Starbucks-Teavana Oprah's Chai Tea
I was in the mall the other day and found a display with Oprah’s Chai Tea in the Starbucks. Thoughts and Opinions?
(By the way- apparently Buy one Get one for Mother’s Day)
Sbux only linked this on their website. http://www.oprah.com/own-steepyoursoul/Teavana-Oprah-Chai-Charities-and-Support-of-Youth-Education
I hesitated to say anything about the Oprah Chai until I tried it twice. I was down at Teavana today and tried it for the second time. Both times I just had a sample. First of all this was the palest black chai I’ve ever had. I know it had rooibos but it still was awfully pale. don’t know if they didn’t get it right in the brewing. It was also way over sweetened. My daughters tell me that I practically make my chaos cloyingly sweet, but this… Sure there are some chai spices but nothing special at all. Another thing, this had a very funny dry after taste. Just kind of hung around in the back of my mouth. Not a spicy aftertaste, just a dryness. :(
To me, this was just another celebrity tea… someone who has a big name but not experienced in teas. The charity it supports is probably good but I can’t see paying $14.95 for 2 oz. of this.
I just pulled this of the teavana website. Here is the description:
This distinctive chai tea blend, created in partnership with Oprah Winfrey, will warm your soul with sweet spice. For every 2 ounces of Oprah Chai Tea purchased, we will donate $1.00 to the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation.
The Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation will further support educational opportunities for young people, including Girls Inc., National CARES Mentoring Movement, Pathways to College and U.S. Dream Academy.
Learn more at Oprah.com/OprahChai
A bold infusion of cinnamon, ginger, cardamom and cloves blended with loose-leaf black tea and rooibos.
I find it pretty funny that about a year ago Oprah was all over Davids Tea chai and now all of a sudden is partnering with Teavana.
Personally I think a lot of people need to remember that first and foremost Oprah Winfrey is a business woman. She may genuinely like tea but at the end of the day this is another business venture for her. I’ve read that she mentions some of the money from her tea goes towards her own charity but it’s unbelievably little.
“For every Teavana® Oprah Chai product sold at Starbucks or Teavana, Starbucks will donate to the Oprah Winfrey Leadership Academy Foundation. This includes $0.25 USD for each Teavana® Oprah Chai tea handcrafted beverage, $1 USD per 2oz of Teavana® Oprah Chai Tea, $1 USD per Teavana® Oprah Chai tea tin, and $4 USD per large gift set.”
The gift set is $119.95 and all they give to charity is $4 from that which is the maximum amount that can be donated through a purchase. Don’t get me wrong I’m glad that even that little bit of money gets donated but it really irks me, especially when the Teavana website is trying to big up that the whole creation of this tea in the first place was to support the charity.
“This boldly spiced black tea and rooibos infusion was created in partnership with Oprah Winfrey to support educational opportunities for young people”.
And the rich get richer.
$4 to the charity for the $120 gift set is ridiculous….
I get turned off by products sold in the name of ‘charity’, admittedly, so I can’t really look at this from an unbiased point of view….
The rich get richer is right….
I’m imagining that it the mark ups on these teas are pretty big. Teavana is a huge and successful company by tea standards, so the percentage given to charity seems very pitiful. That is the percentage that I’d expect to see from much smaller tea ventures.
I find the thought that Oprah has a massive following who will blindly buy up anything with her name attached to it disturbing.
I don’t much like these ‘buy this and support charity’ things in general. If I like the product, I will buy it, but if I liked the product I’d probably buy it anyway. And when you don’t know how much is given to the charity of their choice, or when you do know and it seems a very small amount, I would much rather just give my money to the charity in question myself.
(In general, I prefer to pick my charities myself as well. They all try to do good work, but some of them employ methods that I just can’t bring myself to support and I don’t want them to pay for those things using my money.)
I got a free little sample of this tea as I passed by my local Teavana this afternoon, and I have to admit that this tea was nothing special. It seemed like really sweet cinnamon water.
Granted, that isn’t so bad! But it didn’t have the depth of flavour that I remember their Maharajah Chai/Samurai Chai blend having, and the liquor was also a lighter colour.
Honestly, I’ve had better chais. And if I want cinnamon and rooibos, there are plenty of other places to get that too.
At this point, I’ve decided I don’t really want to support Teavana, and I’m happy giving my money to David’s Tea instead.
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