Teavana

First, I’m a coffee drinker so why did I even go into this place? It was the doing of the very charming and knowledgable Kendall (aka Ken Doll). He casually offered a sample of winterberry and I was hooked but I had many questions. How do I navigate this new beverage highway? What are the appropriate accessories? Ken Doll was patient, kind and wise.
Thank you Ken Doll.
Love, Tess & Francesca

Before I begin, I want to make sure it’s clear that we went in to teavana with every intention of buying some tea. We also had never been in to a Teavana store before.
This review is coming from someone who not only has a career as a paid Sales and Consumer trainer, but has also been in the sales and customer service industry for over 15 years. If you aren’t a good listener, and you don’t have a PASSION or take PRIDE in the SERVICE you’re providing your client, you shouldn’t be in sales. You have to actually CARE about what is the best fit for your client.
TEAVANA EMPLOYEES ARE COMMISSION BASED.
The 1 star is solely a result of our experience with the «manager»
The girl who helped us, (I later found out) was the manager;(
Knowing almost nothing about tea, except caffeinated or decaf, we asked her if she could recommend any good choices.
Her response should have told us to run!
She said, she really couldn’t suggest anything, because there were so many different kinds to choose from and without knowing what we liked it would be pointless to even begin to explain anything to us about any of the teas??? REALLY!!!
After explaining, that we really didn’t have a preference, and that we were new to the world of tea, she kept saying «it just depends on what you like» over and over. She then started pitching us gift baskets.
We had already told her numerous times we only wanted one or two kinds of tea, and maybe something to brew the tea.
After asking what we needed and how to brew the tea, having no clue how to do this.
She starting telling us about the device that cost over 200 $!
I literally had to ask her to stop talking and actually LISTEN to what we were asking for.
Even after asking her if it is possible to just boil the tea in a traditional tea pot, or a pot of water, her responses kept circling back around to us purchasing a brewer that costs literally hundreds of dollars. She never gave us a straight answer.
I had to walk away from her. As my husband continued to endure her relentless sales pitch, I walked over to a wall where I found small little brewing devices.
There was a very nice tall guy with blondish curlyish hair and glasses who asked me if I needed help.
I asked him about the small Brewers and how they worked and how much they cost. He told me about 29 $ I think it was. I said perfect! Actually I think I asked him if they had anything to brew the tea that wasn’t hundreds of dollars. His answer was «o ya, these right here are what we all use and they’re only 29 $».
His response was so simple and to the point I was thinking ok this guy’s the manager so maybe he can help me out.
I explained our situation and he told me that she was the manager.
I told him that we just needed simple answers to simple questions and we weren’t getting them with her.
He said that he understood, and that she had a lot of knowledge but that he totally knew what I was talking about. With a sympathetic look as he said he totally got it.
It was like he was afraid to say what he really felt.
Needless to say we left empty handed and totally flabbergasted!
My husband said «she literally just talked us out of wanting to buy anything».
After telling my friends about this experience, my friend Samantha told me «oh yea, they work on commission didn’t you know that? That’s why we only buy their tea online, so we don’t have to go into their stores.»
Every single friend who I talked to all told me the same story as mine.
I ended up going back to this location not having enough time to order something online for Chris for Christmas.
The only reason I went back is because I happen to be Christmas shopping and walked by and saw the tall nice guy who was so helpful before.
I ended up spending about $ 100 on 2 teas and a small brewer.
While I was checking out I told the tall dude, I really love that she has so much knowledge about tea.
The problem is that we didn’t want or have the time to sit there and listen to a description of every single tea.
All we wanted was simple answers to our simple questions, and she was unwilling to do that for us.
He literally didn’t respond to me. After asking him if they could gift wrap for me, he looked behind me and asked someone if they had large boxes in the back for wrapping. I turned around to see who he was talking to and it was the pushy «manager» girl.
So obviously he wasn’t going to say anything in front of her, but she must have heard everything I said, and so I did a little internal happy dance.
I’m glad she heard me.
I then heard a customer come and get a sample from her behind me.
He walked up and asked her how her day was going and she said «oh, I’ve had better hahahahahah.»
This girl is really a bad representative of Teavana.
It seams really strange to me, that a company with such great products to sell would choose someone so abrasive and pompous to represent.

First time I visited and the last time we will go.
The return policy is no returns on sale items, which is absurd as the whole store is on some sort of sale. We bought a Christmas present and now we realize that our recipient won’t be able to return it, I hope she likes it! We can’t even return it now with buyer’s remorse, very clever.
They didn’t offer a bag and acted like I had to buy a canister to buy loose leaf tea. I am quite upset that I caved and actually purchased 4.5oz of tea and an $ 8 canister when I wanted two 1oz packages (minimum tea purchase is 2oz).
Sales associate was friendly as she explained all of the sales caveats, it was really confusing. I will never enter this store again, I hope these deceptive sales practices end or they go out of business as people realize the scam.

Enough with the canisters– when I tell you I don’t want one– just believe me. When I tell you I already have one– don’t ask me if its washed and ready to go. I’m fine. I should not have to say no more than once, let alone three times.
When I say 2 ounces– I want two ounces– not what ever you ended up dumping out of the can.
When did they start hiring imbeciles?

We had never been in their store. In fact we had never tasted their teas before. To our delight we fell in love but it was also because of the wonderful staff member by the name of Nancy. She quickly greeted us and shared all of her enthusiasm regarding the delicious teas that were in their store. She educated us on how to mix and match the various teas they had displayed & showed us all of the tea products so we could use to make ourselves. Such a wonderful experience that I will highly recommend it to friends and family and definitely plan to go back to get more tea once I use up her recommendation that we purchased. Great customer service!

Get the Youthberry, it’s the yummiest tea I’ve ever had. It smells amazing. Tastes great mixed with Peach Tranquility!

I stopped in the Teavana in Pioneer Place for the first time to get a small gift for a friend. First, the employee said, you can get the tea in this tin for $ 7.95, which I assumed meant I could get a small amount of tea in the tin for $ 7.95. Then she did the thing I now know they are famous for, measuring out more than I asked for and then asking, is that okay? Then she put it in the tin and asked me if I would like a cup of tea to go. I had told her that I was more a coffee drinker, so she made it sound like she would like to offer me a cup of tea and maybe that would turn me into a tea drinker and bring me back to the store. Sure, I said. So she started ringing it up. $ 10.37 for 2.60 (I wanted 2.0) ounces of tea, PLUS $ 7.95 for a 50 cent tin made in China PLUS $ 3 for a cup of tea that I didn’t even want. Whoa, I said, I don’t want the tin or the to go tea, can you just put my tea in a bag? She very reluctantly did so while telling me several times how it would have absolutely no flavor within one week if it were not put immediately into a tin. Really? That’s what your selling to people? High-​priced tea that is worthless after one week? What a terrible, terrible business. I will never go in there again and will warn everyone I know off of it. Plus their tea is awful.

Came here for the Heavenly Sale and I’m glad I did! Normally, Teavana’s prices are pretty high, but with leaves up to 75% off, me and the fiancé went on a little spree and started our first foray into being loose tea leaf drinkers. Teavana is really beginner-​friendly; besides selling tea thermoses with filters, teapots, and tins, each tea purchase is labeled with directions for your type of tea — temperature, how much leaf to use, how long to steep it.
Since the employees are apparently paid on commission, they can sometimes be pushy and a little too eager to make a bigger sale. At this particular location, we had pretty good luck with the workers and didn’t feel very pressured. We left with two big tins of Himalayan Splendor, one of Morning Mate, and two stainless steel thermoses.
Apparently Himalayan Splendor is discontinued, but it was a high-​quality black tea that was rich and a little sweet. Morning Mate should still be available. Because of the caffeine, I like to drink it in the morning. It has cocoa, nuts, and spices in it which makes it a flavorful alternative to coffee.
Although Teavana is a little to expensive to frequent regularly, I will definitely be stocking up at their next big sale!

I’ve been to many Teavana stores and I don’t usually like their high pressure sales people, but the gal who helped us here was very friendly and knowledgeable without being pushy. This is a tiny store and a lot of their products are overpriced, but the tea sure does taste good!
I still recommend checking out independent tea shops, buy if you have to shop at a Teavana, this one is a decent one.

I love tea, I love teapots, and I generally love browsing this store. But I’ll be honest, I’ve never bought anything here. And it’s because even though I have boojie, lazy, love-​overpriced-​shit-​in-​expensive-​packaging tendencies, this place doesn’t manage to knock me upside at the right time for spending.
I will admit though, there’s this cherry-​blossom green tea package I’ve had my eye on. It comes with the most beautiful cherry-​blossom-​design hot flask. The tea inside smells amazing, the flask makes my eyes water. So lovely, so elegant. And yet, somehow, I always end up getting my thermoses at Ikea, buying my tea directly from The Republic of Tea, and then after I’ve already quite literally spent my entire tea budget for the next lifetime, I wander into Teavana for a free sample. And they try to sell me their beautiful, heavily scented teas.
The other reason I admit to being nervous about shopping here is, the only Republican I know in person swears by this shit, and she makes me nervous, so I have to doubt her fascist purchasing power and search elsewhere for my nirvana-​inducing consumer bullshit.
But seriously, do the free samples. They will warm the cockles of your mall-​trolling heart.

Extremely pushy salespeople (let me look around without following me for gosh sakes!). Nice teas/​accessories (prices are 3 times as high as you can find for the SAME brand elsewhere). Knowledeable staff (although I was made to feel guilty for not spending more than $ 180.00 «you should buy the coasters now, you’ll regret it later.») Quality products (you really don’t NEED their special cans for storage) and convenient location.

Started out innocent enough. Was craving just a shot of caffeine and right in front of me was a woman with a bunch of tea shots. I did not think this place dealt in that type of drug but she corrected me and gave me a tea sample. Got sucked right in after that as the tea was truly divine. There was just a slight sweet taste to it which turned out to be this natural german rock sugar. They have jars of this crack for sale! The tea itself was a mixture of White Ayurvedic chai (white tea) with Samurai chai mate! Whoa. quite the aromatic and flavorful mixture.
I then asked about the paraphernalia that you would use to imbibe in such a tea. Look out — because they have every type of tea pot, tea ball, tea enhancing device you can imagine. There’s even some sort of gravity tea holder that releases the steeping tea into your cup. They have a tea tumbler which is a tea basket sitting in a thermos.
Teavana for sure! And best of all, it’s legal!

If you like tea (herbal, black, green, etc.) you should definitely stop by a Teavana because they have quite a large selection. HOWEVER, I recommend another location solely based on how pushy the sales people were at this one. After we finally decided on which one to get the lady kept trying to give us way more than we asked for, even though we explained we were only in town on vacation and only were planning on making one cup anyway.
I guess if you come here just stand firm with what you tell the sales people — same as anywhere.

It’s my favorite tea. Hands down. However they have become very pushy over the years, which is why I don’t even try the samples anymore.
My absolute favorites are Six Summits Oolong and Strawberry Pu-​Erh. I’ve been drinking it regularly for years now. I get them in the 2lb bags so you get the discount and you need tins if you are going to buy that much. It’ll last me a year or so. I mix the two (about 3 tbs Pu-​erh and 1tbs oolong). But buy the tins online somewhere else. Their’s are good, but really expensive and you can find better and less expensive ones online.
What I didn’t know for the first few months was that when you are brewing tea in their 16oz tea maker, you can refill it with hot water and get at least 48 ounces out of the same tea leaves. So, I usually make ice tea for the week (putting it in a pitcher) using just 4 or 5 tbs of tea leaves. Just keep adding hot water until the tea loses most of its color. I usually let each time steep for about 2 – 3 minutes regardless of what they suggest. And then let it steep longer the more times you add water.
It’s kinda frustrating when you buy ice tea in the store from them, knowing they could make at least 3 cups of ice tea out of the same amount of tea leaves it takes for one cup.

I feel like I am in a wine tasting here sampling different teas. However I do not appreciate pushy sales people even if they are subtle. Shay F. was spot on about the sales tactic, and I don’t know if they are getting a commission. I love teas, but not $ 50 teas! I went in here yesterday just to sample a few teas, and ended up buying 2 small bags for almost $ 50. Yes I got suckered into buying them.
The reason why I am giving a low rating of 3 stars? I do not like it when the sales person bad mouth other high end teas that I buy from high end grocers like Whole Foods or Dean & Deluca.
Calling them low quality because I buy them on sale. Totally in poor taste, and a total turn off!
They do have good teas though, so I went back today to sample more.
I ended up buying a cool tea maker. (Got suckered again! This place is dangerous!)
It was a good thing I bought it in Portland where there’s no sales tax.
I would not purchase this anywhere else that’s for sure.

I love green and white teas, I love matcha, I love stronger black teas…
Well, I was in nirvana or nibanna or Teavana, whatever you want to call it.
Thank you, tea sales lady for your helpful service and tastes and whiffs of teas.

Talk about skilled sales people. It’s like pushy, but not too pushy.
Well…whatever the case, the lady let us sample all different kinds of teas and told us what it was good for. I’ve been kinda looking/​wanting a strawberry tea, but didn’t really think I’d buy it that day… but was totally caught into buying a bag. I can’t believe they tried to get me to spend $ 6 or $ 7 on a tin can just to store my tea that I got though. Geez… a bag will do lady… that’s FREE.
I’m sippin’ on the tea now… not bad at all.

I really wish my first review on Unilocal could have been a good one. But unfortunately Teavana happened. If this was just reviewing the tea it’d be four stars easy, or even the service maybe could have earned it three stars.
I don’t completely agree with most of the one star reviews on her that complain about being bulldozed by a skilled sales team. In fact its been a long time since I’ve seen skills like that used and I appreciated it. Unfortunately all those people with «buyers remorse» are people that couldn’t say no. I left with nearly 130 dollars worth of tea, and I still don’t regret it (infact having a nice glass as I write this) but I wont be back to this or any location in the future.
But than there is hearing what the leadership of the store thinks of customers and their employees. To those people who felt like they employees purposefully add a bit extra cause you wont say no, your right. The «free» gift for being a «great» customer; think again. What does the leadership think of you? I’ll spare you.
Next time your on your way home from work buddy, try and use some etiquette some of your customers might be sitting around you. Sales tactics and a skilled sales team is great but letting your customers know how little you think of them, very unskillful.