A TEA BAR

How about opening a tea bar! It is less expensive than a tea room and much easier to operate. Health regulations are easier. The investment is less. You still get to educate your customers. You don’t need as many employees. You don’t need as big a place. And, this would still give you a business that would give you an outlet for your passion for tea.

Opening a tea bar is not as expensive as opening a tea room. A tea bar is a business similar to Starbucks. People come up to the counter and order their tea either in a pot or by the glass and take it to a table.

A tea bar doesn’t require the same investment as a tea room. You would need a large selection of teas that could be consumed there but also would be for sale for your customer to take home. You would be able to educate them about the various teas that you have and as they become more experienced in tea they would be willing to try different teas.

The more educated a person is about tea, the more they want to try some of the more expensive teas. Selling loose tea is where the profit is.

Since you would not be a sit down restaurant you would not need a full kitchen. Food sold along with the tea can be purchased pre-made. You would not need to have a kitchen, with all the expensive equipment. One or two good hot water dispensers Serv-U Online to keep the water at the proper temperature would be needed for the different types of tea--170 to 180 degrees for green and 190 degrees for black. Offering chai would require a frother. As for china, cups and saucers and mugs for chai, and then plates for the food is the investment you would have to make. There a fewer health regulations for tea bars than for restaurants. And, you would probably not need a grease interceptor. This is very expensive to install.

You would also want to have a selection of teapots and cups and saucers for sale. It would be important to have a good selection of tea accouterments, also. You would want to have different kinds of infusers such as porcelain, gold mesh, and t-sacs.

If you are going to educate your customers, you need to have the equipment to sell to them. Not only infusers, but strainers, spoons, tea caddies, storage tins, drip catchers, and any number of other tea related items.

A tea bar would be a perfect place to have monthly tea tastings. This would give you a chance to educate your customers on how tea is produced, tea history, and proper cupping procedures. One month you could taste black teas, then green teas, oolongs, whites, flavored teas, and pu-erhs. Holding monthly tea events at your tea bar would not only increase business but give you the opportunity to teach your customers about tea, including the health benefits of tea.

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