Welcome to the new series from World Tea News, A Day in the Life! The purpose of this series is to shine light on the different roles and jobs in the tea industry. We’ll be asking questions like:
- What does a tea retailer do every day?
- What daily challenges does a tea distributor face?
- How does a master tea blender choose ingredients?
In each installment, we’ll take a deep dive into a different segment of the tea industry to learn more about the roles, responsibilities, and risks associated with the job.
For the first installment, we spoke with Tim Smith, who has been Chief Leaf/Owner of The Tea Smith since 2004. The Tea Smith is a wholesale and retail tea merchant with an online store and a brick-and-mortar store in Omaha, Nebraska. Aiming to share the love of tea, The Tea Smith provides artisan-quality loose-leaf teas and accessories while also ensuring guests receive accurate information about tea. The teahouse offers over 150 teas and herbal infusions to please any guest.
Let’s spend a day with Tim to learn more about running a teahouse!
My day starts by 7:30 a.m. when I arrive at the retail store or distribution center. The most important and first duty is to drink tea! I select a favorite, or try a few samples sent from suppliers.
Next, it’s time to review a variety of documents:
- Review appointments and scheduled events for the day.
- Quick review of the previous day’s sales, notes, and internal communications.
- Quick review of unread emails. I delete most of them, answer some, and tag others for delegation and/or further action.
On Monday mornings, I do a purchasing review and enter or approve orders for suppliers on that week’s schedule. We have over 150 different teas and herbal blends, a nice selection of accessories, and 30-50 active vendors. Some of the vendors are quite large and have been with us for years; others are small and niche.
This week, I have a variety of contractor meetings, including a review of the websites and apps, such as paid media, email, SMS, pop-ups, and a shipping plug-in. I also have a monthly review with my marketing team to discuss our overall three-month marketing rolling schedule. We plan events, tea promotions, new blend introductions, and more. However, all of these meetings end up taking a back seat to some problems that pop up during the day.
I take a call from a vendor regarding teas ordered six weeks ago for a customer project that is due this week, and the teas are not available. I reschedule my contractor meetings to focus on sourcing tea for the customer project.
I then field a call from the web manager who informs me that customers cannot access promotional discounts running today. I reschedule the monthly marketing review to get the promotional discounts working.
Up next, second flush Darjeeling samples have arrived! I cup these with my staff. I educate new staff about what to look for in this particular tea and give them information on the garden(s) we select. One of our main duties is to continually taste teas. This helps to develop and refine one’s palette, as well as discover new offerings for our customers. Much of this is done in the store, but it is a real privilege to taste teas at their source.
I meet with a store manager about staffing opportunities and issues. We need to hire an additional Smithie for the retail store, so I work with the manager to review hours and days needed, job description, and job posting.
I then meet with our wholesale manager to discuss customer projects, proposals, and new orders. Of course, not all of our meetings are in the office!
It’s time to do some more tasting and taste new blends we are working on for the next season. If they are approved, we have to add them to the website and in-store menu, which includes pictures, descriptions, etc. If they are organic, we add them to our certificate. We review components of the blend and adjust inventory levels accordingly.
Then, I finish up on emails and prepare for a planning meeting with the team.
Up next, I review actions and updates to our organic certification. I check upcoming inspections and vendor renewals.
I spend some time adding to and reviewing my to-do list/projects. I update and prioritize what needs to get done.
Business owners have outside activities and a personal life. During the day, I often have a lunch meeting or calls for boards or committees on which I serve. Much of that is done at the end of the day or in the evening. Of course, we field calls from home and kids, and we plan for our next get-together.
While this daily breakdown is not complete and does not touch on things such as long-term planning, financial management, customer cultivation and meetings, vendor meetings, reviewing business plans, operating manuals, tradeshows, etc., I hope it does show that one needs to have their days planned ahead. But despite the best planning, it’s still necessary to be able to go with the flow when inevitable distractions and interruptions occur.
Plan to Attend or Participate in World Tea Expo, March 23-25, 2026
To learn about other key developments, trends, issues, hot topics and products within the global tea community, plan to attend World Tea Expo, March 23-25, 2026 in Las Vegas, co-located with Bar & Restaurant Expo. Visit WorldTeaExpo.com.
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