Tazo
Encyclopedia
Tazo Tea Company is a tea manufacturer and distributor based in Portland, Oregon
, now a division of Starbucks
.
in 1972. Stash was sold in the fall of 1993 to Yamamotoyama, a Japanese tea company.
Smith used his corporate connections within the food services industry to convince many restaurants, food stores, and tea houses to carry the new Tazo Teas. Smith approached Starbucks
CEO Howard Schultz
in 1998, seeking further investment partners. The company was purchased by Starbucks in 1999 for $
8.1 million.
Smith started another tea company, Steven Smith Teamaker, in 2009.
The company uses "New Age
"-style marketing and product labeling. For example, every box of tea was once labeled as "blessed by a certified tea shaman" and an original tag line was "The Reincarnation of Tea."
The logo uses the Exocet
typeface
, slightly modified. For example, the T in Tazo was changed for readability purposes in 2006 by sliding the cross-piece toward the top of the letter.
Portland, Oregon
Portland is a city located in the Pacific Northwest, near the confluence of the Willamette and Columbia rivers in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2010 Census, it had a population of 583,776, making it the 29th most populous city in the United States...
, now a division of Starbucks
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...
.
History
Tazo Tea was founded in 1994 by Steve Smith (who retired from Tazo in 2006) along with his business partners Stephen Lee and Tom Mesher. Lee and Smith had co-founded the Stash Tea CompanyStash Tea Company
Stash Tea Company is a privately-held specialty tea company headquartered in Tigard, Oregon, a suburb of Portland.- History :Stash Tea was founded in 1972 and originally operated out of an old Portland Victorian-style house, supplying loose herbal teas and bulk herbs to natural food stores...
in 1972. Stash was sold in the fall of 1993 to Yamamotoyama, a Japanese tea company.
Smith used his corporate connections within the food services industry to convince many restaurants, food stores, and tea houses to carry the new Tazo Teas. Smith approached Starbucks
Starbucks
Starbucks Corporation is an international coffee and coffeehouse chain based in Seattle, Washington. Starbucks is the largest coffeehouse company in the world, with 17,009 stores in 55 countries, including over 11,000 in the United States, over 1,000 in Canada, over 700 in the United Kingdom, and...
CEO Howard Schultz
Howard Schultz
Howard Schultz is an American business magnate. He is the best known as the chairman and CEO of Starbucks and a former owner of the Seattle SuperSonics...
in 1998, seeking further investment partners. The company was purchased by Starbucks in 1999 for $
United States dollar
The United States dollar , also referred to as the American dollar, is the official currency of the United States of America. It is divided into 100 smaller units called cents or pennies....
8.1 million.
Smith started another tea company, Steven Smith Teamaker, in 2009.
Marketing
New Age
The New Age movement is a Western spiritual movement that developed in the second half of the 20th century. Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and then infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational...
"-style marketing and product labeling. For example, every box of tea was once labeled as "blessed by a certified tea shaman" and an original tag line was "The Reincarnation of Tea."
The logo uses the Exocet
Exocet (typeface)
Exocet is a typeface designed by Jonathan Barnbrook for the Emigre foundry in 1991. It was originally designed for the European annual Illustration Now. It was used extensively for product designs in the 1990s, most notably for Tazo Tea. It can be seen in the 1993 movie Demolition Man where it is...
typeface
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
, slightly modified. For example, the T in Tazo was changed for readability purposes in 2006 by sliding the cross-piece toward the top of the letter.