{"id":2239,"date":"2021-10-04T20:10:47","date_gmt":"2021-10-04T20:10:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=2239"},"modified":"2021-10-04T20:10:47","modified_gmt":"2021-10-04T20:10:47","slug":"en-tea-preneur-how-one-business-consultant-became-a-tea-tycoon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/?p=2239","title":{"rendered":"En-Tea-Preneur: How One Business Consultant Became A Tea Tycoon"},"content":{"rendered":"

For more than a decade,\u00a0Stephanie Synclair<\/a>\u00a0ran a successful consulting firm, helping potential African-American women entrepreneurs develop marketing strategies to achieve their dream of business ownership.<\/p>\n

Using what she says is a neuroscientific approach that involves changing her clients\u2019 \u201cprogramming\u201d about money, she transformed her\u00a0House of Icons<\/a>\u00a0into a nearly $3 million company since it launched in 2009.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI have an obsession with the brain, subconscious programming, and how it works,\u201d said Synclair. \u201cIf we can break down the negative programming, and embed new programming, and see more people who look like us, we can truly see what\u2019s possible. If you really want to make this shift, you can\u2019t keep taking in things that don\u2019t match up or align with where you\u2019re going.\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

As the pandemic gripped much of the world last year and brought about a \u201cstillness\u201d that enabled her to reassess her personal goals, Synclair decided to leave the consulting world to become a \u201ctea-preneur.\u201d Today, she is the founder and CEO of La Rue 1680, a luxury loose-tea company that has evolved into a home lifestyle brand focused on the mind-body wellness connection.<\/p>\n

With a nod to the global success of British dramas such as \u201cThe Crown<\/a>\u201d and \u201cBridgerton<\/a>,\u201d Synclair is challenging American coffee culture with a line of custom teas and accessories. She projects $10 million in annual sales by 2026. Today, she said, La Rue 1680 is valued at $2.7 million.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always interested in creating a product that my son could sell, and his children could sell, and create real long-term wealth for future generations,\u201d Synclair said. \u201cLet\u2019s face it, we don\u2019t have amazing teas in the U.S. We don\u2019t have a tea culture; we\u2019re more of a coffee culture. So, I thought this would be a really good time to step into this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The global tea market was valued at $55 billion in 2019 and is projected to reach just under $69 billion by 2027, according to\u00a0Research and Markets<\/a>\u00a0analytics firm based in Dublin, Ireland.<\/p>\n

Tea sales have also been on the rise in the United States, jumping from $1.8 billion in 1990 to an estimated $13 billion in 2020, according to a\u00a0report\u00a0<\/a>by the nonprofit Tea Association of the U.S.A. released last February.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe specialty tea sector is one in which the pandemic actually spurred growth,\u201d said Peter Goggi, association president. \u201cTea is seen as an enabler for de-stressing and helping consumers achieve \u2018centeredness.\u2019\u201d<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The association cites recent\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0highlighting tea\u2019s role in boosting the immune system.<\/p>\n

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What\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Though the company is barely a year old, Synclair said she\u2019s looking to move beyond being a direct seller to becoming a player in the retail space. This opportunity to expand her customer base comes with a major challenge.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving locations where people can go in and smell the tea is really important because we want people to fully experience what La Rue 1680 is all about,\u201d said Synclair. \u201cBut the challenge is that our price point makes us a luxury item in line with tea you\u2019d get from England or France. We\u2019re not in line with a $3.99 or $5 tea you\u2019d get from Target; our average price ranges from $15 to $18, so we\u2019d have to be in places like Neiman-Marcus, Bloomingdale\u2019s or Dean and De Luca.<\/p>\n

\u201cI go back and forth on the issue because I don\u2019t want to take on investors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI hated tea\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

Synclair\u2019s love affair with tea was not a conventional courtship. It was\u2019t until her 2012 trip to Asia with her son, Caden, now 14, that she discovered an appreciation for tea.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hated tea before we started traveling,\u201d she said. \u201cBut, [Caden], from a very young age, always liked hot tea.\u201d<\/p>\n

While getting a massage in Bali one day, Caden pleaded with his mother to try his cup of hot tea.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn all transparency, I tasted it only to get him to leave me alone,\u201d Synclair said, \u201cbut I was like, \u2018What is this? This isn\u2019t tea.\u2019 The blend of ginger and turmeric, as well as black tea, was pretty amazing. I realized then that I had a one-dimensional view of what tea was. But even then, I never thought I\u2019d be selling tea.\u201d<\/p>\n

Today, La Rue 1680 operates out of a warehouse and office complex in Alpharetta, Georgia, north of Atlanta, and offers more than 23 types of tea, each infused with flavors such as peppermint, rose hips and calendula.<\/p>\n

Synclair said she \u201cplays around in the kitchen all the time\u201d to create the tea blends and partners with a Canadian company to perfect the final products. \u00a0She said the newest additions \u2014 a ginger and turmeric blend and the Ayurveda wellness blend \u2014 provide relief from inflammation and stress.<\/p>\n

Some of La Rue 1680\u2019s flavors, such as vanilla chai and pomegranate hibiscus, are ideal for use in cocktails, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cLa Rue 1680 is a European-inspired line, and the name literally means \u2018the street,\u2019\u201d Synclair said. \u201cBut, one thing I always say is that La Rue 1680 is a way to transport yourself to any street, any place in any country you want to be in. The coffee culture in America is very \u2018to-go.\u2019 With our brands, it\u2019s about slowing down, stopping, being present in the moment. It\u2019s almost meditative, even if it\u2019s only for five or 10 minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI drink Stephanie\u2019s tea daily because tea is awesome,\u201d said Jocelyn Williams, an adviser at the Holistic Self-Care Institute in McDonough, Georgia. \u201cBut, self-care is my lifestyle, so I drink it every day for its medicinal benefits as well. The ginger and turmeric blend is especially helpful for my fibromyalgia and arthritis. And the pi\u00f1a colada-flavored tea brings out the ocean girl in me, helping me visualize being on the islands even when I\u2019m not there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source: Zenger News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For more than a decade,\u00a0Stephanie Synclair\u00a0ran a successful consulting firm, helping potential African-American women entrepreneurs develop marketing strategies<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2241,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_theme","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-express","category-business"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2239"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2242,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2239\/revisions\/2242"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}