Starbucks acquired Teavana!
I don’t really care for starbucks or teavana, however I kinda learned to appreciate starbucks for having the Tazo teas because I spend weeks at a time with Lance in the hospital sometimes even in here a month(no lie) and alls we have is damn starbucks so the Tazo tea grew on me and I can like it ok, I’m not really sure what to think about it all, I do think that ok it will get tea to more people and to coffee drinkers but at the same time look at the teas that its going to get out to these more people teavana?? i’m not sure about that I’m not trying to hate on starbucks or teavana I just feel that starbucks should do coffee crap and teavana should do tea crap, Ive just had a few tastes of teavana and I wasn’t impressed at all really, I guess I don’t really care what starbucks or teavana do lol(no teavana here anyways). I will be most likely to try a teavana tea again tho since they will be at starbucks. If i’m stuck in the hospital and have only starbucks I would drink a teavana tea before I would a starbucks coffee.
My initial thoughts were “oh no, not another big company getting even bigger!” These two are a match for each other. I personally get turned off when any company takes a commodity and turns it into a specialty item solely with branding, which is the case for both Starbucks and Teavana. Both companies buy from large conglomerates who supply everybody else in their respective industries. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s just that I admire companies who truly source from specialty suppliers, growers, etc. That said, after the initial emotional reaction, I realized that this is a good thing for those of us who would like to see much greater growth in the U.S. loose tea market. Tea bags still dominate and with this acquisition, Teavana just hit mainstream and is no longer a company only tea drinkers recognize. Loose tea just hit mainstream America as well.
I also agree that loose leaf tea seems to be on the rise and this combination should boost those numbers. I guess we can also expect some interesting specialty tea drinks as well. Those unaware of tea but avid Starbucks followers might try these drinks and be blown away thinking Starbucks was the first to offer such beverages.. I’m definitely worried about small on the rise tea businesses that we’ve come to know and love.
If we had a brick and mortar operation, I would be worried, because we’ve already seen what the big box retailers do to the small independents. However, I think the online market is very different. We don’t have a store to run, so we run fairly lean. I guess we’ll find out over the next 3-5 years what happens.
I try not to buy anything from the large chain stores including Starbucks. I can’t see any benefits from making large companies even bigger – that’s called buying out competition. It will make life harder for smaller vendors.
Hmm… It is a tough call for me. Business wise it makes sense, butter quality wise, probably not so much. In my opinion, it just means it will get more commercial and large scale. It is hard to go for super high quality when you are such a large chain.
On a positive note, I believe it will pull more people into tea, which will eventually branch off and look into smaller better quality tea shops. I always try to seethe positive light of things :)!
This was more or less my thoughts on it. It will bring tea to more people, who in turn will hopefully look for better quality tea in the end.
Hmm..that’s a great way of looking at it. I hope that’s the case and tea explodes in America. Focusing on the positive is definitely more fun than the negative.
Any news on what Starbucks/Teavana have in store for us in the future?
Yes, Teawade… can anyone post articles about possible changes that will occur within these companies? This site is awesome for me to find things out.
I’m interested to see if/when Starbucks will start offering Teavana’s blends? Although I am NOT a big fan of Teavana, I think more variety is always a good thing!
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