moshintheteagaiwan

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T. Kettle Part 12: Time To Go

When I first applied for the managers position at T. Kettle, I was very nervous and kept wondering if it was a mistake. What if I left my job as an exterminator and things at T. Kettle didn’t work out? Could I get my old job back? Would I find myself unemployed for a while? Besides some encouraging words from friends, the big thing that pushed me over was that the company was so new at the time, having only been around for less then a year, and so as it grew they would need to hire for position such as regional manager.

During my initial interview with the company I had expressed great interest in moving up to regional manager should the job ever become available. I was told that when this position opened up that people within the company would be given the opportunity to apply. I was also told this frequently during my time with the company, as were other managers who were wanting to move up. Throughout the year the company had closed stores and opened more.

Maggie, whom you may remember was one of my seasonal staff, was able to get a managers position of her own at a new store that was roughly an hour from where she lived. It was a massive store and they gave her the same speech they gave me about how great the store looked and how the stock was there and everything was ready to go. She too was met with a dirty, partially set up store with no cleaning supplies, and even worse, because of the company no longer having a teaware supplier, she had only a little stock from a closed store to fill her shelves, but it was not nearly enough.

I congratulated her and wished her best, but I knew the best was never coming. About a week later while browsing in Indeed for jobs I saw a new posting from T. Kettle looking for a regional manager. I thought that was odd considering they had not told anyone that this position was now open. I felt so let down by this. My store had high numbers consistently. I had expressed my want to this position numerous time and was promised a chance to interview for it when the time came, and yet I never got a word. None of us did. I called the other managers and they too were shocked.

I decided to take shot and apply for the position on Indeed anyway to see what would happen. Days went by and nothing. I heard from no one. I was deflated and it was clearer now more then ever that not only was the company full of shit, but that it was gonna sink and I needed to abandon ship. As luck would have it my old employer had begun treating the mall food court and on several occasions I ran into my old boss who would always ask me if I was ready to come back.

I usually told no because in truth I didn’t want to go through the physicality of being an exterminator again, but on this particular occasion, he joked that an office position was open but figured I wouldn’t be interested. I told him I absolutely would be! Seeing that I was serious he said he would talk to the current office staff and get back to me, and a few days later he called me to offer me the job, and to let him know when I was ready to come back. At this time I decided to take one more shot at the regional managers position.

I emailed HR directly with my resume and explained that I had been promised an interview for the position and that if I was not given my fair shot that I would be turning in my 2 weeks notice. I never heard a word from and neither did any other manager. And so that was it, I was through. I put in my two weeks and shockingly the company got back to me within a couple hours to wish me luck and let me know who would be taking my position so I could train them.

I informed my team who were not happy but understood. I never kept them in the dark about the bullshit that was going on behind the scenes. Fast forward to three days before my time was up and I still had not heard back from the company on my replacement. I emailed that and they said they were still looking. I suggested having Maggie take my position as she lived close to the store and had already worked for me and with my team. They decided to take my recommendation and Maggie was transferred to take my position. It was a good thing too because her store never did get it stock and with only a couple months was shut down. And I returned to my old employer in a new position and never looked back.

I kept tabs on the store since leaving. For roughly another year my store remained open in the mall while more stores continued to close. My old stock was given the majority of the stock which helped keep the shelves full but there was still no new teaware supplier and still on going issues getting tea to stock the tea wall. Maggie’s partner also worked for T. Kettle behind the scenes and reported multiple people leaving or getting fired which created more delay.

A little over a year after I left my old store was shut down due to lease issues and transferred to another nearby mall, however it remained closed and employees unpaid until renovations were complete because in this case they had not moved to an old DavidsTea location but instead an old chocolate store, so the whole space had to be remodelled.

Finally after a long wait they reopened. I went to visit them and saw that they had been converted to also selling waffles and boba. I was also told that the company which at it’s highest had around 45 stores was now down to just 3. Upon this last visit I felt more confidant in my decision to leave then I ever had. I truly hoped to relive my Teavana days and create a new haven for tea lovers but it was not in the cards. This was truly a clear case of a company taking on too much and a subject which they new nothing about, and had no business being a part of.

But I am glad for the 10 months I had there. Yes, this was all within 10 months. I do miss my team and getting to hang with them and making new relationships with other mall employees. However, it wasn’t meant to be, but judging from where the company is at now, I have no regrets.

The End.

#tea #teablr #loosetea #t-kettle #tkettle #t.kettle #teastore #davidstea

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T. Kettle Part 11: The New Year & The Missing Stock

It was a new year and we had successfully gotten through our first Christmas season as a new store. As you would expect after Christmas, the shelves were bare and stock was scarce. We still has a handful of Christmas infuser mugs left and some left over tins of Christmas blends, but overall we sold out of nearly everything. I had to give it to the company, they really did deliver on excellent Christmas tin designs and gift boxes. The teawares left something to be desired but overall, I’d seen worse.

As January slowly passed, we spent the final remaining weeks with our seasonal staff. They really had come through for the store and delivered on everything I had taught them. Around this time one of my original team members had come to me with his two weeks notice as he had gotten a full time position in his field. I was sad to lose him as even though he wasn’t the biggest fan of tea, you would never be able to tell from watching how he sold it. He was a good kid and I wished him well. I initially took this opportunity to extend his soon to be open position to Maggie, but she turned it town because she didn’t feel she could handle two jobs at the time which was fair.

I then extended it to Zack who accepted. I was grateful to have him with us permanently as he was hard working, always early no matter how many times I told him not be arrive an hour early, and he was great to work with and was great with customers. Initially I decided not to extend the offer to him first because I knew Maggie really wanted to have a permanent position in a tea shop again, but she end up circling back around later.

Soon the store was back to three people, but because mall hours had extended and our sales were high I was able to schedule more hours and didn’t have to work alone four days a week anymore. At this time we were focusing on selling off the remaining Christmas stock and awaiting the arrival of new stock to replenish the shelves. But it never came....

Managers were submitting stock orders weekly, trying to push for more stock to refill our shelves, but as time passed and the shelves became more bare, we waited on word of when to expect our orders. But it wasn’t just teawares, ordering the actual tea became an issue too. We placed orders weekly but like the teawares, nothing was coming. Then one day a shipment of tea did arrive, only it was not what we had ordered, but was instead the new Valentine’s Day blends.

It was something but didn’t fill much space. Finally though we got word of the missing teas and teawares on our next conference call. We were told that due to supply issues, as many retails stores were going through that at the time, stock orders had been placed but that when it would arrive was unknown due to lack of supply. This seemed believable at the time but as I’m sure your not surprised to hear by now, this was a bold faced lie.

The actual truth was that the company had become fed up with their teaware supplier failing to fulfill orders and thus decided to cancel their contract with them. However, before doing so they had failed to first obtain a new contract with a new supplier. This meant that not only did they no longer have their old supplier, but they now had no supplier at all, which meant teawares and stock was never coming. As for the tea itself which was supplied through a separate company, the delays were due to the company’s new manager of operations deciding that store managers were not properly capable of keeping track of and ordering their own tea stock.

This was due to an internal issue during the distribution of the Christmas stock. At the time, some stores received large amounts of Christmas stock, while other stores received less stock, and few received almost nothing. This issue was no fault of any store manager as we did not have the option to order Christmas stock, instead it was shipped to us automatically. In either case due to this error the manager of operations decided he himself must sign off on all tea orders made by stores, and he would compare the orders to recorded stock, and decide from there if he wanted to sign off on the orders.

Not only did this create more delay but it came with an extended delay because just before Christmas, Toys R Us was going out of business in the United States and the company had bought the rights to Toys R Us Canada. This meant the same team that was already responsible for our brand as well as three other bigger brands now also had to run operations for Toys R Us Canada. And as you can imagine this meant the new manager of operations had no time to look over and sign off on tea orders.

And so day by day out shelves became more bare and the tea wall became more empty. On occasion we would get random mixed stock from stores the company had decided to close, but this stock was usually very little and last no time at all. And with this everyday my faith in the company diminished and I couldn’t help but think to myself, I need to get off this sinking ship.

To be concluded...

#tea #teablr #loosetea #t-kettle #tkettle #greentea #t.kettle #teastore

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T. Kettle Part 10: Display Staging & The Wedding

I was none too happy with someone new coming to my store to do display staging. For months now this has been my responsibility and my layouts had been given excellent reviews from upper management. I had turned this store into one of the top rated stores in the company. Besides the gigantic malls, we had the highest sales of all store locations. What could I do though? I had no choice and so I waited for dreadful hour when the new staging rep would arrive. From the moment she walked and I introduced myself I wasn’t impressed. She was a bit stand offish and immediately gave that impression of “what I say goes”.

She began tearing down shelf displays and dropping merchandise everywhere she could. It was covering the counters, the floor, the back counters, and everywhere in between. And all this while customers were coming in trying to browse, but were met with an unruly mess. You see she was not there just to adjust our displays but to create all new displays for which all store would be modelled off of. Issue was that not only had she never been to any of the other stores, she was also not aware that not all stores has differing product, display bays and shelving set ups. I tried to explain to her how certain things might work here but not for other stores but she had no interest in hearing it.

She spent over five hours tearing apart displays, reconstructing them, and then tearing them down again. And she also had me assisting here to do this while I also tried to deal with customers. It was clear she had no real idea of what she was getting into or what was available. I remember she has me drag out this massive old DavidsTea floor display stand to set up all the new Christmas tins on. I dragged the stand out onto the floor and she asked me leave it to her. We had around seven new tins to display and of the seven tins, three where red in colour.

She set up the tins on this round display so that one shelf had tins broken up by different colours but then decided that all red tins should be displayed side by side on one shelf. It goes without saying that this cause the three different tins to blend in which each other and hard to tell apart. She asked me what I thought of her display and I explained the issue with the colour layout. Unsurprisingly she didn’t understand what I meant. I had move things around on my own in order for her to understand the issue and even then it wasn’t sinking in. But finally after several hours of this back and forth nonsense she was done and my shift was over!

Admittedly and rearranged some things the next day.

Christmas shopping was starting of slowly this year due to Covid which was understandable. It was so nice to have the hours available to not only have a proper team, but to also have someone to work with and lunch break relief. Prior to the Christmas season, with only three teams member including myself, and only enough hours to staff equal to the number of hours the mall was open, I often worked full day alone. Because of how I was forced to schedule, at least four days a week I would work alone from open till close, and would have to close the store in order to take any kind of break.

I hated these times, especially through the week as it got quite lonely at times. It worked out so that I didn’t work weekend because I worked most of the week alone, and my other team members had more availability in weekends due to school. The company wanted managers to work all weekend, but due to the circumstances surrounding scheduling I said no. And because our store non the less was a high sales store, upper management usually left me alone about it. Now I could work a full shift with a partner to keep me company and keep the store running for lunch breaks.

I was glad I had such a knowledgeable and strong team behind me because I needed to leave the store for a week during busy season to get married. My original team members were amazing at picking up the ball and keeping operations running smooth while I was away. However, if you could believe it I got a call on the day of my wedding from an operations rep wanting to discuss an issue at the store. Apparently the day after I had left for my wedding, upper management had asked the manager on duty to make up eight $100 gift cards, and that someone would be coming to get them. The manager on duty did this as instructed. When the person arrived at the store, the manager had them pay for the gift cards and handed them over. However, this person was not told nor instructed not to charge this mystery person for these cards and upper management wasn’t happy.

I explained the this rep that not only was I unaware of this incident, but that I was about to get married, and has informed the company of this months ago, and asked why I was being contacted. I could tell the rep was red in the face and she quickly apologized and hung up. Thankfully I never heard from the again during the rest of the time I was away. I later learned they contacted the manager on duty and had them do a full $800 refund and that our store numbers would be affected by it even though this was a company error.

Beyond this and the occasional scheduling issue with the seasonal staff, the Christmas season went great. We sold out of promotional gift offers, our Christmas teas were big sellers, and our sales were in the top two almost weekly. It was wonderful being back in that Christmas shopping environment. Sadly though it would be my last...

#tea #teablr #loosetea #t-kettle #tkettle #t.kettle #teastore #christmas #christmas shopping

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T. Kettle Part 9: The Seasonal Hires & The Bonus Program

Christmas was coming and I was ecstatic. I used to love Christmas time at the mall during my time at Teavana. There’s always been something about a mall at Christmas I loved. Most people on the other hand can’t stand the mall at Christmas, but I am also a big Christmas guy. I loved helping people pick out gifts for their spouses and friends. I love walking around the mall on my break and looking at all the Christmas store displays and the fancy decor the mall puts up for the season.

This was gonna be my first Christmas working at the mall in many years. The company had given the green light to hire seasonal staff and given us an actual useful amount of hours to use. I was able to fight for more hours since our store had the highest sales consistently and we would need more then what was given. The company did agree so long as we stayed above as certain sales point which was no issue for us. I went straight to work a hiring my seasonal staff.

I hired Zack, who would go onto stay with the team after the Christmas season was over, replacing one of my original staff. And I hired Maggie whom I met when she came in as a customer before Christmas. She had just moved here from Detroit to be with her husband who was from Canada. In Detroit she had also worked for Teavana and was an assistant manager for DavidsTea. At the time I had no room to hire anyone but as soon as a spot opened up she was the first person I called. She wanted to work for us so badly that she said she would put us first, even if she had another job at the time. How can you argue with that right?

When I hired my new staff, half had secondary part time jobs and half did not. I asked my entire staff how they would feel about me doing up the seasonal schedule in advance so they could work it out with their other jobs. They all agreed this would be best and so I made and sent out the entire seasonal schedule. Not too soon after issues began to arise with Maggie. She had another part time job that was roughly an hour away from our store. When I hired her she said she wanted as many hours as possible and given her experience I made sure to fill her up, but her boss at her other job would not even look at the schedule I gave her in advance and began double booking her for days I already had her booked.

This caused Maggie either have to give up hours with us and greatly reduce shifts. She was my most promising new hire that was quickly becoming my least dependable. I hired a third seasonal employee who at the time did not have another job. About 2 weeks into working with us she got another part time job. However, in this case she failed to give them her other schedule so more double bookings occurred. The difference between her and Maggie was while Maggie gave advance notice of the double bookings, the other new girl did not. Instead, she would call me a couple hours before her shift saying she can’t come in because she has to work at the other store.

I was offering more hours then her other job and for less physical labour, and I would ask her, “Did they book you to work today first, or did I book you first?”.

“You booked me first.”, she would answer.

“So then why is it that you can’t come in, when as you said you were booked here first?”, I asked.

“I don’t know”, she would answer.

This was becoming a pain in the ass, however Zack was a super trooper and would pick up several of these extra hours, as well as my original staff. It was very sad how things had been turning out with Maggie, because when she was in to work, she was a superstar at it just like I thought she would be. However, she would become very important to the end of the story.

Zack excelled beyond belief. I also met him when he came in as a customer and said I would call him as soon as I was hiring. He had no prior experience but picked it up like lint. He had a very annoying sales tactic though that somehow worked, hence why it was annoying. He loved Lapsang Souchong, which for those of you who don’t know, is a pine smoked black tea. It’s a tea you either love and adore or hate. It was very hard to sell because most people didn’t like it’s smokiness, but Zack on the other hand had no issue.

He would ask the customer what kind of tea they were looking for, and no matter what they said, he would pull down at least 2-3 options for what they did ask for and he would pull down Lapsang Souchong. AND IT WORKED! That was his thing, and as annoying as it was I let him have it because why not?

During a conference call with all the managers to go over Christmas promos, bundles, and products, we were also told of a Christmas bonus program. We had been asking upper management about this as most of us had come to know this kind of thing through Teavana and DavidsTea. Usually the way it worked was through a tier system, where the more you sold, the more of a Christmas bonus all team member would make. The system they introduced made very little sense to say the least and many of us managers could not follow it. They had taken a very simple idea and made it as complicated as they could.

Here’s the kicker. During this meeting we were told that this bonus program was for managers only. Meaning our team was to sell, sell, sell, and build up the store’s bonus tiers, and whatever you ended at, the manager, and only the manager, would get a bonus based off this. And we were also strictly told not to tell our staff about this. Well, I was not standing for that! How low and sleazy can a company be? My team is supposed to put in the hard work and only I get the benefits? Absolutely not! This is also how the other managers felt and we all agreed that not only were we going to tell our staff about this little bonus program, but we would use the bonus to go towards something for the team.

But after a couple headache filled weeks, and as things in the mall picked up, the store was ready to go, or so I thought. Then one day I got a call saying that the new T. Kettle store staging rep would be coming to make some changes...

To be continued...

#tea #teablr #loosetea #t-kettle #tkettle #t.kettle #teastore #lapsang #christmas

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T.Kettle Part 8: The Coming Of The Milk & The Stock

One of the most basic components to running any business is making sure your store(s) are able to get the stock and supplies they need, easily and quickly. The people running T.Kettle behind the scenes did not get that memo. From day one when I had buy my own cleaning supplies, and provide my own mop, bucket and ladder to the day I left, getting what was needed was always a challenge. I did get reimbursed for the cleaning supplies thankfully.

When the store opened we were still under Covid restrictions. One of these restrictions was that there was no sitting in the food court and all public seating in the mall had been removed. Normally this isn’t an issue for mall staff because most stores have a backroom, and most backrooms have some kind of small table and chairs for staff to eat on their lunch breaks. We did not. In the summer this wasn’t an overly big deal except when it was sweltering hot outside, but we were now in the middle of fall, and getting lots of fall rain and cooler temperatures, so no one wanted to sit outside for their breaks.

At this time the company had set themselves up with Amazon Business and we were able to order whatever we needed for the store once a week through Amazon Business. However, all orders had to be approved by the head of operations before Amazon could fill them, and since we were the lowest on the totem pole, quite often these orders would sit until Amazon cancelled them due to no approval and we would have to place the same order again. The other issue was that the company only gave each store $150 per month spending allowance. Any further spending would have to be approved.

I battled for a small table and chairs set for our backroom, and explained to upper management that my staff had no place to sit and rest and eat during their breaks due to restrictions and weather conditions. Once I finally did hear back from them, they said they understood and I could purchase my own table and chairs and send them receipts for reimbursement. I went out to Ikea and bought a cheap table and two chairs which is all we needed and sent the receipts. I never did get reimbursed.

Christmas was also on the way and seasonal stock began showing up to the store. Boxes and boxes of it, and it wasn’t long before it had already filled all our storage space on the floor and was now piling up in the backroom. It took two weeks of back and forth emails telling the company we needed new backroom shelving as the old shelving had been removed and left us with no proper storage space. Eventually I took a chance and ordered three shelving units from Amazon Business and sent an email saying what and why I had ordered them. Shockingly the order was approved and we finally had shelves just in time for the season.

(A screenshot of our Christmas Infuser Mugs)

The other issue we faced with Amazon Business was orders constantly went missing or went undelivered. Drivers used to call me saying our store didn’t exist and that they had looked through the whole mall and our store wasn’t there. Almost every time I’d look out into the mall and see the delivery driver and I’d say “turn around”. They would turn around saying “I swear this wasn’t here 5 minutes ago.”

Other times drivers refused to come into the mall and would call asking me to come outside, which usually wasn’t an option as I was often working alone. Sometimes I would check emails in the morning and find an Amazon notification saying a package had been delivered. Attached would be a picture of the package that the drive left in some random spot in the mall, so I would have to lock up the store and go on a treasure hunt to find the package.

As for actual merchandise stock the company made an excel spreadsheet we would fill out and send in with what we needed ordered for our store. Our merchandise was through a secondary company unrelated to the company that owned us. Their products were good. Not great and far from outstanding, but good. But they had a thing for only making items available in solid plain colours and were very overpriced. The issue with this company is they also sold the same products on their own website which made no mention of T.Kettle. And because they sold from their own website, distribution to companies such as us whom they supplied to was notably low priority for them. This meant often times when our orders did arrive, anywhere between a quarter to half our order would be missing.

(One of our hardest selling and most overpriced items. I have covered the name of the company out of respect)

They supplied our matcha whisks and sent each store two boxes for the matcha roll out. We sold out of them quickly and it took over two months to get more, and when we did it was only half a box or so. And regardless of how many complaints we sent to upper management we would always get the same answer, “it’s on the way”, which meant we might see stock in a month or two.

However, a small step in the right direction soon came in the shape of a – refrigerator. One day the company informed is that each store would be getting a new fridge because they had finally, after over a year of requests, decided to carry milk options at the tea bar. Finally! No more looking stupid telling customers our tea back didn’t provide milk options. Maybe this meant lattes were soon to come as well. All us managers were eager for the conference call discussing the new milk options, but we were all less then thrilled by the end.

The company had no faith in the idea of milk options, and wanted to try an experiment to see how carrying milk would go. To do this they were sending each store a prepaid visa card worth $120. And with this card managers were to go to whatever local retailer (in their own mall preferably) that carried milk and purchase two cartons of milk at a time and no more. Should this visa card run out they would send us a new one if approved. Now for the real kicker. Absolutely no dairy free options, which was of the most requested milk options.

Many of our clients were vegans or had allergies to dairy and lactose so dairy free was essential. We heavily expressed our concern with this decision on the call but our concerns were shot down fast, and the needs of our clients with such demands could be narrowed down to “too bad for them”.

During the call someone asked if lattes would be made now that we had milk. And you guessed it – they said no. This was because once again, they didn’t want to compete with Starbucks. We even tried suggesting at least doing iced lattes. We explained this would not require the use of the steamers and that by adding milk to iced drinks and calling them an iced latte we could charge an extra dollar or two for little to no extra work. This too was shot down quickly and was followed up with, “if they want milk in a hot or cold drink, only put in a splash”.

To be continued...

#tea #teablr #loosetea #t-kettle #tkettle #t.kettle #teastore #matcha #iced tea #milk #tealatte

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T.Kettle Part 7: The Matcha Roll Out

Anyone who has ever worked in a tea shop with a tea bar, a cafe, or any establishment that serves lattes and other hot drinks can tell you that matcha is popular. From nearly the first day the store opened people had been asking for matcha. It took a while but we finally got T.Kettle brand matcha. At first though, it was only available to purchase on our wall in either prepacked tins or in weighed amounts.

I always hated scooping and weighing matcha. It gets everywhere so easily, and if you have pure and flavoured matchas then you need separate scoops and someone always ends up forgetting which is which. Thankfully our prepacked tins of matcha sold fairly well. The pure matcha wasn’t anything to go crazy over, nor was it something that left you wishing you hadn’t just drank that. It was a very nice medium grade. Not even close to a Grand Cru but very far from a culinary grade. It was just a good, fairly priced everyday drinker.

Our flavoured matchas on the other hand were really hit and miss. A couple were very nice and made a great iced matcha while the others were terrible. No sugar coating it. But as the company rolled out the tins of matcha along with the new flavours, the next demand was for matcha to be served at the tea bar. Well, it just so happened that that was the next thing to be rolled out, starting with the company sending us the “tools” needed to make matcha at the tea bar.

Now there isn’t a ton of tools needed for this. Really all you need is a good matcha whisk and a proper bowl. Doesn’t have to be a matcha bowl made specifically for the purposes of matcha, but a nice wide bowl with a flat bottom will go a long way. When our box of “tools” arrived we found the company had sent us two electric whisks and a stainless steel milk frothing pitcher. Yep.

We were told that proper whisks would be arriving “at some point” and that when they did we could mark out a couple to use at the bar instead of the electric whisks, but for now that was the best they could do. A few day later they sent out a communication that included a matcha making instructional video, and how they wanted the managers to train the staff on making matcha. What they wanted was for each manager to watch the instructional first and then once they felt confident on making matcha correctly, each manager would have a teams meeting with a rep who would ask us to make a hot matcha and an iced matcha. If the rep okayed how it was prepared, we would be “certified” and could then train our teams.

Now not to toot my own horn, but I don’t need training on how to make matcha. I came from Teavana where we made matcha frequently on a daily basis. Now with that being said, not all managers had a background in tea or previous experience working in a tea shop. But for the sake of argument I watched the instructional video. I want to be clear when I say that this instructional was made by the head of tea development. The rep who had worked previously for DavidsTea and had all this experience and knowledge of tea. Please keep that in mind as you read the instructions we were provided for making matcha.

1. Place 8 teaspoons of pure matcha into your pitcher. If using flavoured matcha, added 10 teaspoons.

2. Add 1 cup of boiling water.

3. Blend well with electric whisk until thick and frothy.

4. Serve.

8-10 teaspoons??!!!

No I’m not joking. Was this a joke? This had to be a mistake. There was no way that anyone with even thimble of tea knowledge would tell you to use 8-10 teaspoons of matcha in a single cup of water. Even 4 teaspoons would have been overkill. But no, I watched the video over and over and sure enough that is exactly what he made, then drank it and said it was perfect.

Well, I wasn’t the only manager in the company who knew just how wrong this was. Manager reached out to manager, discussing the same issue, and before long the company had gotten concerned emails from the majority of store managers. All of them explaining just how incorrect these instructions were and that we were not going to train our teams this way. I even offered to volunteer my time and make a new and correct instructional video.

It was radio silence for the better part of a week. Then just before the due date for virtual matcha making certification to start, the company sent out a communication telling us to disregard the previous instructions, saying that they were “mistaken” with the head of tea development saying, he decided 8-10 scoops because the matcha wasn’t high grade and therefore needing more added. Now I’m not sure what their teaching people behind the scenes over at DavidsTea but I’m pretty sure this kind of logic isn’t it.

Even before I heard back from the company I told my staff to disregard the instructional video and that I would train them with proper instruction, but that should the company insist on using their ridiculous instructions that they should be ready to do in case anyone ever came in to test them. Luckily no one ever did, and the instructional video was revised. A few days later I logged on for my teams meeting with the rep for certification. I had no idea who this person was and had never seen them before, and it turned out she was someone from HR???

I asked her what she wanted me to do. She told me to make a hot matcha, and so I did just as a I normally would. Then she asked me to taste it. I took a sip and she asked me how it tasted. I told her it tasted how a pure hot matcha should taste, and she said, “Okay great! Your certified”. And that was the end of it. I wondered why someone from HR was conducting these certifications and what made her qualified to do so? I know I was wasn’t the only manager to question this.

Now that that was over and my staff has been trained we were ready to roll out serving hot matcha. I still remember the first person to come in and order a hot matcha. I made it for them perfect and passed it to them. “Do you have any milk?”, they asked.

“No, sorry”, I answered. “We don’t carry milk options.”

“Why?”, the customer asked with obvious confusion. I didn’t know what to say. Because the company wants you the customer to taste the tea the way it was meant to be tasted? I couldn’t give them that stupid line, so I said the only thing I truthfully could.

“I honestly don’t know sir, I apologize.”

To be continued...

#tea #teablr #loosetea #t-kettle #tkettle #t.kettle #teastore #matcha #matchatea #greentea

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T.Kettle Part 6: The Visit From Upper Management

Now I am no stranger to getting visits from head office reps. I happened all the time during my run at Teavana, just as it does at most retail stores. When I was at Teavana it was usually just the regional manager, who at the time was a real piece of work. He was the type of person that made you nervously sweat just from walking into the store, so you know, not a very good manager.

He was an average sized man with a shiny balled head and I remember he had this ability to make it seem as though he was staring into your soul. He had these big wide bug eyes and when he would speak to you, his stare got deeper and his eyes got wider every second. He was a real putz.

I remember he used to give the female staff members a hard time for "not looking work appropriate" either cause their skirts or shorts were too short or showed too much cleavage or whatever. Again, he was a putz. But I remember the day we were expecting his visit and we saw him walking on up the hallway to the store wearing a collared gold shirt and tiny black tennis shorts that were so short they barely covered his thighs. I looked at him and said to my co-worker, "so she got in trouble for showing to much leg, and here he is with a full on hairy man legs and shorts so tight they outline his package?".

We were glad the day he announced he was leaving the company.

So when I was given the message that the head of operations wanted to come and visit the store, I wasn’t too worried. The store had only been open for a few months now and he likely just wanted to meet me and the team and see how things were going, especially since we were a “special” store. By that I mean, my store was the closest of any of the other stores to head office and the warehouse. Actually we were within a twenty minute driving distance. This meant my store would be able to get supplies or assistance more easily then other stores. I know how that sounds considering how long it took for a proper ice machine and a locksmith.

It also meant that we were the first store to try new ideas and products before being sent off to the other stores. Often times we would just have things dropped off to us by reps from head office since we were so close. But what made this upcoming visit different and more worrisome was that not only would the head of operations be there as well as the rep who had initially trained me, but so would the head of accounting as well as the head of tea development and merchandising. I had a whole pack coming to visit my store. Great!

I had to make sure that the store was perfect as you could imagine. I had to make sure all the shelves were full of stock, which wasn’t easy considering all the issues surrounding getting stock. Luckily about a week before their visit I was informed that a store from another province was closing and that the merchandise stock from their store was going to be sent over to my store. I had no idea what was in it or even how much there would be, so when the boxes arrived it was kind of like opening a present on Christmas morning.

This is what the company did whenever a store closed. Instead of selling the store stock at a reduced price, they had the staff box it up and ship it out to other stores. And as you can imagine when the stock arrived it wasn’t very well packaged or organized. This was no exception. I received around four large boxes full of stock. However, many of the unpackaged, ceramic, display pieces has been wrapped in paper towels and stacked on the bottom of the boxes. This resulted in countless broken mugs, creamer and sugar sets, and other damaged product I wouldn’t be able to use. I boxed all these items up and set them aside to show management when they visited.

But now it was the big day of the big visit. I was really nervous like you would expect anyone to be. Luckily it was a very quiet day so there weren’t any customers to get in the way. This was especially good since I only had enough hours to book only myself in at the time, with no counter coverage since at this time the company only allowed me equal number of hours as the mall was open to book my team. Meaning at the time the mall was open for only 9 hours per day, 63 hours per week, which is all I had to book my team with. And since I needed to book myself in for a minimum of 40 hours per week to keep my salary it left very little to use.

All four reps arrived at the same time. They all walked over to me at the tea counter and gave a quick introduction and shook my hand then they scattered around the store like ants looking for sugar. The rep from accounting walked over to the tea bar and started picking up spoons and checking under towels, and looking through boxes of hot cups? What was he looking for? He looked like Sherlock Holmes trying to find a clue.

The rep from tea development and merchandising nosed around the tea wall and picking through stock on the shelves. He was the least talkative of the bunch and dressed in leather boots, with bleached denim jeans and matching denim, button down shirt. The head of operations was very easy going and easy to talk to. However, he wasn’t happy when I showed him the box full of broken and damaged stock sent over from the closed T.Kettle store. He immediately pointed the finger to the rep who trained me as she at the time was the only one communicating with all the stores on daily operations due to lack of a proper regional manager.

He was pissed but thankfully not at me. I asked him what should be done with all the odd pieces that could no longer be sold due to the other half of sets being broken or missing. I was told to leave them in the backroom and they would send me a communication. They never did. After a few months I ended up throwing out anything broken and letting my staff take home any odd pieces they wanted. Until they day I left, the box of broken product was never discussed again.

After roughly 30 minutes, the group said their goodbyes and left. No comments at all other then “everything looks good”.

Odd considering usually when higher ups visited stores they usually had a list of changes they wanted done, or had some tips or advise to give. Nope, not this time. I never saw most of them again after this, besides the head of operations who would pop in on occasion to say high and grab an iced tea. The one thing that did come out of this meeting was the news that we would soon be carrying and serving T.Kettle brand Matcha. This was exciting and something that customers has been demanding. Soon a communication would going out to each store with more details and tea bar instructions for making Matcha...

to be continued...

#tea #teablr #loosetea #t-kettle #tkettle #t.kettle #teastore #iced tea

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T.Kettle Part 5: Rebranding & The Lock

As time progressed and more and more people started to find our store, we got mixed reactions. Some customers were former Teavana fans who were still searching for Teavana replacement teas from years prior. I even remembered some of these customers and they remembered me which was pretty cool. The rest of the customers could be evenly split into two group.

Group one were customers who were big DavidsTea fans and were glad to see a new tea shop open up in their place. Many had heard about DavidsTea’s mass closures during the pandemic, and were searching for DavidsTea replacement teas. These clients were very easy going and we were able to help them bridge the gap between us and DavidsTea and set them up with familiar teas and products.

Group two was the worst. This group of customers were people who were convinced, beyond a doubt, that we were not a new tea shop, but instead we were DavidsTea rebranded. And no matter what I told these people, they would not believe otherwise. Some pointed out idiotic observations to prove their case. For example, DavidsTea had tea canisters behind the counter, and so do we, so we must be DavidsTea rebranded. My favourite was “well DavidsTea sold loose tea, just like you, so you must be DavidsTea.”

Really people? Every tea shop in existence has had tea canisters behind the counter. This is not an exclusive to DavidsTea idea. And on the subject of tea shops, DavidsTea was not the first to sell loose leaf teas. Teavana, Teaopia, Citizen Tea, all sold loose leaf teas, not to mentioned countless independent shops throughout the country. Some even tried to prove we were the same shop rebranded by using the article that had been published about T.Kettle.

They argued that the article said that T.Kettle would be opening up in former DavidsTea locations, but that DavidsTea had also left four locations open as flagship stores. “See it says right here! It’s just DavidsTea rebranded.”, they would argue.

I loved to point out the other parts of the article they missed while cherry picking their evidence. Like the article stating clearly that T.Kettle was owned by a totally different person, and this person had bought out the leases for closed DavidsTea locations. You think they would understand right? No. These customer still argued that that was just DavidsTea tea rebranding itself. And with these clients I had a simple policy of keep your ignorance to yourself and either buy or leave. While I never said to a client most did leave... and drive to DavidsTea!

Why on earth would you leave a drive to a DavidsTea while under the impression that the store your currently standing in is the same store, and same company with a different name???

Now on the other hand I can’t blame these customers too much, or at least not the ones who pointed out the most obvious similarities that could cause confusion. And believe me, all the T.Kettle managers reported these issues to the company as we were all facing this dilemma. You see besides T.Kettle switching the colour scheme from baby blue and white to navy blue and white, that is pretty much where they left any changes. The stores kept the same DavidsTea layout with the same counter tops, same display bays, same floor display stands, they even left the DavidsTea stickers of the hot water dispenser and told us to “scribble over the name with a sharpie”. They even took down the tea type decals above the tea wall, and replaced them with cheaper, but almost identical versions.

(A shot of a T.Kettle store. Notice how it looks almost exactly like a DavidsTea store, besides the name change and canister color change.)

On conference calls when almost every manager complained that these clear cut similarities were causing an issue, they company gave us a whole speech on how they understood and were working on it. While I’m sure to some extent they did understand, they were for sure not working on it, because to make changes would cost money and they whole reason no other changes were made to begin with was because that would cost money.

The one other change T.Kettle did make was the creation of their mascot “Teddy”.

We actually really loved Teddy. He appeared on many stickers and labels we used and was on our tote bags. And because he was only depicted from the waist up, we spent much time entertaining ourselves with what he wore underneath. It being Covid times and many people worked virtually on a webcam, it was a known fact that many people who appeared to be in work or business attire were in their pajamas or boxers from the waist down since the camera couldn’t see this. So we decided to debate on what we thought he was wearing from the waist down.

The popular opinion was that he was in silk, polka dot boxer shorts, with long twig like legs, covered with stubble, argyle socks running up his ankles, but still wore really expensive, long pointed toe dress shoes. I decided to that he was never without a tea cup in his hand and if you were to knock it out of his hand, another would instantly appear. We had a lot of fun talking about Teddy.

The other issue we spent the summer dealing with was that we had a staff of three people, and only one key for the gates. Remember I said at the end of orientation I was only given one key? This was because the others had gone missing. Why is this an issue you ask? Because unless the same person is opening every day, other staff members also needed a key to open the gate in the morning. I reported this issue to the company and it took two months for them to send a locksmith.

In the meantime I had to make sure every end of day shift was scheduled so that the person who was to open the next day would be in store so they could take the key with them for the next morning, or if possible one staff member would drive to the opener after their shift. This was a major pain in the ass to say the least. What if the opener called in sick and no one else had a key? We’d be screwed.

I called the lock company who installed the locks and I learned that DavidsTea had purchased the rights to this particular lock and key set and that normally they could give new keys, however DavidsTea had stopped paying their fee to the lock company and therefore they were not going to do anything for us. I reported this to the company as well thinking maybe it would give them a push to get someone to us sooner, but no.

Finally the day came when the locksmith did arrive. Two months of waiting for a job that took him 20 minutes. But we finally had one key for each staff member plus and extra key for new hired. Crisis averted. Now the next task was preparing for the first store visit from... HEAD OFFICE!

To be continued....

#tea #teablr #loosetea #t-kettle #tkettle #t.kettle #teastore #davidstea #davids tea

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T.Kettle Part 4: The Ice Machine Debacle

A few weeks in and we were starting to find out footing. I made it a daily goal that, as a manager, that I would be the polar opposite of every terrible manager I’d ever had in my life. I constantly kept my past managers in the back of my head at all times to keep myself on the right foot. It was my responsibility not just to teach my team how to run the operations or how to simply sell tea. I had to teach them about tea and lead them down the road to discovering their over relationship with the glorious leaf.

I spent plenty of time writing a binder of tea knowledge for my staff to read from, learn from, and refer to should they not know the answer to something should I not be around. I enjoyed this time a lot. Putting my tea knowledge on paper for people to learn from was awesome! This was also in part because the company did not provide any materials regarding expanding employee’s tea knowledge. In fact, after a month or two, it was very apparent that the people running this company knew absolutely nothing about tea. Never mind actually running a tea company.

There was indeed at least one person who was said to have many years of experience working in tea and had a wealth of tea knowledge. This was the person who was said to be running things as far as purchasing and developing teas and tea accessories. This person however was revealed to be an ex-DavidsTea employee who had worked in their tea development. However, he had only worked there for a couple of years, and his knowledge of tea was limited to what he was taught at DavidsTea. In fact his actual area of expertise was Italian food. Very tea related right?

Over a month into the summer and we were still waiting on our new ice machine, but in the meantime we were able to send away countless customers looking for iced teas and lattes. We may as well had just had a sign out front of the store that said, “Starbucks This Way”.

At one point I removed the signage that advertised iced teas until we got an ice machine, but this choice was swiftly overruled during a visit from a company rep who was worried that by doing so that we would lose drink customers. I explained that the sign being up was causing us to lose drink customers due to not having an ice machine, but it was like talking to a wall. However, this visit did give the final push to getting us an ice machine. The day it showed up at the store I was overjoyed. Finally we would be able to lure in drink customers needing a refreshing drink from the hot summer heat.

This is what we got.

That’s right! A tiny counter top ice machine. This was the company’s answer to over a month of requests and customer losses. A dinky counter top ice machine. This thing made enough ice for exactly two iced teas in about 3 hours. We had to refill it almost every 20 minutes, and if we didn’t it would give off the most bloody loud and obnoxious squealing sound. Countless times I had to run from a customer to fill it otherwise you couldn’t hear what the customer was saying. It also took around 30 minutes to heat up when we turned it on in the morning and another 3 hours to produce a full load of ice, so by 11am we were in business and out of iced by 11:30am.

This ice machine sadly was all we had for the remainder of the summer. We did have a glimmer of hope though. In the middle of August the company emailed us saying that they would be shipping out a brand new, full sized ice machine, and sure enough withing a few days it arrived. We unboxed it and moved it to the back room where the water connect was. However, what the company failed to realize, or even check in on first, was that this new ice machines they sent were not compatible with the old DavidsTea plumbing set up, which meant that they would need to send a plumber to change the set up and hook up the ice machine.

We waited and waited but finally a plumber did arrive. They changed the water connections and hooked up the ice machine and we were in business. Within 20 minutes we had buckets of ice. Issue was that it was now the middle of September and the summer iced tea rush was over.

You have no idea how stupid we looked telling people on a daily basis that we couldn’t fulfill the advertised iced tea selection or make lattes in a goddamn tea shop. Especially being a company that people, A) thought was DavidsTea re-branded (more on that later), and B) was advertised as being run by an intelligent business tycoon with a good mind for business.

Not long after this did I learn that I was not the only one having issues getting what was needed for basic store operation. One day a survey was sent out to each store. This survey had a checklist of basic store items such as water heaters, fridges, ice machines, ect. Each store was fill it out with what their store is missing so the company could see about filling these needs. Well, once a store filled it out, every other store could see what they wrote.

I learned that when these stores opened, none of them were inspected for what they did and did not have and this varied greatly. Some stores like myself did not have a fridge. Some did but reported they had locks on them and no keys for said locks. Some did already have ice machines but most did not. Some, and I kid you not, didn’t even have water heaters and were making hot teas using plug in, counter top burners!

I had two water heaters, and one was not calibrated properly but I considered myself lucky comparing to other stores. How could such a large company that already owned and operated so many other successful businesses miss this you may ask? Well, it is because when T.Kettle was created, no additional staff was hired to run the behind the scenes operations for T.Kettle. Meaning it was all run by the same HR department, creative department, buying department, and marketing department as the other businesses they owned which were all music and media related.

No one in any department had any knowledge or experience in the field of tea and boy did it ever show. We didn’t even have a regional or district manager even though there was over 40 stores in operation, in multiple provinces and some in the United States. And because their other brands such as Sunrise, HMV, & FYI were such large and successful brands, and T.Kettle was so new, it was the lowest on the totem pole and got the least amount time allocated to it’s operations behind the scenes. But knowledge of running a tea shop or not, their experience in running retail also called many of their basic decisions into question.

To be continued...

#tea #loosetea #teablr #t-kettle #tkettle #t.kettle #teastore #iced tea

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T.Kettle Part 3: Opening day!

After buying up cleaning supplies for the store I spent the next several days cleaning and preparing for the opening day. I had finally met my new staff members and had gone through all the store procedures (at least the ones I was trained on just a day or two before), POS training and my expectation as a manager. I felt i had a great team and that with little education and guidance they were going to be great. Neither had much, if any tea knowledge behinds your common Tetley teabag and zero experience working in a tea shop. But I also wasn’t expecting to find anyone with experience so I knew what I was getting into.

After 4 days of training and cleaning the store was ready to go. The garbage pile in the backroom had been cleaned up which honestly made the space look even bigger and more bare. In addition to cleaning supplies I also had to provide my own mop and bucket (thankfully I had a extra at home) as well as my own ladder. The company had sent new signs to replace the old DavidsTea signs above the shelving displays, but of course, installing them was not part of the big “renovation”. Upon removing the old signs and installing the new ones, I noticed that they clearly did not inspect the store before had as some of the storage bay door hinges were, damaged and/or missing. Great.

One big upside to this store however, was that it had it’s own bathroom. My old Teavana store did not and we had to walk half way through the mall multiple times a day to pee. You work in a tea shop, you drink a lot of tea, so of course you pee a lot!

The bathroom had actually been well kept and was very clean to that was a bonus. I had managed to figure out how to fix the old DavidsTea water heaters, but was still concerned about the lack of ice machine and fridge. I contacted the rep who had trained me earlier that week and asked when a new ice machine would arrive and a fridge. I was told that they would get on getting an ice machine right away but that a fridge would not be needed at this time as they would not be offering lattes or milk options. Wait... no milk options?

That’s right!

I was told that day and many times there after during conference calls that the company would not be offering any milk options at all because they want the customer to “taste the tea the way it was meant to be tasted”. What in the actual hell does that even mean? Look I’m all for no milk in. It’s actually how I prefer my tea. But here in the western tea world, milk is essential, and if your in a mall with a Starbucks, tea lattes are essential. On the subject of not offering lattes even though the old DavidsTea steamers were still on site, I was told no because “we don’t want to compete with Starbucks”. I said to myself, “so your just handing them our customers instead?”.

But it was what it was, and I was ready to take opening day head on. Then at 10am on July 2nd 2021, I opened the gates for the very first time... to an empty mall. Now bare in mind during this time many Covid restrictions were still at play and so it was going to take a while for things to pick up. But no more then an hour or so later I had my first customer and my first bag of T.Kettle tea weighed and sold! I missed that feeling.

Over the next couple of hours I saw a small pile of customers come in, but I was delighted when one of them was one of my old co-workers from Teavana. I hadn’t see her since the store closed in 2017. We caught up for a few minutes and I told her that I finally had my own store where I was the manager and that I was excited for the future here. She asked me if she could get a drink. “Of course!”, I said. “What would you like?”

“I’d love a latte”, she answered.

To be continued...

#tea #teablr #loosetea #tkettle #kettle #t.kettle #t-kettle

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T.Kettle Part 2: Day 1

In June 2021, I was on my way to orientation, and my first visit to my new T.Kettle store. For weeks leading up to this day I had been filled with excitement for this day. I had hired two staff members to get things started and would be meeting them in person for the first time this week. Leading up to this day I been kept up to date via email by T.Kettle HR.

They emailed me to let me know the teas had arrived at the store. The new tea accessories had also been shipped. The store had gone through it’s renovations from it’s old DavidsTea layout and was looking beautiful and was nearly ready for orientation day. I was to meet with a member of T.Kettle upper management for POS training, store procedures, and operations. Then over the next couple days my new staff would be coming in for the same training with myself in preparation for our opening day of July 2nd 2021.

In an urge to make a good impression I arrived 30 minutes before the representative had arrived. I made my way through the empty mall to my new store. There it stood. The fresh T.Kettle sign had been installed. The previous baby blue DavidsTea has been painted over by – navy blue????

I walked up to the closed gate of the store and peered inside to get my first visual of my newly renovated and stocked store. But when I looked through the gate I was confused. There store sure had been painted but it had gone through no kind of renovation as I had been told by HR. The same counters and shelves still stood from the old DavidsTea set up. It had all the same layout with the only change being the switch from DavidsTea’s baby blue & white walls to the new navy blue and white walls.

(Not my actual store, but gives you a visual of what things looked like from the outside)

Even more curious was that I had been told all the stock had arrived and things had been set up. This couldn’t have been further from the truth. The stock had arrived and the tea canisters had indeed all been labelled and set up on the shelves behind the counter, but the teas sat on skids on the floor still in bags along with countless, unopened boxes of stock which were to have already been in the empty display shelves. This was 100% not what I was expecting. This fully stocked, set up, and renovated store I was told I would be arriving to was nowhere near ready for opening day.

Right on time, two member of T.Kettle upper management arrived. They unlocked the gate and we stepped inside. Upon turning on the lights, the lack of set up and renovation became even more clear. The store to my amazement had not been cleaned and the shelves, floor and counters were coated with dirt and dust. It is worth mentioning that this store was one of 40 stores at the time, more then half of which had already been open and operational, so it was even odder that the store was in this condition.

Behind the counter were more empty shelves that had not been stocked with bags, labels or any other items. In the back room all storage shelves from the previous store were gone and not replaced. The walls were left bare as can be except for old DavidsTea canisters labels from the previous DavidsTea team. And in the centre of the room was a large pile of dirt, garbage, and torn up cardboard. Behind the tea bar was the old DavidsTea water dispenser setup. This has not been updated or cleaned either and the water heaters were coated in thick dust.

One of the representatives I was told was a member of the staging team and was there to help set up the shelving displays to company standards. This was met with several issues with the most notably being that she did not have any kind of layout or display mock up with her as I later found out one had not yet been made. Secondly she had no clue as to what stock was sitting in the countless boxes on the floor. I assisted with opening these boxes and going through all kinds of poor packed and disorganized tea accessories. I later learned that this stock was not ordered for my store, but was actually left over stock from a store that had closed in another province.

The staging rep then spent the next several hours trying to fill the shelves as best she could with what little stock there was. In addition to her piss poor attitude she was not very open to suggestion even though she herself had no idea how things should look. While she set up the shelf displays I worked with the other representative to unbox all the teas, fill the canisters and put away the extra stock. After a couple hours of this, she took me to the computer to teach me how to use the POS. And what a Piece Of Shit it was!

The computer it was ran off of was not actually computer at all but a small handheld system hooked up to a large monitor with no sound and no speakers. The POS system itself was not automated, meaning everything would have to be done manually. She then showed me how the scale worked and I quickly realized they had removed one of the two scales that were there with no reason as to why. During this time I also learned that the company had not yet acquired T.Kettle branded bags so all tea pouches and shopping bags had to be hand stamped and they wanted this done in front of customer because it “added to the customer experience”?

We then unwrapped the new signage that advertised summer iced teas. However I noticed that the tea bar lacked both a fridge and ice machine. How can I make iced teas for customers with no ice machine? I also noticed one of the two water heaters was out of whack and there was no obvious way to make adjustments. I asked the rep how to correct this and she had no idea how they worked. Seriously, she had no clue.

After a few hours the two reps gave me the key to the store. Yes, key as in only one key. We’ll get to that later. After they left I decided to do a little clean up and quickly realized they had not provided any cleaning supplies. I called the rep and asked her if I could be provided cleaning supplies, and was told I had to buy them on my own and that I would be reimbursed. This was just day one and there were already so many red flags, but I figured that the company was still new and tried to stay optimistic. I closed locked up and left to get cleaning supplies, ready to return the next day to clean and begin meeting my staff.

To be continued...

#tea #teablr #loosetea #tkettle #t-kettle #k.kettle #teastore

[moshintheteagaiwan]

T.Kettle: My Time At The Most Poorly Run Tea Shop - Part 1

I was one of the lucky few who got the chance to get their start in working in the world of tea at the now defunct Teavana brand stores. Working at Teavana was undoubtedly some of the best days of my life and the fondest days of my 20’s. Working there gave me the chance to meet so many fantastic friends and I even met my wife working there. Truth be told had it not closed in 2017 I may still be there.

I’ve never worked anywhere like there since. There was just something about the atmosphere. The team I worked with was one of a kind. Maybe it was that we were still living on the last legs of mall shopping? Whatever it was I’ve ever since longed to find that kind of feeling and happiness in the workplace again.

When Teavana closed the obvious move many thought I would make was to jump to DavidsTea. But by this time I had greater responsibilities and the only logical way for me to make that jump would be for a management position which wasn’t available at the time. And so I decided it was time to do something different. Through a conversation with the store’s pest control technician I was led to the field of pest control. There are several different reasons I chose this route but the most notably being it was an easy field to get into without needed to go back to school, and it paid very well.

And so just 2 weeks after Teavana closed it’s doors, I began my new career as an exterminator. The work had it perks. I got to be very independent and didn’t have to answer to my boss daily. The pay was very good and gave the extra cash flow I wanted. I had a company truck I could use as needed and benefits. But the work was also long and took a heavy toll on my body. Especially on summer days when I would be working outside in 40+ degree heat.

I debated daily about trying to find something better. An office position where I had Air conditioning in summer and heat in the winter. Where I could work with a team again. That also came with high pay and benefits. But as many of you may know, those jobs are few and far between these days, so I stuck with it. Then in 2020 as DavidsTea began shutting down stores, word got out that a new tea brand was launching in the old DavidsTea locations. The brand was to be run by the owner other big retail chains such as Sunrise Records, HMV, & FYE, who had purchased leases for closed DavidsTea stores.

When I got word that a new location would be opening in the mall opposite of where my old Teavana store was, and that they were looking for a manager, I decided to jump on it. Within a few days of applying I had a virtual interview as we were still in the middle of Covid restrictions. The interview went well and after speaking to the T-Kettle representative I had a great feeling that something good was about to come. A couple weeks later I got a call back – I HAD GOTTEN THE JOB!

Finally I would get my chance to return to working in the world of tea. This time as the head honcho of my own store. I would get to work with a team again and be around my favourite thing – TEA! I was told that I would be responsible for hiring my own staff and got straight to work on finding my new staff, and put my 2 weeks notice in at the pest control company I was working for. Within a couple weeks I had found my new staff and was given the date to meet at the new location for orientation and staff training.

This is where the story really begins. This is the story of my time at T.Kettle and the story of the tea brand that could have been great but quickly became a sinking ship.

#tea #teablr #loosetea #tkettle #t.kettle #teastore #t-kettle

[moshintheteagaiwan]

Results coming soon!

Puerh Storage Experiment

Keep reading

[moshintheteagaiwan]

Tasting: 2022 “Snoozefest” Raw Puerh - First Tasting Of The Year!

After several years of missing out I finally got my hands on a cake of White2Tea’s yearly limited Raw Puerh release called “Snoozefest”. This cake comes out once a year at limited quantities. According their website, the cake is made from material that would usually sell for a much higher price tag, but is sold at a steal as a kind of “thank you” or “customer appreciation”. Basically a really good tea, that normally has a very high price, for a limited time low price. There is no samples offered of this cake and at a price of $15 for a 200g cake, it doesn’t stay available for long.

Every single year I have somehow managed to miss it. But in 2022 I was at the right place at the right time. I was one of the first people to order a cake of Snoozefest. How do I know? Because the first 30 orders also would get a free White2Tea winter beanie, which I now wear every time I got out. LOL.

From the moment you unwrap this cake it’s crystal clear this cake is not joking around. It is no doubt high quality. The sweet aroma of the tea before it even hits the gaiwan is outstanding.

In the warm gaiwan the aroma this cake is incredibly sweet like honey and sugar cane. A plethora of sweet stone fruits hits you right up front. The dry leave aroma is very clean and fresh, much like a spring morning breeze. Welcoming, comforting and energizing yet calm. The wet leaf is a fruit explosion of poached peaches in sugary syrup, juicy plums and nectarines. In the background there is a noticeable sweet musk acting as a wonderful accent to the fresh fruity breeze in the gaiwan.

The soup is syrupy thick and smooth as hell. No bitterness or astringency! The mouthfeel is lubricating, clean and soft. Imagine if you will - a piece of fresh cut teak wood. Atop this teak wooden is a gathering of ripe and juicy stone fruits, plump and sweet. And around these fruits are little accents of delicate flowers. That is the only way I can describe the taste of this amazing beauty. As the infusions go the musk of the teak wood becomes more forthcoming, acting in harmony with the sweet syrupy juicy fruit notes.

And you best believe this teas can go the distance. I easily get at least 12 infusions out of this tea and it doesn’t miss a step. After so many years of waiting for this tea, this was no doubt the best possible way I could have asked to start of the tea journey of 2023.

Now because I am a nice guy and have decided that this is the year of giving, I am willing to part with 2 – 25g samples of this cake. Normally I would give more but I’ve already drank quite a bit and it’s gotta last me till at least November or longer if I miss out again this year. LOL. But if I do get lucky again this year, I’m buying my first ever Tong of teas.

 If your interested in trying this precious beauty to see if you too need to line up to grab your own this year, send me a private message with you address and I’ll send it out to you!

I promise you, trying this tea may very well be one of the best things you do this year!

#white2tea #puerh #rawpuerh #snoozefest #gaiwan #teakwood #fruity #teablr

[moshintheteagaiwan]

It’s 2023 And I’m Back At It!

Wow – it’s been a while hasn’t it!

I think the last time I was active on my blog was around October of last year. I stopped posting for a time after I got Covid and lost my sense of taste and smell. I’m happy to report that it has since returned and I am back to normal. I lost my senses for almost a month give or a take. However, by the time I had regained my senses the Christmas season was beginning to get in gear which ended up taking up a lot of mine time. Little known fact about me is that during the Christmas season, which in our house starts the first weekend after Halloween because we love Christmas, I stop drinking all tea except for my special Twinings Christmas Blend. No gongfu sessions, no Puerh, no Oolongs, just Twinings Christmas Blend. I fell in love with that blend years ago. It’s the most perfectly warm and bold black tea with just the right amount of spice. I drink it all the way through to new year’s. Then once the new year starts I switch back to my normal tea routine. I find it really helps my taste buds settle down and take a break from vigorous tastings in preparation for the countless number of new teas to come in the new year.

With that being said, I have indeed begun tastings again. In fact, I have tasted 30 new teas this year already! I’ve been working away at the batch I got from Yunnan Sourcing last fall before I got Covid. The batch has had a few real winners so far and I will likely mainly blog about them in the near future. For the new year though I really want to be a bit more adventurous and dive into teas from other parts of the world that you don’t commonly hear about. Right now I have a few baskets lined up from online retailers for teas grown in Thailand and Vietnam, which I’m really excited for. I’ll also be posting a bit on some new Dark teas I got from the Vancouver based O5 Tea Bar. I recently discovered their shop and it’s on my hit list of tea shops to stop in and visit when I get around to traveling around Canada a bit more.

If you’ve been following me for a while now and are still here, thank you, glad you’ve stuck around!

#2023 #gongfutea #gongfucha #tea #puerh #oolong #loosetea

[moshintheteagaiwan]

Taste & Smell Update

So for the first time in a little over 2 weeks I decide to try having a proper tea session. I have not even gone into the tea room since I lost my sense of taste and smell to Covid. So, how did it go? Well, I’m not sure.

I tried a new tea during the session which wasn’t overly aromatic nor very flavorful, however I am now second guessing myself as to whether it was the tea that was weak or if it was my senses that are still weak.

Might try again tomorrow but this time with a very familiar tea and see what the outcome is.

#teablr #tasteandsmell #covid

[moshintheteagaiwan]

Update As To Where The Hell I’ve Been! :(

It’s been a while since I’ve posted new tasting reviews. In my last post I showed off my newest haul of teas to taste, however not too long after that I got sick. 

In the span of 2 weeks I went from having a terrible flu and then caught Covid right after my flu symptoms started to clear. Unfortunately the major symptom of Covid that hit me was complete loss of taste and smell. And while it has come back a bit I am still not able to smell or taste very well and of course this means I can’t do tastings.

Not to come off as moaning and groaning it as been pretty upsetting looking at all my teas knowing that as much as I want them I can’t enjoy them.  Up until last night I was afraid to try tasting a tea because I was scared I wouldn’t be able to taste anything. I finally broke last night and decided to give it a try and it was a real let down. Even in added extra leaf to the gaiwan to make the brew stronger still no smell or taste.

So right now it’s just a waiting game to hope that my senses come back full strength so that I can get back to normal. It’s super weird going from spending hours in the tea room almost everyday drinking tea and training my palate just to end up here where I just can’t. So here’s to hoping everything returns to normal otherwise.... well I don’t know otherwise. 

#teablr #covid #taste