You're right! This might just come off as a facelift of the brand. And in large part, it is. But we are also making some fundamental changes to the way we do business. ITI's goal was always to help build a sustainable specialty tea industry in the US. TeaVendor renews that goal, with the added goal of making tea sourcing easier for people who are new to the tea industry.

 

For over 30 years, ITI has taken a very hands-on approach to getting specialty tea education out there. We want to continue doing that, but we especially want to make tea more accessible. Tea is a drink that brings people together, and while we want to make sure that people understand what tea is, becoming a "tea sommelier" isn't a realistic goal for every business owner. Especially as the health and wellness space is booming, people want to get easy-to-digest information, buy some tea, and go.

 

That being said, there are some major changes that may be coming, some that you may have struggled with already. We hope this page can help you find answers to the questions you have, but our team is available by phone at (562) 801-9600 and email at orders@teavendor.com if you need to talk to someone.

 

This is probably the biggest question we receive. It has the hardest and probably most complex answer. Since our founder, Devan Shah, passed in 2016, we've had to undergo several operational changes. We've changed staff, endured the implementation of national food safety legislation, and survived the COVID-19 pandemic. The answer to the question comes in a few parts.

 

Operational Efficiency

We've had to modernize the operations of the company. When Devan passed, a lot of his knowledge passed with him. He knew exactly where everything was in the warehouse, when he bought it, what it cost, and how it tasted. When he did take time to record those things, he did so in composition notebooks.

 

After his passing, we struggled for a long time just getting an inventory management system in place. We'll spare you the details, but our warehouse now operates more efficiently than ever with the technology that we've implemented. We now have accurate digital records of every tea we buy, blend we make, item we ship, and product we sell. Pretty standard, but the work getting there was anything but easy.

 

Food Safety Standards

In 2016, the landscape of food companies looked remarkably different. In particular, smaller niche manufacturers like ITI fell under the Food Safety Modernization Act. This meant that we had to do a much better job of tracking and reporting our food safety data. We were tracking all of our blends on paper at the time, and in order to be sustainable for our team, this all moved into the system described above. In particular, we had to make really big changes to the services we offered.

 

Before this change, we offered customization on every blend we sold. This was a huge burden on our team, and led to a lot of errors when it came time to report lot tracking. We needed to be able to have consistent formulas that didn't change, and this level of customization is just not possible at the scale at which we need to operate. In removing this service, as well as increasing our custom blend minimums, we know we disrupted the operations of many of our customers. We understand how challenging that must have been, but it is not a decision we made lightly, and it is not one we intend to roll back.

 

Sourcing and Inventory Challenges

The pandemic fundamentally changed the world and really disrupted our ability to source teas and herbs globally. While many of those challenges have subsided, in particular the massive increase to international freight prices, we have not been able to recover fully from the disruption.

 

We have done a poor job of keeping many of the teas we buy in stock. This is unacceptable, and the truth is we are still in the midst of rebuilding our global supply chain. We are implementing many decisions about our products that may be unpopular, but are needed.

 

To begin, while we are going to source as many single origin teas as possible, we do not think we will be able to source from every garden we used to buy from. For example, we won't be able to ensure that these gardens are available in our smaller 2 pound and 25 pound packaging - products we intend to make the focus of TeaVendor.

 

In addition, we have to drastically decrease the number of products we offer. Sustainability has become top of our mind, and to have sustainable operations, we just can't offer everything we used to offer. This means that some of the teas and blends you love, some that may be critical for your business, will not be available. We know this is hard, and that it may be a dealbreaker for many of our customers, as it has been already. For those customers, we want to say that those were not easy decisions for us, but we wouldn't have made them unless they were absolutely necessary.

 

Change of Mission

This last point is more forward looking. As already mentioned earlier, the mission of ITI was to help create the specialty tea industry in the US by providing valuable information that motivated people to create tea businesses that thrive, and to be a singular resource that entrepreneurs and enthusiasts could turn to for all their tea needs, no matter the complexity.

 

TeaVendor's mission shares the same spirit - educating business owners on tea and how to use it to build tea programs that add real value to their businesses. Where the mission differs is by understanding that most business owners looking to get into tea are not looking for complexity. Running a business, no matter the type, is complex enough. Offering too many choices - as is the nature of most tea suppliers - is overwhelming. To combat this, we are still offering hundreds of teas, but making choices simpler and focusing on teas that will work for a wider variety of businesses.