Teavana

Great little tea shop! They have so many great teas and such great service. The staff is amazing! They are so helpful and all so kind. Chris went above and beyond to make sure my first Teavana experience would keep me coming back. The only reason I’m giving them 4 stars is because the prices are high, but you are paying for quality. Highly recommend!

The beautiful store in corte madera village. The design is so nice and everything is pretty and colorful.
You can’t find a better place to try different teas and tea stuff. Also I should mention about the friendly staff.
I recommend here to tea lovers!

Yes expensive. Yes tasty. Yes the folks are a delight! You can drop a $ 50 bill and wonder what happened because you are still enjoying the amazing flavors they just tantalized you with. You may succumb to the teascentsation-​tastesation and spend more then you wanted. But it is some good stuff! And they smile while they take your card!

No question about the quality of their product… its very good. But the prices are so ridiculously high. A very good black tea. called Golden Monkey is about $ 19 for 2 ounces. 2 ounces is a very small amount of tea. And they have rock sugar which is also good but its $ 10 for a small bag. I like nice things. I buy nice things. But I think I have found a product that is so significantly overpriced that it is insulting.

Helpful staff, a large selection of teas, and tons of tea-​related paraphernalia. Ask them to make you a cup of the «Dragon’s Blood» tea!

I love Teavana teas! And I do think they are worth the price… yes some are more expensive than other but if one can afford it why not! That said, I have only ONCE enjoyed my Teavana experience, about a year ago! Every time we go in now to replace our teas or try something new I feel like I being hustled to buy this or that or the most expensive tea because «it’s the highest quality» yea it’s the «highest» quality, it’s the most expensive! Christopher. Kind of ruined my Teavana experience I was looking forward to the whole day at work! Yea he was knowledgable about the teas, who isn’t. But he kept pushing us to buy more items to make our teas or only pulling out the «highest» quality teas! Then mentioning he’ll give us the mall 10% discount if we add this on… which he didn’t even add at the end. If I wanted to bargain I would have gone to a flea market. Love Teavana but the manner of salesmanship makes me not want to come back. Thanks Christopher!

Just passed by the local Teavana a few weeks ago and as usual couldn’t resist the free samples. Well, this time not only were there samples of tea outside the entrance, but others placed strategically around the inside of the store. I’ve tried the samples many times and only bought tea once, years ago and it went stale because I refused to buy one of their special tins. What made me take a second look this time was their Matcha, which is the powder of the green tea leaf and is blended into a creamy drink. I’ve only seen it at Peet’s, and so I did the math and figured I would save some money by making it at home. I would recommend just buying the matcha itself; you don’t need the whole preparation kit. While I was looking at this, my wife was asking about the chai blends, which were very aromatic indeed. There was a pretty good discount on tins this time so we also bought two blends of chai along with two canisters to keep them fresh. It was a delightful shopping experience and the staff were so knowledgeable and didn’t use pressure tactics to make a sale. This experience totally changed our minds about Teavana for the better. Now, I think I’ll brew a cup of chai. By the way, it is a bit pricy, but I think the $$$$ rating is a bit exaggerated.

Never again. Their products are fine for what they are, albeit expensive. What killed it for me is the pseudoscientific BS their salespeople say to sell their products. Each one in turn told me how the ingredients would alleviate this health concern or cure that, even after I asked them to hold of it, stick to aromas and flavors. Eventually I overheard one telling her customer that a tea would replace her prescription medication. This isn’t just a tea shop; it’s a snake-​oil wagon in an old western. Although their products are fine for what they are, they’ll hurt somebody one of these days with the bad medical advice.

This place is a fraud… Plain and simple. Not one organic ingredient (mmmm pesticides) and «natural and artificial flavors» (taken directly from their website) set the tone for this overly gimmicky, over-​zealous sales staff to try to steam roll you into cheap, plasticky tea dispensers and tea which is completely over-​scented with chemicals. I knew something was wrong when I took the bag of tea home and it smelled like potpourri. It’s time to put places like this on notice. Trying to capitalize on Buddhism while pushing non-​organic, chemically treated tea into my cup is not going to fly with me. Take it somewhere else where they haven’t seen your bs yet. Sell your garbage and your trashy sales tactics somewhere else. I’m taking your tea to the dump and I’ll pay to have it treated as a toxic waste! It doesn’t smell as bad in liquid form but just wait until you get it home! It smells as strong as a urinal cake!!!

Great variety of specialty teas. I love how they have samples, so you know what it tastes like before you purchase. The staff is very knowledgable and are more than happy to help you pick the right flavor. The tea is good quality, but a little on the pricey side. Overall it’s worth it! TEAlicious

Free samples and super nice staff. It always smells like heaven in there.
And and and, the huge tin gallon jugs of tea remind me of The Hobbit, or the Kebler Elf cookie tree.
Super cute spot for this place to be. Wish they had tea tasting sessions or room for sitting and sipping tea.
Overall, very good spot.

Okay, I have read all of the reviews on here. I have a couple qualms with their opinions, which they are entitled to— but they are misleading. It seems those people just don’t appreciate the awesomeness that is Teavana and their fancy teas. First off, yes the tea there can be pricy; However, if you are an extreme tea lover, like myself, you cut back on some purchases in your life, that you can afford to, so you can have the best quality teas. Think about it this way, you go in to Starbucks, or what have you, and order your fancy Venti double shot white chocolate soy latte— that will set you back about $ 5 a day. That’s about $ 150 a month. I go in there and buy 2 – 3 different tea types every 2 – 3 months and spend about $ 130 on average. So in all actuality, Teavana can be cheaper, depending on what teas you buy, AND they absolutely have better quality teas than the other aforementioned establishments.
Second of all, I want to let you all know about the excellent staff at this particular store location. I have never walked in there and felt ANY pressure to buy. They are so knowledgeable about their teas, and love the product so much, they just want to share all of their knowledge with you if you show interest. Every staff member I have encountered has always greeted me with a smile. If I said I was just there to look around, they will politely leave me to my browsing and offer their help if I have any questions. If you know nothing about tea, I can see how the amount of knowledge being told to you from the staff can be a bit overwhelming, please do not let that deter you. If you get over your self imposed feeling that they are trying to «used car salesman» you, you would probably actually find the information quite fascinating. The people who have helped me most are John and Nichole— They are amazing! John is one of the most knowledgable people I have encountered there and has never made me feel like I HAD to buy something, just because he spent so much time explaining different teas to me. Nichole has a great personality and I always feel relaxed when I go in and she’s there to help. There is another man that works there, but I don’t know his his name. I call him awesome hair man. He has made some of my favorite cups of tea there— I’m sure he would make an amazing cup for you as well.
In conclusion, I would just like to ask you to go in and try it out. Tell them what flavors entice you, and they will brew you up a wonderful cup of tea. Walk around the shopping center with your cup and just let it set. Should you find yourself thinking that you just drank the best cup of tea you’ve ever had, like I did the first time, go back in and grab a tin of it!

When I walked in I made it very clear that I was just there to get a drink and be on my way so as to avoid the sales technique… to no avail. The guy behind the counter insisted he knew absolutely everything about tea (insisting to my mother that she only disliked tea because she’d never had his tea) and it was ludicrous that I liked Earl Grey.
Instead of arguing my point further (since I spent a sizable amount of time in England around the best Earl Grey) I just asked him to make whatever he would make for himself. It was delicious so it made up for his attitude.
I will stick to the Teavana in Santa Rosa, they may be a newer store but at last they’re personable.

Tea is amazing. And priced high but totally worth it. Take your time in this store. get samples, smell all the different tea varieties, and branch out to try new things. This store is amazing.
The sugars they sell just taste sweet to me though, so splurge on the tea and skip the expensive sugars.
Also, the tea pots and stuff are overpriced and you can find similar ones in Chinatown or a fraction of the cost.
But the TEA! The tea is amazing, especially the chai. Even my kids drink it like it’s the sweet nectar of life.

The tea is delish — even though it is expensive, but next time I go I will make sure the ultra pushy sales girl is not there. If she is I will walk right by and do without. There were three sales people in the store and I was with my daughter who had been in before and gotten great service from one of the guys working there, but this girl was probably the worst most pushy sales person I’ve ever experienced, and she was rude and bossy to the other sales people too. Totally weird. What could have been a lovely expereince was uncomfortable and a drag. Made me want to see if I could get this tea somewhere else so I dont have to go through this used car salesman type experience again. Someone should get a clue that this is not the way to keep customers!

I frequent this store and I have never had a bad experience! Most times I only get a cup of tea, but I have bought tea in bulk from them before a few times and no one was ever pushy or rude. I love their products and I love that they always have samples. The salespeople I talk to always know what they are talking about and they also happen to be very friendly.

I strolled into Teavana yesterday hoping I could find a tea akin to a delicious Ceylonese black tea I had recently depleted. This was my first time to the store, and what an appalling disappointment it was. First of all, all the tea is behind the counter and so you can’t look at or take a whiff of a sample without going through a very pushy and rather unpleasant salesgirl.
When I told the girl what I was looking for, she suggested a particular tea, assuring me that it was an excellent exemplar of what I was seeking. She opened an enormous tin and proffered me a few whiffs. I inquired after its provenance. Ok, I asked, «Where’s it from?» When she said «China», I asked whether they had any Ceylonese tea. The answer to that is apparently, «no», because her answer was, «Most tea comes from China.» I would concur with other reviewers that these are no connoisseurs of tea working here; rather they are local gals who have less training that a Starbucks barrista in matters caffeinated.
The salesgirl then proceeded to explain that she would be filling a 2 litre tin for me since that was «the best deal». Oh, did I mention that prices are nowhere openly displayed, and neither are they mentioned by the salesgirls? Only after I asked whether I had to pay for the tin, she explained that the tin is «only 7 dollars». I said that I wanted a SAMPLE. She then measured FOUR OUNCES of this tea into a bag, which came out to a whopping $ 38.00. At this point I requested a brochure, which was given to me.
Now, had this tea been some extraordinarily good tea, or even something akin to the Ceylonese tea I was missing, I might be willing to forgive the unprofessional manner and suboptimal storefront policies of Teavana. The fact of the matter is that it’s nothing like my Ceylonese tea and it’s not something on which I would stock up, let alone for which I would pay such prices.
After sampling the tea at home, I finally got around the perusing the brochure which I had requested. It turns out that this tea is a «new» tea in their line, and so the girl was no doubt being pressured to move stock.
I will never return to Teavana. Recommendation — avoid like the plague. There are other tea stores, and there’s always online.

I must have arrived at the right day because my experience at Teavana was very different from some of the other critics. There’s a difference between passionate and pushy and quality and crap. Anyone who knows good tea knows Teavana prices are more than fair… if you want cheap, go to Safeway and get Lipton. I went to buy a gift for my girlfriend’s mom and the staff (Juliana) REALLY knew a lot and helped me navigate through the options. Future mother-​in-​law loved the tea set, ill be back for sure. Awesome staff and products.

I agree that the sales people are really pushy… they’re nice and helpful, but I didn’t sound like they really knew much else about the affects of different teas besides perhaps what they were told by their bosses. I’m sure they’re being pushed to sell, sell, sell, and just trying to do their job.
But with that said it’s definitely the best tea I’ve had. Not only the taste, but the quality (I’m very sensitive to different sources of caffeine, not just the amount), and the effects of the caffeine from black tea was very pure (most noticeably, I didn’t get the distinct type of headhache like often do from black tea). So I’ll definitely be back.
But if you want to know about tea, I would suggest doing your own research before going in and take what the sales people say with a grain of salt — they just want to sell you some tea.

Like the other reviewers, I was a bit shocked at how pushy the selling techniques are here. It’s almost like walking on to a used car lot, but they’re selling tea-​weird…
Overpriced and obnoxious overall-​but two stars because I did like the taste of the one tea I paid way too much for. I won’t shop here again because it was an uncomfortable experience, which is a bit of a bummer, because if it was a more relaxed atmosphere and if the prices were more reasonable I would go back.