By Heidi Kyser

On Jan. 12, Starbucks made official a change that had been quietly creeping into stores for several weeks. Working through its subsidiary Tazo Tea, Starbucks switched from CTC to whole-leaf tea bags in all of its U.S. stores.

Altogether, the company released 10 new Tazo Full Leaf teas, including two new flavors, Vanilla Rooibos Herbal Infusion and Orange Blossom Green Tea, alongside eight popular existing flavors: Awake, Earl Grey and Chai black teas; Zen and China Green Tips green teas; and Passion, Calm and Refresh herbal teas.

The new whole-leaf teas come in three-dimensional sachets to provide more room for leaf expansion. They sell for a suggested retail price of $1.85-$2.35 per cup and are available in 15-count tins for an MSRP of $6.95.

WTN Editor Heidi Kyser spoke with Michael DeLaCruz, Starbucks manager of research and development, about the change.

DeLaCruz: We wanted to bring our full-leaf experience that Tazo has expertise in to a much broader audience. We have sold full-leaf teas through different channels for the last 15 years, and this transition gives us the opportunity to bring them to the Starbucks customer.

DeLaCruz: Most of them existed in our menu already. We have some old favorites, which we’ve converted to full-leaf variety, and we added two new flavors to our portfolio, to further innovate around flavor in a way that would improve the customer experience.

DeLaCruz: Tazo sources all its tea directly. I work with the Tea Department, with Keith Hutjens (Tazo director of tea procurement), and we work together to develop new blends. Keith travels to origin, both tea-producing regions and botanical-producing regions. I’ve gone to China and other regions as well. … The main lifting is done by the tea procurement team out of Portland. Typically, they don’t go through brokers. They purchase individual lots and approve them for distribution through our stores.

DeLaCruz: Our core customers had indicated for a while that they’re both coffee and tea consumers, and just as we provide them with a premium coffee experience, we wanted to provide them with a premium tea experience. They were indicating to us that they wanted more of the full-leaf experience. It’s becoming more about the flavors, the blends and taking time to learn about the tea.

DeLaCruz: Yes, we launched a full-leaf training guide for the baristas. The training manual has detailed info about the new teas – flavor profiles, sourcing, information about origin – so they’re getting training on this aspect of the tea. We’re looking at additional ways to continue to educate them on our sourcing practices.

DeLaCruz: We do have, as part of the training materials, recommended steeping times. While we aren’t diving too much into the subtle nuances, which we know some of our customers would like to get into, we do offer general instructions, knowing that, behaviorally, our customers will choose to steep according to personal preference. Some will just dunk the tea in the water and take it out after a short time; others will let it steep a longer time. … There is an opportunity for further education in this area, but that’s not part of where we’re going with it at this time.