If you like this e-zine, please "email it forward" to someone you know who's interested in the tea business. If a friend did forward this to you and you like what you read, please subscribe so you don't miss the upcoming issues.

If you have suggestions, article requests, comments, or corrections, please feel free to contact me.

To be sure you never miss an issue of "Tea Business Success News" in your e-mail box, please add the following Tea Business Guide domain to your list of trusted senders / your address book / contact list (in your e-mail software) and to your ISP/ mail service's "whitelist": @tea-business-guide.com

© by Sally Jones; all rights reserved

Since this is the first issue of Tea Business Success News I thought the best place to start is with deciding on what type of tea business to open. There are several types and I would like to tell you why I choose the path I followed and ended up with a web site.

I had visited several tearooms and decided that this was what I wanted to do. I had always wanted to own my own business but could never decide what business to open. I had originally decided on a book store, but you cannot compete with Borders and Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com. So . . .

I begin to explore tearooms. At this time I did not realize the wide variety of businesses I could have opened that related to tea.

Anyway, I begin my search on the internet and found there wasn’t much help in opening a tearoom. I found a Tea 101 Seminar by The Elmwood Inn, which I attended and it was very helpful. Magnolia and Ivy also had a seminar which I did not find until I had already attended Elmwood Inn’s seminar. I bought the tapes from Magnolia and Ivy, however. I also took classes from the Small Business Development Center on opening a small business.

I think the most valuable class I attended was the one on writing a business plan. This has kept me out of more pitfalls than I can explain in this space. I could not find a good location for a tearoom that would fit into my business plan. Fortunately, by the time I finished writing my business plan I realized that the location I had picked would have bankrupted me within a year. I think the reason most small businesses fail is because they did not adequately plan their business and they did not have enough cash reserve to tide them over until their business finally took off.

Because I could not find the right location, I could not let my dream of a tea business die. I decided to cater tea parties in private homes and for local organizations. This investment was a lot less than opening a tea room.

And where has all this led me and taught me?

1) Don’t begin to buy things for your tearoom until you are sure you are going to open it. I had started to stockpile cups and saucers, plates, hats, pots and pans, and retail that I was going to sell. I had spent money needlessly that could have been used for advertising and marketing.

2) Fortunately, I could use the china and hats for catering. However, I had retail that I could not sell at tea parties. I thought I would do in-home parties and sell my inventory. I did one party and realized that the hostess and future hostesses wanted some incentive to have parties. I did not want to invest any more into retail that I had already so I knew that would not work. I was able to buy a booth at our Fall farmer’s market for four weeks and was able to sell almost all of the retail I had bought. However, I did not make a huge profit on it.

3) Catering tea parties was hard work. Advertising was expensive and I had to watch all the pennies I spent on this business. Word of mouth was my best advertisement. However. I did advertise in homeowner’s association newsletters, programs for the opera and ballet and symphony. This way I could target my audience, but it was still expensive.

4) My catering business was just taking off when two tearooms opened here and my phone virtually stopped ringing. Probably was good as I was deciding I really did not like catering.

5) What was my backup? A friend had opened one of the tearooms so I begin to work for her and realized that the Lord had been good to me by not letting me open a tearoom. I saw the work and the things that could go wrong and the decisions that had to be made. I would have been in over my head with opening a tearoom by myself. I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it is hard when you have to make all the decisions yourself and are responsible for everything yourself.

6) I stopped catering and started working in Belle’s Tea Cottage in Reno. I work part time, but I also still have my own business. I begin giving talks on tea and Victorian afternoon tea to ladies organizations—women’s church meetings, Red Hat Society groups, Newcomers groups, etc. I also taught classes at the community college on tea and afternoon tea. I began to get creative.

7) All this time I read about tea and took any tea classes available. The USA Tea Association had seminars and classes at tea events. The World Tea Expo, formally known as Take Me 2 Tea, had a wealth of information. I attended and successfully passed Level 1 and 2 of the Tea Certification classes offered by the Specialty Tea Institute.

8) Now, I have started a web site, tea business guide, where I can pursue my passion about tea.

I know at Belle’s we started out with a restaurant and then added special teas, such as our Harvest tea, Valentine’s tea, Christmas teas, etc. We opened a retail room with only tea related items. Now we have added classes, a children’s party room, and an event every month. Keep an open mind and you can expand and promote your business.

I think the most important thing with a tea business is to remain flexible and be open to new ideas. Even if you have a tearoom or tea business, there are always ways in which to expand it and change it.

Sept. 28-30, 2005:
International Tea Convention with Tea and Coffee Exibition, Hangzhou, China

Oct. 6-8, 2005:
World Tea Forum, The Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York City, New York

Oct. 9-12, 2005:
China Tea Expo, China World Trade Center, Beijing, China

January 2006:
Speciality Tea Institute Level 3 Certification, San Francisco, California

Marach 27-29, 2006:
World Tea Expo, Las Vegas Hilton Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada

We would like to hear from you. If you have any tips that you found helped you build a successful tea business, please submit a tip and we will publish it in a future Tea Business Success News. We will also give you a permanent link to your site.

Contact Sally