Starbucks acquired Teavana!

45 Replies
Babble said

I found this comment on another thread about the same topic and found it very insightful, so I thought I would repost it here:

“Teavana actually started with a pretty strong drink service element. They got more into the loose tea and started downplaying the beverage service maybe 7-8 years ago. But the quality of their teas has been dropping the last few years, and they’ve been shooting much more for popular flavors rather than good tea. They just brought on their first Marketing VP and started a new customer service initiative.

I’ve been waiting for an acquisition like this for a while. I expect that Teavana will start to carry fewer teas, more of which will be flavors. I’d be surprised if they didn’t come out with a Teavana brand of tea bags and bottled pre-made teas. I’d also be surprised if they didn’t add some coffee stuff to the Teavana stores."

The first time I went to Teavana many years ago it was more like how you’re describing it up there. Me and my mom were loose leaf noobs, and we didn’t know what kind of tea we wanted in our bubble tea. The salesperson gave us a lot of suggestions but didn’t try and push anything on us. It was a delicious and exciting time. I was so upset when they stopped serving drinks.

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This would be the second Tea company to join the Starbucks borg. (Tzao being the first if I recall correctly)

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momo said

I’ve been listening to NPR and I don’t know if it was specific news for here, probably, but they were an easy buy because of their poor stock market performance (even with today’s massive gain of 50%, it’s down 45% since they’ve been public) and their less than steady profits. They also said some positions with corporate will probably be cut but nothing into what exactly the plan is or if it’ll just be the same as usual.

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I think it’s a great opportunity to expose more people to the amazing beauty of tea. It is our job to educate and inspire our new tea loving friends when they start becoming interested.

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tperez said

It could potentially be a good thing if it means a change in sales tactics or a move towards “tea bar” instead of door-to-door tea salesmen in a box.

I’m yet to have a barista try to sell me an extra large whos-a-do-whatsit-espressolatemocachinoextrafluffycaramelioto when I order a small coffee lol :P

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Zephyr select said

Yeah I am not sure how I feel about this….I guess we will have to wait and see.

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Well, Starbucks is opening or has opened their first Tazo shop this week. Maybe it means there will be more of those in the very near future and more types of tea too?

Here’s Tazo’s new website: http://www.tazo.com/

I hadn’t heard anything about this in a while and thought they scrapped it, especially after hearing they bought Teavana. I wonder how that is going to work having two different tea shops.

I suspect Teavana will eventually turn into Tazo shops.

My thoughts exactly. I think the Teavana brand will be absorbed into Tazo.

I agree as well.

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timeskips said

My Facebook wall is flipping out, more than one of them work at Teavana.

From what I was reading, it seems they’re going to keep the Teavana ‘brand’ mostly as-is, and work it like they do the Starbucks and Seattle’s Best coffee brands—Teavana will be the ‘better quality’ brand, grain of salt or not, and Tazo will continue to be the more middle of the road stuff?

It could turn out well, who knows? Starbucks owning it might bring the benefit of having more buying power behind the brand, which means that the quality of the product might increase. Maybe. That’d be a bright side, yes?

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Wonks said

It’s a terrible company buying a terrible company. I make nothing of this except they’re going to find out some way to smug up tea…. perhaps an Apple & Toyota Prius endorsed Teavana brand Tazo “triple shotted super green cider latte”. My last visit to a starbucks involved me yelling at the associate because he told me i was wrong for complaining that my sister’s “green tea shouldn’t be boiling”. I honestly can’t wait until their next step of evolution to take place and replace stores with vending machines that squirt out coffee into “venti” sized paper cups.

>___< /starbucks rage

JubJubs said

Having had worked at a Barnes and Noble Cafe, “No, sir, we are not technically a Starbucks, but we sell Starbucks coffee. You can’t use your Starbucks gift card.” But we are trained by the Starbucks standard, and the standard is that the moment a person steps in line they should get their drink within three minutes.

Now there is absolutely no way anyone can produce a good cup of tea, with three caramel machiattoes on bar, five venti strawberry creme frappaccinos on back bar, one breve, two vanilla lattes and two multi-grain bagels with creme cheese.

There is absolutely no way someone can make a decent cup of tea when the goal is to crank out as much stuff as possible. So I have no idea what Starbucks will do with another tea company. It won’t make sense to add it to the coffee menu, I either imagine a bunch of angry baristas or customers, but probably both will be angry.

Wonks said

Yeah, I’m probably anti-starbucks, but at a neutral observer point of view I see it going against everything tea is- elegant, slow, making with great care…. etc. I just see it be a terrible thing.

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Never thought I’d see SpecialTeas associated with Starbucks! however remotely it may be.
A friend works at Teavana, which is the only reason I really care(hope she keeps her job!), otherwise I’m rather indifferent to the merger.

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