Teavana

Depends on who is on to sell at this location. Some workers are great, others are pushy. They need to have the option of purchasing samples because 2 oz of tea can be expensive if you really don’t like it. I’ve been talked into buy the tea and then go home and dislike it. It’s a pain to return something for me, so I end of losing out on the money. I can see a 2 oz minimum but what about ½ ounces of this and that totals 2 oz. Then you can get sample sizes and they still make $$. They just don’t get that it would increase their sales to provide more chances to try tea at lesser prices. Would help if they had better in-​store sales too. On line is cheaper but you can’t see item like you can in store. I do see the prices went up to since last time. I used to go more often but now buy grocery store green teas here and there due to pain in the pocketbook.

The quick summary: dishonest sales practices and overpriced tea.
My wife and daughters know that I’ve picked up a tea habit over the last couple of years and they each decided to pick up some tea for me for Christmas. Independently all three of them visited Teavana stores — 2 went to the Maplewood location and one to the Minneapolis location. Each one of them picked out a tea and then shown the container options that they could choose from. Actual little tea canisters that cost $ 10. TEN DOLLARS EXTRA for a container that they were each led to believe was their only option when buying tea.
I think it’s absolutely disgraceful that the used car salespeople they employ here mislead customers into this ridiculous upsell. I’ve purchase tea at Teavana stores and I know that they can sell the tea in a bag for no additional charge. I also know that I’ll never buy tea there again even though I now have 3 tea tins that I could bring in to refill — which was the big selling point.
It’s one thing to seriously overprice tea — I have no problem with that. I do, however, have a serious problem with misleading sales tactics. AT A TEA STORE.
No, I’ll go buy my tea at the other local TEA SOURCE (not mentioning any names) that doesn’t try to rip off unsuspecting customers.

I absolutely love Teavanna and their helpful employees. Yes their tea is more expensive than other places and yes you can spend a lot of money especially if you’re in a rush, but if you truly want the best Teavanna experience you just need to slow it down and ask the employees for their help/​recommendations as they will truly help to the best of their abilities. They have some of the most beautiful tea sets I have seen and I seriously love the atmosphere of this place. Teavanna truly is a unique experience. Some people complain about the tea tins costing money. Yes the sales people are somewhat pushy but if you request to not buy them, then they’ll put it in a bag.

I don’t know what they threaten their employees with to make them such aggressive sellers, every time I walk in I feel like I’m at a used car dealership. You really have to have your wits about you when you make a purchase here or they will find a way to get more money out of you. They automatically put any tea purchase you make in a tin that costs extra but they do not tell you about the extra cost, if you don’t want to purchase a tin make sure you specify that you want the tea in a bag. They say it won’t keep if it is in the bag but two of the teas I’ve bought here have been in the bag well over a year and still taste fine to me. Keep an eye on the scale when they measure out your tea or sugar as they will overfill it and ask you if it is ok. I fell for this the first time as I assumed they would give me the 2 oz that I asked for but it was well over 2 oz. The first time I went to buy a pound a sugar the lady told me that a pound cost «almost» $ 10 so it was a better deal to buy the three pound jar of sugar for $ 26. I had checked the cost online and found the price per pound of sugar to be $ 8.50, which to me is not $ 10, so I asked if the prices online were different and she said they weren’t. I decided not to buy the sugar as I didn’t want to pay $ 10 for it. After reading about how they often overfill how much they give you I went back and requested a pound of sugar, it was $ 8.50. Of course it would have been $ 10 if I had gone with the 19 oz that the saleswoman originally filled my bag with before I told her to take some out. They have pretty shady business practices if you ask me, I wouldn’t go back if it weren’t for the brown rock sugar they sell that I can’t find at the local tea shops.