Teavana

Staff was very helpful. Drinks tasted great.
I bought some ‘thank you’ and birthday gifts here.
They also handled a rude customer really well while we were waiting for our drinks. This customer went to the wrong counter and berated the women making drinks for not taking her order. The other employee defended her coworker professionally, and explained to this women where she could line up. The women still tried to butt in line, yelling and whining. A difficult situation that this really sweet teavana employee handled.
Way too expensive though. I probably won’t be back.

If you are ever in the mall and wanting to grab a tea, this might be one place I suggest you skip.
I stopped in mid afternoon to grab a quick pick me up and decided to try the iced raspberry limonade tea that they were advertising. The tea was actually pretty good, however the experience was something that will deter me from ever coming back to this location. There were two people working in the store, and upon walking in both of them made eye contact with me but never offered me a greeting. Moments later, a more mature customer entered the store and both of them greeted her warmly, giving her information about their new teas and a few samples. Now at this time, I’m still standing at the counter, waiting for one of them to take my order and provide me with the same level of customer service that they are giving to other customers. This did not happen. The other customer had the decency to say «Oh I can wait, I think she was here before me». Now after waiting about 5 minutes for them to take my order, I finally get to place my order and pay. My allotted steeping time of 5 minutes passes and the tea timer is beeping loudly to let them know it was ready to be served. Eventually they pause their conversation to give me my tea. 25 minutes later I leave the store, one iced tea in hand, and seriously angry at the entire experience.
I did decide to give them two stars based on the tea tasting pretty good, and the fact that I have never had customer service like this at any other location I’ve ever been to. With that said, I’ll never shop at this specific location again.

It was past 8:30 when we stopped by the store and the 2 employees were cleaning up. But we were acknowledged by one and my friend asked for a recommendation for a tea. She answered her questions and then went to make the tea. I was looking at the canisters and the other employee walked by but since he was cleaning up, the other employee came to ask if I decided. I chose a green tea and we waited for our teas to steep. It was just over $ 7 for our teas. The cups were a little hot even with the holder around them. Would be great if it wasn’t too hot to hold.
The employee who served us was friendly. The tea I had was ok, and not very strong. I would likely try something else or ask for a recommendation next time. I would come back and try another tea if I was in the mall.

They need to change their pay model for their employees. The one lady who sold me tea said that they get paid mostly by commission, which explains why she was pushy during the whole conversation. That and probably because she really doesn’t know how to make a sale without sounding too forceful. All I want is to walk down the Market Mall hallway, swipe a tea sample, and continue walking away without looking like an a**hole. I ended up entering the store and starting a conversation that I couldn’t end gracefully until I bought something, from the girl directly.
The tea itself was really good, albeit on the pricey side.

Usually I do not update a review this quickly, but… remember that WORLD TEA NEWS letter I told you about, Unilocal?Turns out this week, Starbucks bought Teavana for $ 620 million dollars. $ 2 million a store. Isn’t that insane? Now we can really call it the Starbucks of tea.