This could be my shortest post ever but I'm mulling over some information that I just read.
I just heard that SpecialTeas is OWNED by Teavana. 100% owned by.
I had previously heard that SpecialTeas supplied Teavana with at least some of their teas and some folks in the tea enthusiast world had suggested it was just that some of their teas were sold under the Teavana label.
More digging found some very adamant posts that Teavana owns the company.
I haven't confirmed this information and I hate to spread rumors, but I am really curious if any of you know the story. I must confess to being a bit unsettled by it. I think primarily I'm unsettled by the lack of clarity. It would be troubling to me if it were true and the information is so hidden from public site.
Time for some detective work, I guess.
FIND OUT MORE
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Sunday, March 7, 2010
Whaaaa???
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7 comments:
I haven't found any source that meet Wikipedia's reliable source standards that has even suggested that Teavana owns (or is owned) by SpecialTeas. You've probably found it already, but this article discusses "Private Label Teas":
http://www.teaandcoffee.net/0407/tea.htm
It doesn't mention Teavana but it talks about how SpecialTeas has been pushing that approach, and you can put two and two together.
One thing I've been doing a lot on RateTea.net is digging to uncover ownership relationships as well as reselling. In one case we actually declined to list a company because it was reselling another company's teas as-is, at a higher price, without saying it was doing so, and without any evidence that it was doing anything to distinguish them (i.e. if they blend the teas).
I think these sorts of setups are very bad from a sustainability perspective--the end price paid by the customer is much higher, yet no more money is going to the original producers. It's the exact opposite of the principle of fair trade--it's where the people at the top make the most money, and they do so by selling a product that is available elsewhere at a lower price. I want RateTea.net to be a place to educate people about how the tea industry works and where their money is going so that they can both make wise purchases and get what they pay for, and so they can support small farmers and growers directly.
Please let me know if you find anything about ownership relationships involving Teavana, SpecialTeas, or any other tea companies which is backed up in a reliable source. I would like to add this material to RateTea.net! =)
Hi Katrina,
I think I may know you from Steepster, which sadly I haven't had time for lately. Anyway, where did you come across this information and is it necessarily a bad thing? Does Teavana have a bad reputation?
Alex - Yes, I agree. No reliable source data yet. Mostly hearsay on tea forums. I will certainly let people know if I find more.
Hi Margaret - Yes, I'm a very, very bad Steepster user. I just haven't found the time to fit it in.
I wouldn't say this would be, in and of itself, a bad thing. What I don't like is the lack of clarity. I am uncomfortable with situations where ownership is unclear or deliberately hidden. It reminds me of experiments Starbucks is doing with launching coffee shops that mimic "neighborhood coffee shops" and don't have the Starbucks name anywhere. I just want to know what I'm buying and then I'll base my judgment on the tea and the value. I also don't like the idea of having the exact same tea sold under two different labels (again, without disclosure) for drastically different prices.
Anyway, again, I don't want to suggest that this is proven information. It isn't. It's just something that's been puzzling me of late.
Totally agree with your points about openness of ownership and what product you're buying! Fortunately, as webmasters and bloggers we have a tremendous amount of influence--with a little work we can uncover key relationships and ensure that companies don't get away with being sneaky!
Hi Katrina,
I of course do not know about the situation of ownership. However, being a longtime business person, from what I have read, it sounds like Specialty Tea may be a company which procures and blends tea to order. If this is true, it would be wise for them to have a separate name as it's customers would be Teavana's competition. Even if this were the truth, they would be bound by contract not to take someone else's recipe and remake it as Teavana tea. It would also make perfect sense if Teavana were putting a lot of time and effort into sourcing quality product and wanted to buy in bulk. It would make quality bulk tea's available to all tea companies and be good for the market place. Most of the differences that I can see in the US marketplace is in the quality of the tea and the tastiness of the blend. It seems the bulk of the US marketplace is looking for blended teas.
Your post and this discussion has inspired a post on my tea blog about private label teas. Thanks!
Go here for a long, but interesting thread on that very subject:
http://www.teachoice.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=8455&hilit=specialteas+teavana&sid=d941539fe2e4f7def242d0253b7864a7
It looks like this company takes sneaky to a whole new level.
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