About

The Story Behind The Tea Spot
   
The Tea Spot’s mission is to make loose leaf tea an everyday luxury.  

The Tea Spot is infusing ancient tea traditions with modern technology and design with STEEPWARETM and hand-crafted loose-leaf teas. The innovative STEEPWARE collection is a new housewares category that brings convenience to the quality and integrity of loose-leaf tea. The Tea Spot’s signature blends, and selections of single estate and fair trade organic teas make daily teatime simple, luxurious, flavorful, yet affordable.

While in remission from Cancer in the late 1990’s, The Tea Spot’s founder, Maria Uspenski, began researching the health benefits of tea. She found that tea in its freshest state not only delivers better quality and flavor but also renders superior health benefits. Her research peaked her curiosity in this timeless ritual and she began sourcing green teas from origin. Although she first turned to tea for its strong Cancer-fighting antioxidants, she discovered that taking time for tea daily helped change her life in more ways than keeping Cancer at bay. Teatime became a way for her to connect with her daughters every day after school. It also became a way for her to reconnect with her friends and herself. After fully recovering from Cancer, she became inspired to help make this healthy luxury available and accessible to all. With her engineering background and entrepreneurial spirit, she developed a business plan to open a teahouse located downtown Boulder.

On her quest to make loose leaf tea an everyday luxury she met Karen Harbour.  Karen was a fitness professional and restaurateur, on her journey to make healthy living a daily lifestyle. Her 18-year struggle with an eating disorder left her craving a ritual that would replace her constant struggle with body image and weight. Uspenski’s contagious love for tea became Harbour’s daily passion and she soon began to realize that taking time for tea involved the ability to create something that is not only nutritious, but also self-nurturing. With her restaurant background, entrepreneurial spirit, and the mission to help people create balance in their lives, she too became determined to show people how to make tea a daily luxury. As their friendship evolved, so did The Tea Spot and their vision to create products that make drinking loose leaf tea accessible, easy and fun.

The Tea Spot’s retail location opened in November 2004. After a couple of years building a loyal following and receiving rave reviews on their signature blends; they gained the inspiration to grow their brand nationally by retailing their products in other stores. By the end of 2005, The Tea Spot Teas became available regionally at Whole Foods and other specialty food stores. By the end of 2006, they designed and manufactured their first artisan-handcrafted STEEPWARETM item. The Tea Spot’s eco-commerce practices reflect their core belief that both the product you consume and the legacy of the vessel you drink it from need to uphold clean, sustainable and fair manufacturing methods. The Tea Spot’s widespread commitment to wellness is supported by a financial contribution from sales of all products to the Tea Spot Community Fund, serving health and conservation organizations in our communities.

Products to date include their Silver Label Signature Blend Teas, Black Label Organic Teas, Steeping Cups, Steeping Mugs, Automatic Teapot and Tuffy Steepers. The Tea Spot products are currently available nationwide in over 1000 retail locations, e-tailers and on their website: www.theteaspot.com.

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Press Contact: Karen Harbour, The Tea Spot, 303.444.8324, Karen@theteaspot.com