by Heidi Kyser

Pekoe Sip House and Origins, an Estee Lauder Company, have opened what could be the country’s first tea room-personal care combo. WTN visited the so-called wellness café to see what it was all about.

The combined Pekoe Sip House-Origins location is in Denver’s Fillmore Plaza, a bohemian bourgeois setting characterized by Cherry Creek Shopping Center, which has stores like Tiffany & Co. yet does community events like this month’s exhibition of artisan kites.

Pekoe Sip House didn’t start here, though. The original tea room is a half-hour north, in Boulder, Colo., where Paul Cattin opened it five years ago. So, how did he get to Cherry Creek from there? Origins came calling.

“They were in the process of reviving their brand, and part of that was, they wanted to do a café. They found us,” he recalled.

As luck would have it, Cattin also had been looking to open a second location. Pekoe made the short list of 15 potential partners and, about eight months ago, Origins decided Cattin was their man.

The idea, he said, was to create a place for “healthy indulgence,” focusing on natural and organic products. This fits with Origins’ mission, stated by the company as “to promote beauty and wellness through good-for-you products and feel-good experiences.”

For example, picture this: Enticed inside by a potpourri of scents – from Pekoe’s Japanese Cherry green tea blend to Origins’ Ginger Essence body spray – you cross the reclaimed-wood floor (made from the former walls of local barns) to the Pekoe bar in the middle of the large, open space. Today’s special? Peace of mind. You order the so-named drink and cupcake, peppermint and white chocolate concoctions. They are delivered to you at one of the Origins skin-care stations, where a clerk gives you an aromatherapy lesson using the company’s Peace of Mind on-the-spot rub, a white lotion with hints of – you guessed it – mint and pepper.

Origins’ emphasis on botanical ingredients means its products lend themselves easily to themes that can be tied to tea and food, Cattin said, adding that he has particularly enjoyed developing a tea menu to be part of experiences that engage a variety of senses. His food vendor, Watercourse Foods, which specializes in gourmet vegetarian and vegan dishes, fits seamlessly into this equation, he said.

There are two small massage rooms at the rear of the store, and Cattin said spa packages may be offered in the future.

“It’s been a pretty fun project,” he said. “Intense, but fun.”

The intensity could come from the encounter between mom-and-pop tea room and huge corporate giant. Daria Meyers, co-founder and former president of Origins, worked with Cattin on the concept, and William P. Lauder, CEO of Origins parent the Estee Lauder Companies, was among the VIPs attending the grand opening of the location in late August. (The week before, the company had filed its fiscal 2008 earnings, in which it reported $7.91 billion in net sales.)

Asked if it was difficult or intimidating working with such a huge corporate partner, Cattin said, “Not this particular one. … Everyone I’ve worked with, from top to bottom, has been amazing.”

He explained that the Origins team has deferred to his team on matters having to do with tea and the café. “They knew they weren’t the experts on that,” he said.

The way the partnership is structured, Pekoe maintains its independence as a private company. Apart from some shared overhead, the companies keep their financials separate. They even have two distinct POS systems for their respective products on the store floor.

Should the industry be watching for other Pekoe-Origins stores to open? “The conversation with Lauder has been that, if this is successful, we’ll look to do a rollout,” Cattin said. “But it will take a year or two to ramp this up.”

Asked how they would measure success, Cattin said, “At the end of the day, we need to be making sales, but that’s just part of it.” The first goal is awareness, and the wellness café has already gotten some good press, including coverage in the New York Times.