Makers & Shakers: Tea with Tae

Tea with Tae

Woman-Owned Business

Family-Owned Business

Minority-Owned Business

Facebook: www.facebook.com/shopteawithtae

Current Gum Pop Presents Events: People + Produce at Belleview Station, Downtown Lakewood Farmers Market, Belleview Station Fall BAZAAR, Platte Street Fall BAZAAR, Sloan’s Lake Fall BAZAAR

Location: Denver, CO

“I've always been a tea drinker, from a little kid through my time in college, but what prompted me to start TWT was actually based on a little problem I had with finding one of my close friend's a gift.”

Tell us about yourself! What’s your background and what do you do?

I'm the Founder and CEO of Tea with Tae (TWT), a woman-owned tea company based in Lakewood, Colorado. I run the day-to-day operations of TWT, which include managing both our e-commerce side of the business as well as our brick & mortar café that just opened a couple of months ago in downtown Denver, called the Tea with Tae Café. In terms of responsibilities, I direct the overall company and product vision and am heavily involved in packaging design and aesthetics. I also lead our retail sales team. Today, we are in almost 200 retail boutiques across the country!

Before TWT, I worked in influencer marketing for a commodity board, so I had exposure to working with creators and entrepreneurs in the food & bev industry. That experience helped inspire me to launch my own tea company in April 2020, and I was able to leverage my connections from my influencer marketing job to launch Tea with Tae.

Outside work, I love hiking, camping, and backpacking with my husband (Rod, our COO) and our Goldendoodle (Lincoln). There's nothing like the Rocky Mountains!

How did you learn your craft? Tell us about your first finished product.

I've always been a tea drinker, from a little kid through my time in college, but what prompted me to start TWT was actually based on a little problem I had with finding one of my close friend's a gift. I wanted to give my friend a tea gift box, but I wanted to pick the types of tea and tea blends that would be included in the box. I couldn't find any sort of tea gift box available, so I made my own, and the "Tea Bento Box" was born.

The Tea Bento Box is a bento-style tea gift box that is filled with either 4 or 6 mini tea tubes. Each tea tube has five pyramid sachets inside. You can mix and match from our menu of 20+ tea varieties to build your own Tea Bento Box. In fact, the build-your-own concept was so popular online that we brought it to life at our TWT Café. We have a whole BYOTBB (Build Your Own Tea Bento Box) wall, where customers can explore all of our tea blends in person and take home a beautifully curated Tea Bento Box for themselves or a special someone.

The Tea Bento Box was heavily inspired by Japanese culture and culinary history. To enhance the authenticity of the Tea Bento Box, TWT partnered with the Japan America Society of Colorado (JASC) to develop educational content around the "bento" and its importance in Japan and the rest of the world. Each Tea Bento Box comes with a little note card that provides a background on "bento" history and TWT's involvement with the JASC. Our goal with the Tea Bento Box is to inspire customers to get out of their comfort zone and try a new tea blend they've never tried before, and better yet, share that tea with a friend or loved one.

Where does the name of your business come from?

My name is "Tae," so that's where it comes from, but it's spelled weird, so "Tea" and "Tae" are anagrams that make the company name unique.

How long does it take to make your product and what’s involved in the process?

Depending on the tea blend, it can take up to a month to source the leaves and herbs, blend them, and then package them. We source our tea and herbs from various places worldwide: China, Japan, Sri Lanka, India, Taiwan, South Africa, Bulgaria, Egypt, and right here in the United States.

"Tea should be a vehicle for people to spend time together, to have interesting conversations, and to make unforgettable memories with friends and loved ones. That's what inspires me."

Where does your inspiration come from?

Our core mission at TWT is to unite people one cup at a time. Of course, our tea is good and delicious (and has many healthful properties), but I started the company because I wanted to give somebody a gift -- to let someone I love know that I was thinking about them. Tea should be a vehicle for people to spend time together, to have interesting conversations, and to make unforgettable memories with friends and loved ones.

That's what inspires me.

What three words would you use to describe your product/service?

Integrity, Community, and Curiosity -- our 3 company core values

What’s your favorite product that you’ve created?

The Tea Bento Box - we also just updated our packaging so version 2.0 of the Tea Bento Box is now here!

What question do you get asked the most at pop-up markets?

“What's your favorite tea?”

What is your favorite Gum Pop Presents event?

Valentine's Day BAZAAR

What other Gum Pop Presents vendor are you dying to collaborate with?

Keystone Inspired Co.

“Colorado has a vibrant food and beverage scene, especially with a lot of other tea companies.”

What’s something unique about you that most people don’t know (or wouldn’t guess)?

I'm Native American (Choctaw).

What is your favorite thing about being a creator in Colorado?

The surrounding landscape of Colorado provides a lot of inspiration, plus Colorado has a vibrant food and beverage scene, especially with a lot of other tea companies (Celestial Seasonings, The Tea Spot, Dushanbe Tea House, Teakoe, and Teatulia, to name a few).

What's your go-to hang out spot in Denver?

The Tea with Tae Café, duh!

If you had one extra hour of free time every day, how would you use it?

Take my dog on a walk or catch up on some TV shows.

What’s next for your business? We invested in an automatic tea-bagging machine and will be rolling out new individually-wrapped sachets for the hospitality industry in the coming weeks. We are also experimenting with cold-brew iced tea cans and running another batch of those in October.