Fresh Cup Magazine, providing specialty coffee and tea professionals with unique insight into the trends, ideas, products and people that shape their world.
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shop runs tea evenings; in these special events, Myers works with suppliers to land a rare and unique tea that will spotlight how elaborate and distinctive tea can be. "These do well and have really hit a note with people," Myers says. The store also employs an on-site pastry chef, crafts its own hand-made English scones from a family recipe, and provides homemade soups and quiches embracing local and organic pro- duce—all efforts that have further differentiated the store in the marketplace. Much to the owners' surprise, customer demographics are equally divided between male and female, and the store's base also skews younger than that of many tea retailers, led by numerous high school and college-aged customers who frequent the store's special events. "The younger customers are looking for something different, and tea is starting to become trendy as a cool thing to do," Myers says. "They're also a group eager to know more." FINDING POINTS OF DIFFERENTIATION At any given time, the London Tea Room will stock up to 100 loose-leaf teas, a mix of products from big-name companies, boutique suppliers and tea brokers. "As we've grown we've gotten closer and closer to the source, and we're relentless about sourcing the best teas we can find," Myers says. Quality, Myers confirms, is the top product priority. "We don't look at money," she says. "We look at taste." Even as the store works to make its prices "as approachable as possible," it also offers a few "top-shelf teas" modeled after the high-end bourbons and whiskeys available at bars and restau- rants. "We don't sell these teas as much, but as our customers get to know tea more and more, they get more into it and ask more questions," Myers says. The 10-person staff 's mission, meanwhile, is to educate with- out being pretentious, something Myers often observed in her wine industry days. To that end, the store embraces an irrever- ent, humor-heavy approach to squelch the intimidation factor. Staff will also eagerly pull out teas so customers can taste and compare. "We're determined to let people know how wonder- ful tea can be and how they can incorporate it into their lives," Myers says. She calls such customer-centric focus "essential" and cites staffing as a key driver of the London Tea Room's success. "Good people who catch your vision are everything to a business," Myers says. "If you don't employ the right people and teach them how to work with customers, then the greatest products in the world might not save your business from tanking." Myers says the London Tea Room is now at a pivotal point of growth, particularly as the tea space becomes more competitive and customers evolve. In the last year, the store has increasingly entered the wholesale market, concocting its own tea blends to source to local accounts and ship to outlets all across the coun- try. The family has also been approached by numerous different sources to join new developments and has investigated opening additional outlets. "We're feeling a capacity for growth precisely because there is the demand," Myers says. "That's a nice feeling because it means we're catching people's attention and doing some things right." Fresh Cup Magazine 55 PHOTOS BY TEMPEST TEA