Athleisure Mag #56 Aug 2020| Create the Ritual with Steve Schwartz

Tea has always been a beverage that we have enjoyed hot, iced, alone, with an array of sweetners and even mixed with the spirit of our choice. We want- ed to delve more into tea culture to find out the origin of tea, how it should be consumed, stored and what the ben- efits are when drinking it. We talked with Steve Schwartz, the founder of Art of Tea which is known for their 100s of options that they have available on their site, their hospitality partnerships with Wolfgang Puck, Aria, Caesars Pal- ace and more. He talks with us about his background in Ayurveda, how he got into the industry, how he grew his company and the importance of our in- dividual tea rituals wherever we are in the world.

ATHLEISURE MAG: What is a master tea blender and what does that posi- tion entail?

STEVE SCHWARTZ: Great well let me first share a little bit on my background. My background entails Ayurveda. It’s a form of preventative medicine based in India. I got into that because my mom was actually diagnosed with brain cancer when I was just out of high school. I got a full paid scholar- ship to go to college and I ended up dropping out so I could go and move back in to take care of her. So, I took care of her for about 10 months until she passed. The whole time, we were just on Western medicine and there is nothing wrong with Western medi- cine, it just didn’t work for us. So we went from one doctor to another and one external treatment to another. Be- fore she passed, it got me to thinking, “gosh, cancer must have been around for thousands of years, we have only just recently labeled it as cancer. What are the other healing modalities that are out there?” I didn’t want to stick needles in people, I didn’t want to be a massage therapist or an herbologist – there is nothing wrong with any of those, it just wasn’t my path. So, I found this school in New Mexico

called the Ayurvedic Institute and really fell in love with the alchemy of blending herbs, teas and botanicals and how those herbs and botanicals link together to cre- ate unique flavor profiles and how those flavors, their profiles, herbs and healing properties affect the body in very differ- ent ways. In both a metabolic way, but also in terms of helping with hormones, digestive fire, immunity, longevity and all these things that really rally behind how these botanicals are blended together. So it’s not 1 herb plus another herb or botan- ical equals 2, but rather 1 + 1 could equal 4 or 6. It could multiply and increase in terms of its strength. So I was looking into old texts and San- skrit while I was at school and really trying to get an understanding of the alchemy of teas and herbs and it was funny that one of the patients that was there was a gen- tleman by the name, Yogi Bhajan (Editors

Note: he is cited as bringing his version of Kundalini Yoga to the US in the late 60’s/

early 70’s) and he would come to the facil- ity and see the doctor. I would make the blends for him. Another thing that was re- quested was that their family would ask for other ingredients and ask us to blend in different ratios these different botani- cals. So we would source and then send them the first samples and I would find 6 months or 9 months down the road that these blends were on supermarket shelves known as Yogi Teas. I was like, ok I know what I’m doing and at this point, there wasn’t a lot of real internet connec- tivity. There was this company Amazon that was starting out. But most of what I was doing was making phone calls to origin all throughout Asia and India. I remember that I needed to source ginkgo. So I called and it was like $4 a minute, so I wanted to be respectful of budget and time and I said, “I need to order some ginkgo.” They said, “do you want a Western slope or an Eastern slope next to a river?” I told them that it didn’t really matter, I just wanted to order ginkgo. He said, “no sir, it does matter. I need you to come here yourself so you can experience it.” I was intrigued, I appreciated the invitation and I saved up my money and worked 4 different jobs, got a back pack and started traveling the world to find the best teas and the botan- icals possible. I had no idea that I was going to start a tea company. I just knew that I was a huge tea nerd and was into it. I saw the impact that it had on people’s lives – those that drink tea and those that don’t. What it means to them, whether it’s sitting down with a loved one at the end of the day, en- gaging in a meditation practice or need- ing to work out a research paper. What- ever it might be, I just saw the level of the impact that tea could have and so I start- ed sourcing the different botanicals in my living room, started blending and started peddling my teas around town. I caught the attention of Wolfgang Puck and a ho- tel, a restaurant, a spa! Then I caught the attention of Caesar’s Palace and I ended up training the first Tea Sommelier in the United States. It sort of just grew from there and I ended up teaching classes at these world tea conventions and they were sold out. So I taught them 5 years in a row beginning with advance blending classes. There was no one teaching blend- ing. In fact, when I realized they were ask- ing me to teach it, I knew I had to look up old books and I ended up finding one from 1896 on blending!

AM: Wait what?

SS: Yeah! There was nothing at the time. So I said, “ok, if I’m asked to create a for- mat, then I’m just going to share my fail- ures and my wins. What’s working and what’s not and hopefully leave an impres- sion and an impact. For people that took the classes, they’re now publicly traded companies or sold to Procter & Gamble. So, it’s awesome to see the impact on what’s happening in the tea industry.

AM: Wow, just thinking of you talking about this, are there new blends or nu- trients that grow that they didn’t exist in the 18 or 1900’s? We enjoy a number of the

items that we consume and feel that those have always been around, but are there new hybrids?

SS: Great question! First, let’s dive into what is tea and what was that book from 1896 all about back then? True tea comes from one evergreen shrub called Camel- lia Sinensis. All true tea comes from that evergreen shrub. If it’s not from this ev- ergreen shrub, then it’s not tea. So for example White Tea, Green Tea, Oolong Tea, Black Tea, Pu-erh – all of these come from Camellia Sinensis. Then there are differences in terms of how they are pro- duced, but it is very similar to wine – it all comes from grapes. Now depending on the grape that’s used, how it’s grown and processed – is it stored in an oak barrel or a stainless steel container, is the skin left on? All these play into crafting a really de- licious glass of wine. The same way that tea is separated, picked at different har- vest times depending on what they are looking for, put into these silos of White, Green, Oolong, Black and Pu-erh. There are some subcategories between there, different varietals of tea, those that are grown specifically for those types of teas as well.

But if it is Chamomile or Rooibos then it’s not actually a tea. It’s a totally different category known as a Tisane. It is a fancy French word that basically means botan- ical. You can have Mint, Chamomile and Rooibos blended together and you have a Tisane or what is called a fusion or you can blend it with tea and then you have a Tea Fusion. But Chamomile tea is actually an oxymoron as it’s not really a tea.

AM: Wow!

SS: And you now know more than 99% of the US population!

AM: Our minds are now kind of blown as we’re processing this information! So, what do you define a Master Tea Blend- er as?

SS: I guess the 10,000 hour rule plays deeply into this. Having a strong sense of origin, where and how the teas are grown and when you’re tasting tea about 98% of what you are drinking is water. So what you’re looking for is the nuance within that 2% and so your tongue ends up becoming like an instru- ment. You’re learning how to play with the high notes and the low notes, the terroir of the different ingredients and how they will play well together. So, like an artist that is using color and a color palette to define what a painting will look like, they know where and when to add specific colors. The same thing with a blend. You want the blend to be even in terms of ingredient size so that smaller bits don’t fall into the bottom, you want that flavor profile to have a nice mouth feel in terms of what you are looking for in terms of beginning, middle and finish. But it’s knowing your ingredients well enough to see how that symphony of ingredients will come together for that final composition.

AM: What is that process like when you’re blending the teas? As you were talking, I was thinking back to last month’s issue when we talked with a Master Winemak- er and she was talking about how it’s the harvest season and what takes place during this time. You were talking about that there is that kind of season in tea as well. So what’s the blending and the har- vest season like for you?

SS: Great question. So the blending pro- cess in terms of the creations, when I was first starting out, I became ob- sessed with new blends that were com- ing out and I had a journal next to my bed where I would wake up in the middle of the night and I’d go, “oh, I have this great inspiration.” Sometimes, a great inspiration comes from odd things. My wife is an aesthetician and she got tons of samples of different skincare prod- ucts from vendors that were sending them to her to try. Our shower is pop- ulated with tons of different scrubs and conditioners and all sorts of stuff. Being

curious, I opened one up called Manda- rin Cashmere and it was wow – you could almost bite into it. It was smooth, sweet, citrusy and creamy! I thought it would be an amazing tea and obviously I didn’t want to eat a scrub and no one is going to want to eat cashmere, but I thought, “ok, maybe I can take this and make it. Call it Mandarin Silk.” I ended up really honing in on where those flavor notes were hit- ting my nose. Over 80% of what we taste, is through our sense of smell. So where are those flavor notes hitting my nose and how can I duplicate that within a product that someone is going to want to drink? It ended up doing really well and the tea won Best Oolong in the World. So, it was really really fun and really cool! So, there’s that part and then there’s Vera Wang who is coming up with a new line and she was like, can you make a tea that matches this perfume. In some cases, it’s really complex and in some cases, it’s re- ally trial and error. One blend I made, I made on accident. What happened was, I was first starting out and I was on the phone with a customer and I was blending one ingredient in a batch of other ingredi- ents that were resting. Meaning, as you blend, you want certain aromatics and compounds to be able to mesh together before you begin to introduce other in- gredients to it. Just like you’re going out with friends and say you’re inviting other friends over, you may ask, “should we in- vite that other person?” Because that per- son could add a lot of value or that person could just take the air out of the room. So in the same way, you’ll introduce ingre- dients at staged times. So I was on the phone with the customer and I accidently dumped one ingredient into a batch with another. While I was on the phone with them, I was like “oh shit” and this was with a 5-Star restaurant and I was like, “oh no, I’m sorry , how can I help you?” This was when I was customer service, sales, accounts receivable, accounts pay- able and marketing. Everything was tied into my cell phone when I was in my living room. I actually blended this, realized that I made the mistake and put it in this cello bag and put it in the corner. My wife walks in and she immediately notices where I messed up right? It’s part of her super power and she asked me what was that and I told her that I had messed up and she asked how I knew that I had? I told her that I was a Tea Expert, a Tea Master and that I knew. She said, “well you might want to try it.” I told her that I didn’t need to try it and that I knew it would be bad. She was right, it was burning in my head and I knew that I should at least try it. The next morning I woke up, I tried it and it was really good. I ended up sending samples out to dif- ferent customers and they loved it. This is a tea called French Lemon Ginger and it’s still one of our most popular herbal botanical tisanes that we have to offer.

AM: What lessons have you learned through creating your teas?

SS: Allow yourself permission to fuck up!

AM: Yup!

SS: Giving yourself that permissions, messing up along the way, learning and customer feedback! That’s also been really powerful. When we launch some- thing, what we do is first go through rounds internally and then we’ll go through rounds externally for our cus- tomers and then we’ll do a launch. So right now, we’re experimenting with a bottle beverage and we’re testing it out and we created it during this time of COVID-19. It’s called Open Sunshine and the whole idea is that there is so much power and energy by just going outside. People have this mixed relationship with what it means now to go outside and be in open sunshine. There are so many health factors about going outside. We took a look at getting Green Tea, Black Tea, Passion Fruit, Jasmine, Lemon and Ginger. We created an effervescent sparkling tea out of all of these differ- ent kinds of ingredients. So it’s a little spicy and a little sweet and slightly flo- ral. We’re launching it in about 2 weeks and we’re pretty excited about it!

AM: That is so exciting! What is that pro- cess like when you’re thinking about your assortment? Do you have a brainstorm where x amount of products have to come to market and x amount have to go into the vault to then come back again? You have an extensive amount of teas that are on your website – so it’s interesting to hear about the rotational aspect to it.

SS: That’s a great question. So in some cases, it’s through that trial and error and we’ll walk before we run. So we’ll do soft launches, we gain feedback, learn from what people are experiencing and our tribe is very vocal. They will share direct feedback on what they love and what they don’t love. It could be through Facebook or wherever that opportunity is for them to share with us. It’s having that dynamic trust relationship with our customers to be able to learn and to hopefully get bet- ter.

We’ve tried shaving back some of our of- ferings as well. I think that because we have such a vocal community, they will tell us that we can’t take that tea down. So we decided that at particular times, you may or may not like this analogy – the McRib.

AM: Haha that’s smart!

SS: Yeah, we’ll say, “we’ll McRib that.” We won’t get rid of it, but we will offer it at this particular time. For example, we have a tea called Pumpkin Spiced Chai that does so well in the fall and in the winter time. But for us to sell it in the heat of the summer, just doesn’t make sense. So we’ll breathe life back into certain teas at par- ticular times of the year.

AM: What destinations have inspired you in terms of creating different kinds of teas?

SS: Great question! We actually created and found that there are 4 reasons that people like to drink tea. We did this whole brand exercise a couple of years ago real- ly trying to identify what it was that peo- ple are gravitating towards for their cups of tea. We found that they drink tea be- cause it tastes good, they drink tea be- cause of a period of time (they have to drink it in the morning to get them go- ing, at night to help them wind down) a location (I remember going to London and sitting outside and enjoying a beau- tiful cup of tea or sitting on your grand- mother’s porch and enjoying a delicious tea) and the last piece is the wellness piece. People drink tea because they think of the medicinal value whether it’s something that their grandmother gave them when they were a kid or they read on a supermarket label that this does a particular kind of function. We created a Location Collection that in- cluded London, Big Sur, Tuscany – that’s a few. We also created specific teas that are only sold at specific hotels. Like at the Peninsula Hotel in Tokyo, we creat- ed a Cherry Blossom Tea in honor of the cherry blossom season. I’ve been very in- spired by these different areas. In terms of the seasonal blend, there is one called Summer Rain. My family and I were driv- ing from LA to Palm Springs and we got stuck in a monsoon. We couldn’t leave the car because it was pouring rain. By the time it stopped raining, we opened the door and you have this dry desert that is now hit with fresh rain and the smell that comes up from that floor is incredible. So I thought, how can I cap- ture this in a tea and we created a blend called Summer Rain. It’s always a dif- ferent inspiration and it’s not always so far out there in the world. It could very much be in our backyard, a memory or something that is close to us.

AM: We believe in drinking tea for its medicinal properties and we have mem- bers of our team that do so as they opt out from taking traditional medicine. Can you share what the benefits are in consuming tea in general and are there specific teas that are good for targeting immunity, relaxation and gut health?

SS: All great questions. The most pow- erful benefit of tea is really the ritual. I

was just learning with someone about how SnapChat had this new thing called Spectacles it’s Augmented Reality and you can dive in and it transforms your physical reality with these goggles and puts you into this internal/external world combined in one. Sounds interesting right? I was curious, So I wondered, what is “augment” mean? To me, it means to change or to alter. But augment actually means, to improve. So this whole world is going to continue to evolve as we’re deal- ing with what COVID-19 could mean, what connecting with people remotely could mean and this whole AR world is going to continue to transform. If the biggest ben- efit of tea to answer your question, is that ritual, then how can we create a modern day ritual without feeling foreign or with- out feeling like you need all these right tools or worry that we might mess it up. So this morning, I also looked up the word, “analog.” Analog means relating to phys- ical space. So you have augment which means to improve and analog which means to relate to your physical space. So, I’m sort of playing with the idea of AAR. Instead of Augmented Reality, there is an Analog Augmented Reality. So what does that mean? Basically, how can we dive into that ritual of getting your water ready, se- lecting your tea pod, getting your cup to- gether, selecting the right tea leaves and tapping out of technology. I am a huge fan of technology, but for just about 8-10 minutes, turn that stuff off and really dive in and hone in on that process and real- ly be mindful and intentional. If you allow yourself that permission, that space – imagine what it could do throughout the rest of your day, the rest of your life, the people that you love and the people that you are surrounded with. Giving yourself that permission to dive in completely with all of your senses and go all in on that An- alog Augmented Reality of brewing that process and sipping that process. Your mind will get totally distracted and say, “oh I need to do this and I need to tack- le that email.” But just keep honing in on those few minutes and that intention is a whole paradox. You might now have 8-10 minutes to do this, but if you allow your- self that time, the impact will be so great, but it’s really allowing yourself that permission.

AM: It’s a great way of putting it. In To- kyo, we went to a tea house and had the ability to see them make our tea. To think about all the steps that we do to create tea on a daily basis as a ritual is an interesting concept – from the use of our Breville, designated cups and you do take at least half a beat to do that.

SS: And it’s a modern day ritual right? You don’t have to travel to Tokyo to have this experience. It’s a corner in your ga- rage, it’s a small section in your patio, it’s a place in your room – wherever it might be where I am designating this space as a sacred space. That intention, you are breathing life into that intention. It will spill over into everything else that you are doing.

AM: Do you have teas that you would suggest that people can use to target is- sues that they are focused on?

SS: Great questions and I will answer it twofold. The first is yes, we have a wellness section on ArtofTea.com. It’s For Him Tea and For Her Tea. We have a Happy Tea, a Chill Out, Feel Better Blends, Throat Therapy, Breathe – all of these things that target very specific things. They’re all blended with Ayurve- da and wellness in mind and at the same time, there is a story out about the stu- dent and the master. The master says, “You’re ready for the final exam. I want you to go in a 1 mile radius and I want you to find a specific botanical that doesn’t have medicinal value.” The student is ex- cited and says, “ok, great”. The student has 24 hours, goes and comes back 24 hours later sobbing and says, “master, I failed. I couldn’t find a single botan- ical that didn’t have medicinal value.” And the master looks up and says, “no you’ve passed. Every root, every leaf, every berry, every botanical, bark has medicinal value.” But on the same tree

or plant, the root may be medicine for one person and the leaves could be poison for someone else. The berry could affect one part of the body, meanwhile, the stem or the roots could affect a different part of the body. How they are blended togeth- er might also have very powerful affects. Whether you’re living reading or listen- ing to this in the East Coast, West Coast, Mexico or Canada wherever you might be – within a 1 mile radius there are many different botanicals that are worth learn- ing about. So I encourage local sourcing as much as possible, but also if you don’t have time, we have definitely taken a lot of the guess work out and crafted really delicious teas through what we are doing in our wellness line.

AM: You have such an interesting distribu- tion in the sense of the website and your hospitality partners. How is that for you, is it different when you’re doing some- thing for a hotel group versus those who are coming directly to the website to pur- chase?

SS: It’s a great question. We will do signa- ture blends for our hospitality partners that are just for them like Google for ex- ample for their offices. The Aria Hotel, there are very specific teas for very spe- cific properties, but the large majority of teas that we have to offer can be found at our website. We found that with a lot of our hotels closing and people had sum- mer plans, a lot of the places where peo- ple would meet to work over tea – they still needed to connect over the tea expe- rience. The ritual of what they built, still needed to happen even if it was virtual. So we decided to create a Rework kit and we crafted it with Google. Google said that they had budget and that they want- ed to connect with their team and would we could do. So we created this kit with a little message inside that said, “Loving you remotely, from Google.” It was sent out to a variety of different staff members there at Google. A certain amount of box- es that were sold were sent out to First Responders. It’s been great and we’re try- ing to tie into this element of still connect- ing with our tribe or community and re- ally looking to make an impact through tea.

AM: We find ourselves asking this to ev- eryone because of the impact of COVID-19 across industries has been beyond what anyone could have even imagined. Have there been effects in terms of production of tea? Has it hindered it in any way?

SS: Good and bad. So, from our side, we have the freshest and best Chamo- mile that we have ever had and we have a very abundant amount of this Cham- omile. We bought based on what we thought the demand would be. We’re sitting on a lot of amazing Chamomile – we’ve always sourced it great, but this is really good! On the other side, Dar- jeeling, which is a region in India – think about a large hippie commune that has a very specific region where they have low valleys and high hills. It’s the cham- pagne of teas and a really crisp tasting tea. They have 3 harvest seasons. Their most profitable and most important season for that region happens in a very short window. It starts, regardless of climate change and on a very particular day of the year. All the workers come together and they wait year around for this day when they can harvest. This happened at the end of March, I believe it was March 29th and the government said the day before when everyone was gearing up to harvest, that we couldn’t harvest and they were preventing it from happening. All these estates, es- tate owners, garden workers and har- vesters – their livelihood was about to be shifted dramatically. There is already a shortage and a high demand for this high quality product so those stories, we have seen an impact. They were still able to harvest, they got creative through means of social distancing, but they were unable to do it on the exact day that it has been happening for many many years.

AM: From a customer perspective when they go to your website, are they able to

request custom blends for themselves if someone is having a wedding or if they have a small business? Is there an ability to do that on a smaller level vs your larger accounts?

SS: What we have done is to create blog articles where people can take specific teas that we have and create their own fun blends with them with specific recom- men dations around that. We’re doing a project now with these guys called Try Guys that have a YouTube channel. We’re working on a custom tea blend with them. So we will work on specific projects, but in terms of custom blending based on in- dividual customers or a smaller business, we will typically have them start with our 100+ teas that we have to offer on our site and helping them navigate through that process through that channel.

AM: What is the Art of Tea Academy and can you tell us more about what happens there?

SS: So glad you mentioned it. This COVID-19 period has given us the time to be super creative. So we created a 25 video series all on becoming a Tea Expert. It’s in depth training on how to taste tea, how to un- derstand origin, flavor profiles and in- depth learning on the different styles of tea. Lots of people that are foodies know where their wine comes from, their cof- fees their chocolate, but there is still a lot of mystique around tea. There is this idea that people will mess it up somehow. So we wanted to demystify the leaf and get people more closely connected with learning about tea. So in a very short pe- riod of time, we have had a few thousand people sign up and the response has been super positive so far. People have the time to learn and they want to up their game. Whether they’re in the hospitality space or are passionate about the love of learn- ing, we wanted to put this out there in the world.

AM: You recently launched your tea app as well, which looks really beautiful. What are the types of things that people can do through that app?

SS: I’m so grateful for the talent of our team. Specifically, Hanna who helps leads up our marketing and is so instru- mental in getting both of these sections live on our site. With the app, the app is a really fun and dynamic way to under- stand to best brew tea? There is a steep time section on there that you can take a really quick glance on. I found that one of the most popular pages on our site was how to brew tea. So it’s a quick and easy way that you can know how not to mess up your tea and how much to put in there.

The others connect to our tea quiz. So a lot of people will say, “I know that we need to get into tea because it’s good for me, but I don’t know where to start.” Or they have a loved one who loves tea, but they don’t know what to get them. The Tea Quiz is a bit of the ShoeDaz- zle and helps you navigate what is out there like a personal shopper. In just a few minutes, how can you best identify what tea will best match what you are looking for. Those are some of the fun connections that are happening on the app as well as discounts, checking out and notifications.

AM: What are your 3 go to teas that you enjoy?

SS: Wow man – it’s like what’s your fa- vorite kid? We have a tea called Earl Grey Crème which I know we sent you guys.

AM: Yes – so good and we like the idea of adding a little gin to it at night!

SS: That’s awesome! We found that with Earl Grey, there’s lots of ways to make it. We found, that we like to make it the authentic way with Bergamot oil and we use an Italian Bergamot Oil. We put that in our Earl Grey and we also found out that some may find that it is slightly as- tringent for some people so some add cream, milk or sugar to it which kind of neutralizes that. What we did is to add a

touch of French Vanilla which is sort of this eggy, creamy flavor profile. So the combination of that Bergamot Oil which is a bright citrus note that is slightly floral and that black tea with its brightness and astringency blended with the French, lem- on, ginger – you get this full mouth feel really rounded out and smooth. I could drink that all day and we grow mint in our backyard which is easy to grow and we’ll throw that in there as well. We have a blend that has it already called Big Sur which is awesome. I could drink Earl Grey Crème all day. I also love Japanese tea – we have one called Matcha+ which is Sencha, Green Tea and blended with ceremonial grade matcha. So you get more of a bioavailabili- ty from the matcha and it impacts the thy- roid which governs immunity and metab- olism and gets everything active. It is the same style tea that they use in Zen mon- asteries throughout Japan before they go into meditation so they can focus. You get this clear rush, but you don’t feel that jolty jitteriness that you feel with coffee. The third that I can drink on an ongoing basis is our Silver Needle. It’s harvested about 7-10 days out of the year. It’s hand- picked from Fujian Provence. We bring it in and it’s like drinking from a fresh spring. It’s slightly sweet and has slight notes of melon to it and it’s really great.

AM: Do you envision with the trend to have tea and alcohol together as a hard tea, do you envision a collaboration of something like that?

SS: It would be fun. We do work with sev- eral Kombucha companies that have both hard as well as non-alcoholic. There is a ci- der company that is in the works to launch something some time next year with our tea. Just in general, I think that tea and al- cohol especially now, right? I need to do something good for me and I need to be able to put something in my body and at the same time, they’re like fuck it – I need alcohol and I need something that’s going to make me chill out a bit. When you blend the two together, it’s not so bad!

AM: Does tea have a shelf life in general and what is the best way to put it in con- tainers to keep it fresh?

SS: Great question! Tea is sensitive to light, heat and humidity. As long as you keep it from those, you can have tea last for a long time and have a really great experience. If it is subject to any of those or is near your spice drawer or anything that is fragrant, it acts as a natural odor absorber and it will take up the smells of other things. You just want to make sure that it is in an airtight container. In terms of the shelf life for tea, tea if produced well and is high quality, it shouldn’t go bad. What we end up find- ing is that we have Best by Dates as we believe that there is a peak flavor pro- file that you’re going to get out of a tea in terms of being a live product. Over time, that flavor will drop which means you will lose some natural oil content, the vibrancy of the leaves will start to diminish.

We moved warehouses a few years ago from one location to the next. We found, tucked away in one drawer, tea that was over 5 years old. It was packed well, kept cool in a dark place and we de- cided to try it and it was fresh, dynam- ic and really really good. As long as it is stored right, you can have tea last a long time.

AM: I know earlier we were talking about the Pumpkin Chai Tea, but are there things coming out in the fall or holiday that we should keep an eye out for whether it’s new to market or being placed back into rotation?

SS: So a few things. Today we just launched in celebration of our SoCal roots, a beverage that is really popular here is Agua Frescas – just imagine mel- on water, hibiscus water or cantaloupe water. We did a few events, one was called Summit and a big coffee and tea

tea trade show where we soft launched this product called Matcha Fresca!

AM: Oooo that sounds refreshing and amazing!

SS: Haha yes we will send you some! It’s a premium grade matcha with cantaloupe essence and it’s so good! You get this fresh taste like you’re biting into this juicy can- taloupe and the matcha is a really bright green color to stay consistent. This is out now and we’re super excited about that!

@ArtofTeaLA PHOTOGRAOHY | Audrey Ma

Hear the founder of Art of Tea, Steve Schwartz on our show, Athleisure Kitchen - which is a part of Athleisure Studio, our multi-media podcast network! Make sure to subscribe to find out when the episode drops. You can hear it on iHeart Radio, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts and wherever you enjoy listening to your favorite podcast.