About tea:
- Black, green, Oolong and white teas all come from the same plant, a warm-weather evergreen named Camellia sinensis. Differences among the four types of tea result from the various degrees of processing and the level oxidization.
- Much of the world's tea is grown in mountainous areas — 3,000 to 7,000 feet above sea level, situated between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn in mineral-rich soil.
- Tea is nearly 5,000 years old. It was discovered in 2737 BC by Chinese Emperor Shen-Nung, also known as the "Divine Healer."
SOURCE: The Tea Association of the USA
Naoko Tsunoda cradles a single, silver-tipped tea bud — and beams proudly.
Smiling, she runs her forefinger across the soft, suede-like, hand-plucked (and hand-sorted) white tea making its way from a southern China tea garden to this sleek Buckhead high rise.
Tsunoda, the tea authority for Atlanta-based Teavana, calls this process “the sensory evaluation of quality.”
Inside this suite with floor-to-ceiling windows and a view of Stone Mountain, teas from around the globe are tested and selected, as the company prepares to do to tea what Starbucks, Teavana’s new owner, did to coffee.
Wearing a white lab coat and strappy gold sandals, her hair pulled back in a ponytail, Tsunoda is petite, pretty and perky.
During a recent visit, I became the first reporter allowed inside this Teavana cupping room. Only six company employees (including the CEO) have the code enter this special tea room.
“We have the recipes in in here,” said Tsunoda whose official job title is Director of Tea Development and Tea Authority for Atlanta-based Teavana. “We closely guard it — like the secret formula for Coke.”
On a recent morning, white ceramic cups (and teapots) neatly line an 11-foot-long, white Corian countertop.
Tsunoda begins sampling that silver needle tea, taking a deep breath through her nose and exhaling. Then she loudly slurps the warm tea.
“It’s very floral. Bright and crisp, still mellow and a little tiny bit of bitterness. It is perfect,” she says cheerfully. “It is star bright.”
Teavana, which has about 300 shopping mall stores including six in metro Atlanta, expands its footprint today. It will open a tea bar in New York City’s Upper East Side, the first of its kind for the company long associated with buying tea in a store – not sitting, sipping and lounging with a grande cup of tea.
Called Fine Teas + Tea Bar, the Teavana tea bar will serve many teas including earl grey lattes, green tea lattes and exotic teas from a “Wall of Tea” (from $2.95 to $5.95 per cup) along with tea-friendly bites — macaroons, shortbread cookies and butternut squash couscous salad. In November, a second Teavana Fine Teas + Tea Bar is planned to open in Seattle, where Starbucks is headquartered.
While company officials say more tea bars across the country are planned, no specific times, locations have been announced. (There are no immediate plans for one in metro Atlanta.)
Starbucks, which acquired Teavana about a year ago for about $620 million, hopes to repeat its success with coffee.
Already, tea has been enjoying rising popularity. Americans consumed about 79 billion servings of tea last year. Total tea sales have increased 15 percent over the past five years, according to the Tea Association of the USA.
As Teavana makes its push to make sipping tea a daily ritual, Tsunoda is in charge of its complete line, more than 100 loose tea varieties. Tsunoda became the company’s expert in tea selection and developing new blends about three years ago. She designs every brew from the Youthberry & Wild Orange Blossom blend to the rich, spicy Maharaja Chai to this gentle white tea being served on a recent morning.
Teavana, which means “Heaven of Tea,” was founded in 1997 by Andy Mack and his wife Nancy, who shared a passion for tea culture and wanted to develop it in the United States. Mack quit his job, and he and Nancy poured their life savings into a 700-square-foot store in Buckhead in the late 1990s where curious Southerners wandered in to sip tea that wasn’t served over ice.
Working far in advance, Tsunoda is setting up late 2014 and early 2015 product lines. Every season can be from different tea gardens. The process begins with a small sample bag of just a few ounces. If Tsunoda sees potential, she asks for a bigger, 2-pound sample size. Each recipe goes through five to six revisions. The development process can last 12 months. Tsunoda and her team evaluate teas from gardens around the world but mostly the mineral-rich soils of China, India and Japan. A tea garden from Rwanda recently won over Tsunoda, and its English Breakfast tea made the cut.
One of Tsunoda’s new recipes – white chocolate peppermint tea — hits Teavana shelves this month. Her goal was to “evoke candy cane, holiday themes,” she said. The recipe started with white chocolate, hickory and rooibos, an herbal tea. But what made the flavors come together, she said, was the peppermint oil.
Born in the United States, Tsunoda moved to Japan when she was 8 years old. She returned to the United States for college, and has since remained. She developed an affinity for tea as a youngster, first sipping tea when she was 12. She remembers her gentle grandmother scolding her only once — for using overly hot water for a green tea which made the beverage too bitter, when a milder temperature of closer to 175 degrees would have brewed it more smooth.
Tsunoda earned a culinary arts diploma from the French Culinary Institute and a Bachelor’s degree in fine art/painting and East Asian art history from Wesleyan University. She curated and managed the menu for lunch and afternoon tea at Tea Box Cafe in New Jersey. In 2006, Tsunoda, who is 37, got a job as an assistant manager at a Teavana store in New York.
Her favorite tea is the Japanese ceremonial tea, Matcha. She begins her day with the vibrant green tea. Later in the day, she mixes the earl grey creme black tea with the golden monkey black tea. She sometimes enjoys a splash of milk in her tea, and lately, she tops her tea with organic vanilla soy milk (which she first foams up). During the day, she’s tasting testing and evaluating teas. At night, she sips Teavana’s English Breakfast.
“Life,” she says. “Doesn’t happen without tea.”
