The staff were friendly, but the tea is quite expensive. The tea does look nice, and I'm no tea snob, but I really don't get why their green tea seems to require a second(western style) steeping to actually get an ounce of flavor out of it. I buy gunpowder green tea all the time that has plenty of flavor from a single steeping and is significantly cheaper. The one good thing about the visit is I now have a container for my tea. Speaking of which they blatantly lied about the shelf life of the tea, claiming it would last about a month in a container(should be around 6 months give or take in a sealed container). The amount that they seem to push product makes me just about certain they're paid on commission.
Awesome place to get tea. To get the same taste that they have for their samples, you need to typically brew it with a bit more. It can definitely get pricey but if you reuse your tea leaves 3-4 times, it helps.
I brought my empty tea tins to the store and they refused to help me refill them with new tea flavors. They advised me to buy new tins of tea but I wasn't interested in new tins. Frustrating experience. Won't be back.
I bought a 30 dollar package that brews a certain amount thinking it would totally be sufficient, and if need be, I'd at least be able to exchange for the larger option.. NOT TRUE. I have purchased a DECENT amount of tea here, for years, decent patron.
I came into the store to purchase the starter kit as I am just now diving into drinking tea instead of coffee. Naturally I had no clue what was what or what any of the product was. Upon entering the store I was immediately cheerfully greeted by the woman working behind the counter as well as more personally by, Blair. She helped me through the entire process from start to end, answering all of my questions no matter how stupid they seemed. She called me by name which she had politely asked for at the beginning of the interaction(a lost tradition in retail lately), as well as giving me detailed instructions on what to do, volumes, temperatures, etc. She poured me countless samples from their bar as well as made me a cup of my personal favorite(strawberry parasio) which I ended up purchasing. She was very knowledgeable and informative, giving me details on all of the teas I was interested in while remaining patient with me as I tried to take it all in. Overall it was a very nice experience I would recommend this store to anyone. Will be back for more!
UPDATE! Manager amended situation, in a very awesome way, not only did she "let" me return the original item for an exchange... she gave me a new (the larger) version, AND let me keep the other (smaller, first) one! Felt really acknowledged. Hope experiences continue to be good ones going forward so I can keep enjoying buying tea here :)
I explained that I have been simply drinking more tea than I thought and would like to actually take advantage of the 40 dollar, much larger option (actually quite a good deal, just wasn't sure if I needed it at the time) for the steeping pitcher-esque container they offer. That was all fine until I said I didn't have my receipt. This is a 21st century business, owned by a corporation, and I paid with a credit card. This store would not even offer me store credit to exchange the item to upgrade. Like I said, I have bought (to me, I'm not wealthy yet haha) a lot of tea here over the years, and usually have nice, pleasant experiences, I was hoping (falsely I suppose) that they would do their best to help me out. That could not have been further from the truth, it seemed (and i don't know if this person was having a bad day, or what..) that the person Emily, the manager potentially, was maybe having a bad day, I'm really not sure, but she just really did not want to make me feel like I could come out of that having a good experience. It seemed like she WANTED to rub this draconian policy in my face. I will return back to my first paragraph, good businesses understand this: the customer is always right, even if you need to bend rules, not egregiously, obviously, but slightly, just so the customer can feel satisfied with the interaction; that was not done. That was not even attempted to be done. And I will be speaking with a supervisor to see if THEY will be interested/willing to make that a reality. Interesting interaction from a company I had a marginal amount of respect for (I don't give respect out to company's easily, at all, but they have good product, so thats where they earned that bit!). I hope that I can revise this soon with a positive experience. Interesting so far. Wow.
Experience pending... WILL delete and re-review if this is handled in a professional matter subsequently. I work in retail, and am regarded as the top salesman in a 4 million dollar store. Customers always come first. Not here.
Teavana is a US Cafe based in Madison, Wisconsin. Teavana is located at 641 W Towne Mall B1, Madison, WI 53719, USA.
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