeping pricing low in that vision summary; let's check that with a benchmark version, Jun Chiyabari teas from Nepal.

This What-Cha NEPAL JUN CHIYABARI 'HAND-ROLLED TIPPY' OOLONG TEA lists for 12 British pounds per 50 grams, now on sale for 10.80, which converts to $14.28 USD.  That is pretty good for that tea, or even the $15.86 cost prior to sale seems pretty fair.  

How can I really support that, that the value sounds good to me?  Another US vendor outlet (and favorite online contact / friend, their manager Peter) Trident Bookseller and Cafe lists what I would bet is a really exceptional Nepal black tea selling at a great value, so we can use that as a baseline:

Nepal Needles, Kanchenjungha tea estate in Eastern Nepal, $7.50 per ounce.

That works out to be just under $15 per 50 grams, since two ounces equates to 56.7 grams; roughly the same.  That Trident version:

I'm not sure that value necessarily means more in relation to business success than the many other factors that come into play:  branding, marketing, product range and quality, unique offerings versus standard product listings, active social media exposure versus just running ads, and so on.  Quality and value are relevant considerations for customers though.

Tea Mania:

This is a really interesting business example, and a vendor I've ordered tea from a few times, with an owner I've actually met (only once, if it matters).  Their sheng pu'er selection seems about as good a quality and value as anything in that range selling online.  Let's unpack their approach, background, and business theme a bit.

This is a Switzerland based online-only vendor, which started out as a Thai tea outlet.  That subject is pretty familiar; lots of people visit producers here and notice that pricing is quite low for wholesale level volumes.  His website shop looks pretty good; that part can't hurt.  Early on he was developing a Teapedia site, which still exists, and interesting endeavor that was really more about expressing his own interest and developing broad awareness than serving as a promotion tool.  

And this is where the standard business development story varies:  Peter Pocajt (the owner) went on sourcing trips in China and Japan to learn more about types and to expand his product range.  That's taking a long view, putting that kind of effort and expense in, but per my understanding his personal interest in tea allowed it to double as a vacation experience.  In discussing this business theme with him just a little he said the initial ramp-up was really slow, so patience also played a big part.  The business isn't a main revenue source, which led other business owners to let it drop once the return didn't come early, but Peter took that the other way, as a good reason to keep making changes and try harder.

A bit of an aside, some of the key red flags related to describing teas and marketing context are glaring in his product descriptions.  I'll focus on two:  almost all of his sheng are described as gushu material, and said to be produced by a local "tea master," Master Panda.  Ordinarily that's reason enough to not even try the products, since at least 9 out of 10 outlets exhibiting those warning signs are selling pretty random versions of teas, probably not really realizing which parts or those stories are true and which are made up.  Here's the thing though, if we set aside that problematic "master" designation if you go to Yunnan, as Peter did, you could meet people who are part of old tea traditions, who are very adept at making tea versions.  It's better to never include that one concept in claims, but it could translate over from something less loaded and unlikely to be nonsense from a Chinese language.

There is an interview post about Panda's background on Peter's site; he moved from another region in China to start making tea in 2004, and learned under the kind of teacher that might more naturally wear that kind of label, if it ever makes any sense.

Panda is on the right; I think I can guess that nickname origin

As an example about that "master" designation, a tangent within a tangent, my "family monk," who I lived with for over two months while ordained as a Thai monk, I have no real role definition for.  The concept "master" is probably the one that applies most, I just don't use it.  From there "teacher" is second best, but he never taught me all that much, because even though I lived with him and spent all my time with him back then, and try to visit often now, he never taught me that much, because of the language divide.  Someone else might just take the leap and say that's their Buddhist master, but I really think of him as extended family, as a beloved but slightly formal uncle.

a pandemic era temple visit; must've been a dip in exposure for an event to be held

10 years ago; he can't touch Kalani, for being female, but he always liked visiting with both

getting accustomed to Thai traditions while young

Back to Tea Mania, I don't know how the gushu / plant age / natural growth origin claims work out in relation to any of their teas (which they discuss a little in that interview; many aren't presented as that, instead as shengtai or arbor origin teas).  Maybe the origin type descriptions are just nonsense, almost entirely wrong, or maybe it's entirely accurate, and good local contacts are enabling buying pretty good, high demand tea material from modest demand local areas, without pushing on to the typical $1/gram final cost range.  Maybe the material is quite mixed; that's possible.  To me the teas are good, distinctive and clearly high in quality, which is the main thing. 

I can't distill their case to a "lessons learned" summary; I'm just describing parts of it.  It seems to me like sticking with it and escalating business effort and input instead of dropping it all in relation to early limited demand and profit return was the main key, but maybe that's not exactly right.

Related to one subject that keeps repeating here, to me an example of a current trial in progress for online exposure is represented by the vendor-specific Discord groups.  I'm registered to participate in two, hosted by Farmerleaf and Liquid Proust.  It's a little less straightforward than actively discussing tea in Tea Chat and Steepster, and sending bloggers some samples, but it might be a current effective approach, even though activity level at both of those seems moderate.  The running theme in this post was that there is no magic bullet though, that any one highly effective outreach tool can be very helpful, but all the conditions really need to come together, typically requiring support of extended time for positive business influences and consumer awareness to build up.