Teavana

The store is very nice and so are the salespeople (though they are a bit pushy). The teas are a bit overpriced, but I do like some of their plain green and white teas. One thing to keep in mind is that almost all of their flavored teas do contain artificial ingredients. I am not sure if Starbucks buying them had anything to do with it…

The boss has been showing more interest in late night cups of hot tea. Light bulb flickers and boom — new loose leaf tea pot and some tea sounds like a xmas gift winner. I didn’t realize how much of an adventure loose leaf tea shopping was going to be.
I know of Teavana from the Galleria location, but I’ve never actually set foot in the store. I researched their store and items online and ended up getting a few items including a gift card. The online order experience went well, and the package arrived a few days later.
Fast forward to day after xmas — we roll on down to the Galleria to burn some of those holiday gift cards. Teavana was on the list (obviously) so we nudged inside. It was relatively crowded so we browsed and bargain shopped. Found a great mix n’ match set for under $ 50 with a nice variety of teas.
Needless to say — the best time to shop at Teavana is during sales and after sale clearance. I do enjoy their teas, but it can get pricey if paying regular price for items.

Tea is great. The tea at Teavana is delicious. I usually try samples of both teas outside as I walk by, whether I’ve tried them before or not. That’s why it gets two stars. I’m not likely to buy any tea because the employees are borderline forceful if you show interest in purchasing even an ounce.
Some teas they only sell by 2 ounces. Why? So they can get more money, I guess, though he’ll give you some other reason and you’ll space out during the explanation and find yourself unable to recall the details for your Unilocal review.
If you ask him how many cups are in however much you’re going to buy, he gets long-​winded about it when all you want to know is how much you’re paying for cup so you can know how much more you’re paying than you’re paying for your Republic of Tea tea.
He asks you how you intend to brew the tea. You say you’ll brew it in a teabag, a little metal thing you have, or in a Teavana brewer thingy someone bought you there as a gift months before. This isn’t good enough. He says, «well, you could do that,» (really: «but then you would be doing it all wrong») «but this teapot makes the tea taste so much better» (really: «I WANT ALL OF YOUR MONEY!).
You go to the checkout thinking he must have received the message that you just want tea, but he offers you more tea at a discount. Then he insists that you buy one of their metal tins, which you will do if you really love your tea and want to do it right. If you don’t love your tea, you can go with the really thick paper bag it came in, but then you aren’t worthy of such premium tea and should hate yourself because if you don’t store it right the whole experience was a FAIL.
I have instead decided to avoid the store. Well, the inside of the store. The outside is still fair game.

Teavana introduced me to tea outside of the «Southern Iced Sweet» variety– which I am very grateful for. But if Teavana is the only tea shop you’ve been in, you are in for a treat when you go elsewhere!
Teavana’s employees are paid a commission for their sales– and in my opinion, it’s super obvious. The «free» samples they put out front never come without a heavy sales pitch.
My biggest beef with the place is their prices… I recently went to a little tea shop in downtown Kirkwood, MO and was shocked at how much less their blends were. At Teavana, it’s not unusual to pay $ 50+ for a few ounces of tea. At other tea shops, a similar blend may cost you $ 5. HUGE mark up!

The store smells good when you walk in. Watch out for low flying sales people. I looked at a tea maker for $ 259.00. Bought a few ounces of Chai, went to the counter and they said it’ll be $ 57.00, oh! you want something to put it in? Here, here is a tin you can buy for $ 6.00. I about choked. So I popped a nitrobid under my tongue and paid the lady.
It was a Christmas gift, so I let it go. Never to be back! Ha.
I can buy better real asian loose leaf teas over at Seafood City Market on Olive. You can get the really good stuff for under $ 30 bucks.
I drink a lot of tea, I’d be broke if I always bought it at Teavana.

I love the tea that they have at Teavana in the Galleria, but they can be pricey sometimes, and the amount of pushiness as described in previous reviews really depends upon who is working that particular day. On a weekday, there were only two people working, and very nice young man who knew his stuff about tea, who was not pushy or tried to push anything on me. On Saturday, it’s a completely different story. They want to make sales, but they are not nuts about it; a little pushy, but not nuts, and from my experience, not to the scale that some other have described.
I bought two types of tea, and canisters for those two types of tea; they wanted to sell me canisters for their teas to which I didn’t object. If you don’t want canisters, just tell them you don’t want canisters. I have bought tea previously without the canisters with no problem. Don’t do this on a Saturday; go during the week. One time when I said that I didn’t want a canister, they didn’t try and push it any more.

I love tea and I usually drink about 3 – 4 cups of it a day. Black, green, white, or herbal I like it all! I am not an expert by any means but I know a thing or two about tea. Teavana has some great teas and blends. In fact, if you know someone who isn’t that into tea they have some great blends that taste like juice. However, Teavana’s service/​employees are what make it such a bitter place to visit.
As you see a lot of people pointed out in other reviews, the employees are a little nuts. They are so obviously on commission it hurts. Today I went in asking for tea bags and an employee tries to sell me a tea traveling set that I don’t need. Not in a casual or helpful way, but in a pushy «I’m wrong» kind of way. I then say I’m just there to get some black tea before a trip and the sales employee tries to get me to buy their most expensive black tea. I asked for English Breakfast or Early Grey and they tried to sell me tea that cost 7 times as much and isn’t really similar at all. Every time I told them what I wanted they tried to sell me a more expensive blend that had little do with what I requested.
This is something else that will annoy you if you don’t already know. They make you buy their tins when purchasing the tea. You can choose between a $ 7 one and a $ 6 one. I bought 2oz of tea (which they said I shouldn’t do and tried to get me to buy a pound) and they tried to sell me the largest canister without even asking? I know it’s a $ 1 difference but it’s the principal of the matter. You’d think they’d give you what fits the purchase?
When I FINALLY checked out they tried to get me to buy the traveling tea kit AGAIN instead of the tea bags. I’m not saying I won’t go back here when I’m in a pinch or don’t have time to stop somewhere else but I’ll avoid it at all costs. Pushy sales people are a huge turn off for me and Teavana is nightmare. They need to re-​think their payment plants.

I wish I could afford to shop there. I go during the holiday season when they have sales. I think their tea is delicious but unfortunately too pricey. Some day I will own one of those nice tea sets in the window. They offer free samples which is awesome. The staff is extremely helpful and nice.

Oh tea, how i adore thee. Since I am not longer in the land of soda I have decided that I will try to widen my varieties of tea and I’m glad that I did. I love some of the blended mixes that they offer, plus their staff are nice and helpful!

The one star is for the high quality teas and products.
The pushy salespeople have ensured I will never return to this store. I already dislike shopping for anything other than food enough.
Visiting this store will result in you being hounded and upsold by salespeople who don’t take no for an answer.
Starbucks should be ashamed to be associated with this company.

Pushy sales people always trying to squeeze every last dollar from you. Walked in because the tea smelled good and followed a sales associate to try their samples. BIG MISTAKE.
We went around, everything was alright. I though the blueberry bliss tasted good, so I told her so. She immediately went around the back and pulled out a tin and asked me how much I wanted. Uhh, overwhelming much? I shoulda just said I didn’t want any and walked away, but I decided to buy some because, why not?
I asked for 2 oz, she gave me 4.6. Asked to cut that down to 2, she gave me 3, asked again, and she gave me 2.5. I was like alright, fine. She then proceeded to explain the tin sizes to me and add, in an offhand manner, that it was $ 7. I told her I didn’t want that much tea and she reassured me that you can fill the tin as high as you want. I remembered that my coworker had brought in Teavana tea in a BAG and I asked her about that. She said, oh yeah, we do have bags, but the tea will go stale in 5 days. I remembered that my coworkers tea had been sitting around for a couple of weeks and still tasted good so I was like no that’s fine, I’ll take the bag.
Got home, made the tea, tasted like horse piss. Well, fine, it wasn’t that bad, but it was definitely more watery than it should have been. Added 3x recommended amount, and it tasted better. 3x/​cup makes it 3x more expensive. So the next time you buy Teavana tea, multiply their price/​cup by 3 and that’s the actual price/​cup that you get.
Next time, I’m going to follow them in, try all their samples, ask to smell 10 different kinds of teas, let the sales people scoop some tea in a bag, and then say «nevermind» and walk right out the door. Teavana, your tea is fine, but your customer service needs a ton of work. Rude employees at Wal-​Mart, I understand, but a company that prides itself on premium products needs premium customer service.

Good variety of teas. Samples are tasty too but often very juice-​like. They need to stop putting so much sweetener into the tea! It seriously detracts from the teas essential benefits. It is fine unsweetened or very lightly sweetened!

The tea is great. The staff however is horrible with their customer service. Including the managers.
My mother and I stopped in to try some samples and to get her some tea to take home with her. We were constantly badgered upon entering, and as soon as one associate was done trying to sell their a pitch, another was waiting to take over immediately. It was incredibly uncomfortable and hard to shop. We tried a sample and decided to get a couple blends. While waiting to pay, the associate was counting out the cash drawer without even paying attention to us standing there waiting to pay for our tea. Then the manager comes over and also doesn’t even pay attention to us, but continues her cash counting for another 5 minutes.
Needless to say, we left without our merchandise. It’s surprising that they bother you to extremes with their sale pitches and then aren’t even accommodating or attentive when you want to make a purchase. The manager didn’t even try to stop us or apologize. I’ll buy my tea elsewhere from now on.

Oooh… tea! There goes my expendable income. I love stopping by Teavana for tea. I love anything sweet, and the Chai and Azteca Fire blends are great if you like sweet black teas. The Azteca is my favorite, I haven’t been able to find anything similar, it has chiles and chocolate. And they let you smell the different teas to get an idea of how they will taste. Their reps are really good at directing you towards something that will suit your tastes — they always steer me clear of the non sweet or fruity blends.
They also have samples you can taste. You just have to be sure to read exactly what is in the tea blends of the day, sometimes it a mixture of several teas they sell, and sometimes they add sugar.
Stopping by here is a great way to wean yourself off of soda (if you’re into that).

Cherie O.‘s review is spot-​on.
And just to give you all some perspective on the matter: when I used to work at a store in the mall last holiday season, I met a guy who was working with me who actually used to work at this Teavana. He said that all Teavanas are pretty much the same, though, and that the corporate HQ basically tells their employees that if they don’t drive away at least 3 customers per week, they «aren’t doing their jobs.»
Yeah.
I ain’t makin’ this shit up.
But anyway. I don’t 100% hate Teavana which is why I gave them a whopping 3 stars instead of 2 or even 1 star. I do prefer to buy my Teavana products online, though, to avoid the constant badgering of the physical store’s employees. It just sucks that on the website there is no way for you to «Smell» the products before you buy them.
It also irks me that in the store, you can even get 1 teabag’s full of a sample. I mean, hell, even if it cost me $ 1 per samplebag, and I was limited to 5 bags per trip, I’d still do it. I’d still wish they had it! Because once I went in there and I sniffed some tea and it smelled all good and well, but when I went home to drink it, it was disgusting. Thankfully it was on sale, but still a waste of $ 5 nonetheless. :-(
The only way, in fact, to sample their tea is to ask them to make you some in the store. And of course, it’s not free. It will cost you $ 5 or $ 6 because why would anything be cheap in this store? Yeah, exactly. It’s not.
They always try to get me to spend a ton of money. So sometimes I tell them I am on a strict budget or I just ignore them completely. Both tactics seem to work but guilt tripping them by telling them about my student loan debt is actually kind of fun in a twisted sort of way!
In fairness, Teavana is a pretty cool shop because they *do* tend to have a lot of samples out, it just always seems to be the same stuff over and over again, especially right out front. It’s always chai and youthberry or whatever that crap is. They have really delicious teas that you can’t find anywhere else. Sweet Oolong Revolution is probably my absolute favorite tea no matter what time of the year.
Oh and watch the scale carefully when they’re weighing out the tea. And if they go over by a lot and ask if it’s okay, tell them NO!
Another thing that bugs me. I wish the employees here had a «switch» that I could turn off. Not just the nagging me to by more stuff switch, but the «oh and this tea has this health benefit!!!» switch. I mean, I seriously don’t give a crap. I drink tea because I like the flavor, not because I honestly think it’s going to make me lose 20lbs in my sleep or put hair on my balls. Oh… wait a sec. LOL. Sssssnaaake oil!
But in fairness when I worked at LUSH I realized a lot of people didn’t give two shits about the whole «we don’t test on animals!» crap but they just really like the products. So I guess it’s impossible to not know what a customer cares about, I just wish I could find a way to say to them «I don’t care» with out sounding like a total douchebag. lol.
Oh and NO, I do not need another tin. Jesus Christ. And no, I don’t want to buy all four of these and blend them all together, you moron. That’s going to cost a whole week of work for me!

Ugh. Never again.
I used to love Teavana. It smells really good and it’s very pretty. Huh. This review makes me sound like a 12 year old boy describing his junior high girl crush.
I still loved Teavana after I went to the Fairview Heights opening and was badgered and pressured endlessly. Yeah, you guys work on commission. Yeah, it’s your first day, so you guys are all gung-​ho.
D@mn that youthberry white orange blossom tea and white ayurvedic chai tea for sucking me in… all the time.
So today I’m at the Galleria feeding my shopping habit, and I stop by Teavana… because of the white chai tea. One of the employees pops over my shoulder and asks me which of the two samples I like better and that it would be extremely easy to make up at the counter. Thanks.
I stroll on inside to browse and I’m checking out the tea they actually have on the floor because it’s on sale, and he continues to follow me and starts chirping about the health benefits of the green and oolong teas I’m looking over. Listen buddy, I’m Asian, you’re Asian, we both know that our ancestors have been drinking tea for centuries. I can’t really figure out how to say this nicely, so I nod and then duck down to check out some stuff on the lower shelf. What can I say, I have perfected the art of telling a guy to scram. (do not try this at the bar lest someone spills beer on you). So I guess he realizes he’s talking to empty air, so he wanders off to another target (I mean, customer). Thank God.
I end up wandering over to yet another display and am accosted by another employee who starts expounding on the virtues of the tea tins I am looking at. And I don’t mean like that they’re air-​tight. She’s talking about how pretty they are and how sturdy they are. You know, as I’m writing this, now I just feel sorry for them… can you imagine talking about TINS all day long? I tell her I’m just browsing, and she gets the hint that I might not be buying so she moves on. I actually end up choosing some tins and I’m walking back to the counter when Associate #1 materalizes out of nowhere and starts TAKING my tins out of my arms, saying «Are you done? I’ll ring you up!»
I pulled the tins back and said, «I’m actually not done» and turn to the counter, half expecting him to run around to the other side. Except Associate #2 beats him there because she bounces over and cheerily goes, «Hi! How are you today? How can I help you?» And I really want to be like, «Are you really asking me that? You were just talking to me not 10 minutes ago about TINS!» But again, since all I want now is TEA to fill my TINS, I shut my mouth.
I admit I got a little perverse satisfaction in making her run all over getting teas for me to sniff. I may or may not have drawn that out. I finally decide on my teas, and she goes, «Ok. So I’ll wrap up 4 oz of each for you.» And I say, «No, I just want 2 oz. each, thanks.» «But you get so little for 2 oz!» «Oh? How many cups does 2 oz. make?» «Only 15.» «So that’s 45 cups. I don’t drink tea every day!» «I think you need to get more.» «And I think I’m just fine; I can always get more.»
So thinking that I was perfectly clear that I only wanted 2 oz of each tea, imagine my surprise when she dumped 4 oz into a tin. At this point, I just wanted to turn around and walk out, but honestly, the SMELL! D@mn the smell! So I pointedly point it out to her, she changes it, and proceeds to push more boundaries by adding like an extra half ounce to the others. Whatever. Being exact is hard, but I’m just too frustrated to even care by now. Just get me out.
She gives me the tins, and I walk over to the cash register to pay. And Associate #1 appears. Again! And tries to take the tins out of my hands. AGAIN! And tells the associate at the register, «She’ll have these tins.» Dude, I can talk. This ain’t 12^th century China. So I go, «There’s also tea in the tins. The bar code paper thing is by your elbow.» And since that bar code paper thing tells the register associate who to credit the sale to because it gets scanned into the system, it pretty much dooms the commission of Associate #1.
I leave both Associate #1 and Associate #2 surrounding other prey (I mean, customers). Never again.

Hello, I just wanted to say how happy I am to have found my introduction to tea!
I had been wondering about tea for a while.
I stopped by the mall shortly before Christmas, waiting on my boyfriend’s present in the mail, and as a last minute thing, thought about getting him some Chai (he has stomach ulcers that act up every now and then and is addicted to coffee; black) becuase that’s the only tea hes ever had so far and liked.
I’ve worked in a café as a barista for a short time but really don’t know much about tea, and as I mentioned thinking of venturing into it for a while. That day I was drawn in by the sample and the courteous informative and genuine service of the girl offering at the time (she was at the St Claire Square Mall store in Fairview Hieghts, IL, had teal hair and some peircings-​dont let her go! She’s very helpful and made me feel welcome.) Her combined efforts and that of the lady working the register (Also very nice and informative!) were very patient with me not having much to go on and were not pushy, while still offering suggestions. The décor and atmosphere is lovely and exotic, I loved that the tea was loose, had alot of variety, I got to smell and taste new things I’m looking forward to purchasing in the future. The prices were origionally a sticker shock but having researched it its very affordable if not the same as good coffee, I ended up getting my boyfriend the Java Mate (Which I technically drank a quarter of for myself I think) and he likes alot.
All in all I guess I wanted you and the employees of that store to know I loved the experience! I can’t wait to tell my friends and family; and its perfect for gifts and treating myself to something special without a ton of calories or waste of materials.
I hope your company and the store employees I saw are there for a long time so I can get their help as I start my journey into an accuratetly named Teavana :)
Chloe Adrienne D.

This is a great store with all sorts of cool products related to tea. The free samples that they put out are delicious.
BUT BEWARE. While the employees are educated and friendly, they are some of the most sinister salespeople I have ever encountered. They are VERY good at convincing you to spend a lot of money. It’s happened to me as well as friends of mine. A simple conversation about green tea ends in you blowing $ 75 on a teapot. They put the samples out there as bait, then they reel you in once you approach. Then they let you ogle and sniff their giant canisters of fancy imported tea until you feel like you have to buy something.
Don’t get me wrong, I like this store. But mentally prepare yourself before you go in so you don’t end up blowing a bunch of money you didn’t intend to. Trust me, they’re good.

I came into teavana for one thing and one thing only: A tea strainer.
I ended up leaving with $ 72 worth of tea and accessories. How did that happen!!!
The people who work here are so friendly, and definitely know their stuff. I sampled a blend of their chai tea, and I knew I had to have some for myself. OMG, so good!
It’s higher priced, but the quality is definitely there. It’s totally worth it.
Sipping on my tea now. This must be what heaven feels like!

I sort of stumbled into this exotic store on a shopping trip with my S.O. in STL’s galleria and it was like I was transported to tea heaven (if such a place exists).
Oh my gosh, if you are a tea enthusiast, addict, aficionado, devotee, or what have you, this is the place fo you!!! A HUGE selection of all kinds of teas for whatever you are craving: green tea, black tea, white tea, breakfast tea, rooibos tea, herbal tea, and even tea blends. ALSO they have a massive selection of cast iron and porcelain tea pots which make a great gift for any friend or family member who loves tea just as much as you do :)
An added bonus: The sales people here are super nice and helpful and honestly seem to be excited about the product (s) they are selling, which I find kinda rare, but refreshing these days… like a nice cup o’ tea… mmmhmmmmm