Selling USA grown tea?
Howdy Steepster,
The TL;DR is we need to know what is a good price to sell a USA grown tea for? And would there be interest in micro batches to raise money for the equipment?
USA grown tea is going to become a thing. There are already plantings in Mississippi, Alabama and Florida (besides the current ones in California, Oregon, Hawaii and South Carolina). We’ve got baby tea plants that still have a couple years to grow…but we need to start pruning them into the proper tea plucking table shape. We desperately need to buy some equipment (moisture reader, then a dryer, and then a roller)…
I’ve made a couple micro batches for myself, and have been enjoying it, but I really need to practice. So this would be limited to just: green, white, and black teas. Keeping in mind that these are all practice lots! But on the other hand it would be the freshest tea possible as it would only be plucked and harvested after it had been sold.
On to the marketing questions!
1.) How much would you pay for a decently made 100% USA Florida grown tea? Lets say 2 oz/56 grams.
2.) Would there be interest in people buying micro-small lots (i.e. lots of tea ~~10 grams of tea) to help us raise money for the equipment? What would be a price we could sell that for?
3.) Is there anyone interested in growing tea? I would actually love to see tea growing throughout the rest of the United States.
Where’s the Florida plantation at?
Hey! It is scattered all over. They are right now just tester plants and plots, but most of them are about 1 hour south of Orlando, or an hour east of Tampa. Most of them are in orange groves testing different characteristics (i.e. irrigation, shade levels, soil qualities). If you are familiar with Florida, think Lakeland area (some are near Arcadia).
I live south of Orlando! <3 I’m growing my own tea (for fun). Whats the Florida tea taste like?
This thread may help you.
http://steepster.com/discuss/6108-american-grown-teas
You could start a kickstarter?
Yep, I was wondering about that. But at what donation point would I put the teas at? There won’t be that many of them, and I can’t do them all at once, so wanted to stagger it.
You could also have the kickstarter rewards be the teas you already have, just use it to raise money for the new endeavor.
It’s hard for me to say without running your numbers, I wish I could tell you. I know a lot of people seem willing to fund a kickstarter at a $15-$20 level but balk at higher amounts, so I think it’s good to have both available.
Thanks! I think I might use the 15$ level as a “teas of the world” taster bunch, and then a 25$ level as the micro batch.
I was actually on Kickstarter a couple of days ago searching for tea projects to fund ;)
You could also do something at a much higher price point where someone can get some of all your teas. You might just get people to go for it, so it’s good to offer something that’s up there….
haha yep. I was thinking about making the ultimate prize be a trip to visit the tea plants. The house there has multiple bedrooms and what not, the problem is that after Disneyworld and looking at the tea plants there isn’t much to do in the area.
People keep going there, so there’s something. I know my husband and I went for a long weekend almost two years ago now. We had a blast. EPCOT, drove out to the Space Center, just had a nice time.
i love the space center!!!! i watched a rocket launch this past February. there’s also the small city of Orlando and Universal to go to, if you’re into that thing.
Hey! There’s lots to do here, besides Disney, Universal Studios ad Islands of Adventure, Sea World, and Busch Gardens, and all the water parks and smaller amusement parks, there’s also beaches everywhere, tons and tons of night life, indoor skydiving, laser tag, tons of golf course, and tons of mini golf, all kinds of great restaurants and shopping. We’re tourist city so we have to have tons of things to draw people in and keep them coming back.
The desire for Artisinal hand crafted items is growing everyday. And on this site a lot of people enjoy these quality items.
haha my only concern is that the initial small batches won’t be to as high of a quality as I would like!
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