Sisters read the tea leaves - and see business opportunity

When they graduated from college this past year with marketing and journalism degrees, Kristen and Courtney Kammerer thought about taking jobs where they’d have to sit behind desks all day at big fancy shmancy offices.

Boring.

Instead, the sassy, J. Crew-wearing, 20-something sisters decided they’d rather spend their days hanging out together, drinking tea and chatting; their daily uniforms simply jeans and T-shirts.

Now that’s a business plan.

Since October, the Temple and St. Joe’s graduates have been the proud owners of the Remedy Tea Bar, a tea-only shop on Sansom Street near 16th.

No coffee. No espresso. Just tea.

Sure, they’ll have to ice down their scorching brews during the summer. And sure, an all-tea venue is relatively new in the coffee-chugging United States, where only 1,500 tearooms like Remedy exist, compared with a whopping 12,000-plus coffee shops.

But these are two smart sisters who did their homework. The reality is that tea is on a steep ascent in the United States, where in the last 15 years the industry has more than tripled in revenue to reach a $6 billion all-time high. Coffee converts are attracted to tea’s myriad health benefits, and consumers can now find dozens of flavors, from exotic to traditional, in mainstream places like supermarkets and restaurants.

For the gals, all this added up to the perfect time to “tea”-up their idea.

Fueled by their friendly service, more than 100 exotic teas and hip shop design, Remedy is already earning positive buzz in local papers and magazines, and is attracting both an early morning business crowd and a late-afternoon college crowd on the Center City street. The gals have plenty of regular customers - including one seemingly smitten guy who on some mornings brings them homemade hummus, which they use on the specialty lunch sandwiches they make.

“We just sort of conceived this together,” said Kristen, 24. “We thought: There are tons of coffee shops. Why not a shop that sells only tea?”

Remedy’s concept was born in 2004, when Courtney, 23, was still a Temple undergrad, and Kristen was putting her St. Joe’s marketing degree to work as a researcher at a Philadelphia marketing firm.

Kristen visited London and was surprised to find lots of coffee shops, and very few of the stereotypical British tea shops she’d been expecting.

“I couldn’t believe it, and I love tea, so I started researching the idea of an all-tea shop,” said Kristen.

She returned to her marketing firm, and she and Courtney used some of the resources there to investigate the popularity - and future potential - of tea. What they found immediately piqued their interest.

“I don’t even drink coffee anymore,” said Courtney. “We studied it a lot and knew that for the health-conscious person, tea was a rapidly growing trend.”

They found that the industry has grown from less than $2 billion a year in the United States in 1990 to more than $6 billion today. The reason it’s gained so much popularity: the health benefits are especially attractive to a generation of 25- to 40-year-old health-conscious Americans.

While evidence that tea contains cancer-fighting antioxidants has been around for a while, studies are showing it can help prevent heart disease, arthritis and bone loss, and lessen the symptoms of diabetes and allergies.

“I started making the switch from coffee to tea after doing more studies on the health benefits of tea,” said Remedy customer David Ryle, who comes to the shop about three times a week. “It’s a miracle drink.”

And for those who claim coffee is king because it contains much-needed caffeine, Kristen will quickly point out that black tea contains nearly as much as coffee, and even more than cola.

“Tea can have just as much caffeine, we just tend to find that it takes longer to hit you, it’s more of a steady buzz,” said Courtney. “Where coffee brings you up then down pretty quickly.”

The sisters spent a whole year conceptualizing Remedy, attending tea expos and classes.
“We had a long time to research teas, because we were looking for a place (storefront) and waiting for Courtney to graduate,” said Kristen.

They pounded the pavement in Center City last summer to find the perfect retail location, while Kristen continued to work and sock away money. The sisters were also able to get a business loan to cover their startup costs.

Last summer, they finally leased the space at 1628 Sansom, then settled on a menu with more than 100 loose tea choices from chocolate to vanilla, raspberry to macadamia.

The menu breaks all the offerings down into four main types of tea: black, green, herbal and red teas, (like Rooibos, which is derived form an African root bush).

Part of the fun, and the novelty, of having tea at the funky, lime-green-colored, minimalist shop is sitting at the “tea bar,” complete with metal stools. The sisters worried that no one would sit at a bar sans alcohol, but for many, that’s the biggest attraction. As customers sit at the bar, the ladies talk them through the four-page tea list and teach them about all the varieties and their flavors.

Like wine sommeliers, they are pros at recognizing specific aromas in teas, like orange blossom, or hibiscus, and they’re adept at blending different loose teas to achieve new flavors. A customer chooses one or more varieties, and the women scoop the loose teas into a giant mesh tea bag the size of a glove, fold it over, then drop it into steaming water.

One tea blend perfectly mixes macadamia nut with chocolate, another hibiscus and raspberries.

Despite all the exotic choices, customers who aren’t tea connoisseurs will find none of the teas too overpowering. And the ladies make sure that they tell the customers how long to steep the bag, based on how strong they like their teas.

“We wanted to make it a place where you wouldn’t be overwhelmed by the choices, but still find the choices interesting,” said Courtney.

CarlaAnn Henry is a regular customer who has always liked the smell of coffee, but preferred to drink tea.

“I have been coming here since the week it opened,” said Henry, of University City. “I go here because though I usually drink regular plain tea, they have great flavors, like ’sugarplum’ or ‘vanilla love.’”

Still, for those hard-core, coffee drinking holdouts who have a hard time swallowing a tea-only shop, the sisters made one concession on the menu: tea lattes.

“It gives people sort of the idea that they’re having a regular latte, only with tea,” said Kristen. “Oh, but we use soy milk.”

(this article was taken from MiamiHerald.com)