Argo Tea Opens First Overseas Shop

04 Oct 2012

By World Tea News

BEIRUT, Lebanon

Argo Tea founder Arsen Avakian last week opened the company’s first branded overseas location.

Avakian, 37, traveled to the grand opening last week and spoke to the Daily Star (Lebanon) about his first overseas expansion.

“Beirut is the window to the Middle East,” said Avakian who grew up in Yerevan, the capital and largest city in Armenia. A Fulbright Scholar, he and boyhood friend Simon Simonian, a computer scientist, emigrated to the United States in the 1990s where they teamed with French management consultant Daniel Lindwasser to launch the chain in 2003.

Argo Tea is privately held with estimated earnings of $20 million, according to an article in Time Magazine. The company operates 30 locations, mainly in Chicago where it is headquartered, but with five locations in New York City and one each in Boston and St. Louis.

The company’s bottled teas, which sell for $2.40 for a 13.5 oz. can be found in more than 3,000 grocery locations including Whole Foods Markets, Safeway and Dominick’s.

Investors including billionaire Sam Zell and Oxford Capital have fueled the company’s expansion which accelerated during the recession. The company now employs more than 400 workers, most part-time.

Avakian said the chain intends to add several Middle East locations and expressed ambitions to expand to Asia and Europe.

The first floor location in Le Mall, Dabbayeh, offers 40 tea blends, pastries, snacks and sandwiches including a chai cherry chicken sandwich cooked in the spiced tea.

“We want to do for tea what Starbucks did for coffee,” Avakian told the newspaper reporter, recounting the two years he worked as a barista at his first cafe, sourcing teas and mixing them with a variety of international ingredients to create healthy, refreshing and often unexpected drinks.

Argo has located several of its stores near Starbucks coffee shops including the Willis Tower in Chicago, O’Hare Airport and the Flatiron Building in New York City.

The menu in Beirut closely adheres to the U.S. offerings with Maté Laté a signature Brazilian maté, with almond and milk; the Hibiscus Tea Sangria, a mixture of iced tea and fresh fruits; the White Tea Acai Squeeze, white tea and lemonade; and the Green Tea Ginger Twist.

Tea is the fastest growing beverage segment in the U.S. over the past 10 years and Argo is a considered a tea retail pioneer. In addition to loose leaf tea and concentrates, the shops sell a range of Fair Trade and certified organic coffee.

Argo is one of several Western foodservice vendors in Beirut. Succeeding in the Middle East will be easier, he says, because a culture of tea drinking already exists.

Sources:  Daily Star (Lebanon) Time Magazine

Starbucks tea shop to open...

If you would have told me this 10 years ago, when we tea shop, tea bar, progressive tea stores were before our time, I would have gasped...


Starbucks tea shop to open in U-Village
The new Tazo tea store will sell hot and iced tea drinks and tea lattes, and it will feature a blending station where customers can create their own versions of Tazo's existing teas.

By Melissa Allison
Seattle Times business reporter



Three months after debuting its first noncoffee store — a fresh-juice shop in Bellevue Square — Starbucks plans to open a store centered on tea in University Village. It is expected to open in the fall, replacing Lululemon, which is moving to a larger space in the shopping center.

Starbucks officials see the juice and tea stores as destinations where customers can experience its Evolution Fresh and Tazo brands in 3-D, but they decline to say how many other juice and tea stores they may open.

Both brands also are sold as packaged goods in Starbucks stores — including two at University Village — and in grocery stores.

"We want to raise customer expectations for tea the same way Starbucks did for coffee," said Charlie Cain, a vice president with Tazo.

Blending station

The new Tazo tea store will sell hot and iced tea drinks and tea lattes, and it will feature a blending station where customers can create their own versions of Tazo's existing teas

For example, a customer could replace the black-tea base in Tazo's chai with a white tea or rooibos base — or develop something unique.

Customer-blended teas will be sold by the ounce. Prices have not been set.

Although Tazo already books $1.4 billion in annual sales, Starbucks sees more potential, said Chris Bruzzo, Starbucks' senior vice president of channel-brand management.

"What we learned in our years building the third-place experience [with Starbucks] is that having a direct, personalized connection to consumers is powerful and creates a halo that benefits the brand when the consumer sees it on the [grocery] aisle," he said.

Bruzzo, who previously launched Starbucks' successful digital and social-media strategy, now focuses on the marketing of various Starbucks products, including what the company considers its three emerging brands: Tazo, Evolution Fresh, and Seattle's Best Coffee.

Seattle's Best is a chain of about 80 shops that also sells coffee in 50,000 outlets, including Subway and Burger King stores.

Tazo purchase

Starbucks bought Tazo, a Portland tea company, in 1999 for $8.1 million.

Steve Smith, who co-founded Tazo and Stash Tea, became known at Tazo for creating blends called Awake and Calm, which cost about twice as much a other teas.

Tazo's operations are now being moved to Starbucks' roasting and packaging plant in Kent.

The tea store is a good for University Village's mix, said Susie Plummer, general manager of the shopping center.

"I've been looking for a great tea store for about 10 years," she said. "Even on personal vacations to Vancouver [B.C.], there are some great owner-operated mom-and-pops up there, so to me this is perfect."

Melissa Allison: 206-464-3312 or mallison@seattletimes.com. On Twitter @AllisonSeattle.