Teavana

Don’t ever go into a teavana store. Buy everything online. The sales people are incredibly pushy. They keep offering to sell things and leer over your shoulder as you browse. Every time I go in i come out feeling resentful. But the teavana pure tea alike gyokuro and jasmine silver needle are really some of the best teas. But their customer service is just the worst.

Bought some Oolong from this Teavana store and just could not finish 1-​cup. It wasn’t «horrible», but it is a definite quality control issue with the company. The bottom line is all that counts and I can taste it. BLEH! Teavana is over-​priced and the quality of tea is so-​so. You can get teas of better quality for significantly less online and even at smaller, local retailers.
David’s Tea is SOO much better, both in terms of service and actual tea quality. After being spoiled by DavidsTea, I can’t lower my standards. Life is too short for that.

I’m not really a mall person, nor a retail chain person, but I have to say I was wowed by this Teavana today. My friend and I went in on a whim just to look at teapots but ended up having a great experience and walking away with some other products. Upon entering, we were immediately greeted by Josh who asked us if we needed any help. We let him know we were just browsing and he let us know he was available for any questions but didn’t bother us. We ended up asking several questions about teapots and he was very helpful and knowledgeable about their different offering. I also asked about infusers and he steered us toward a great product that we ended up purchasing. He also let us know about an in-​store promotion that ended up getting us some free tea and sugar on top of our infuser purchase, and made us some complimentary drinks with the tea we received. On top of the excellent customer service, this location in particular has far more brewed teas available for sampling than I’ve seen at other Teavanas, including some wonderful season-​themed choices. I will definitely be back based on our experience there for future tea purchases.

I just got home from Teavana and it was such a good experience that I just have to Unilocal about it! Trevor helped me and my friend who was visiting from Colorado. Immediately my friend and I were welcomed into the store. What started with «Can we try this?» ended with us leaving with some amazing tea and super cute tins. I’ve been to Teavana a couple times but this is the first time it was so pleasant that I actually look forward to going back! Thank you very much for the help Trevor it was a great ending note for my best friend and I’s annual reunion (:

The tea here is amazing, a tad but pricy but it is really good. As for the sales clerks being pushy, I have not experienced that. And either way that is their job. All you have to do is simply say no. They are very nice people who made me feel welcomed there every time I went. The tea is fantastic and thats main reason I go back.

love the tea. have been there many times, i’ll keep on going. yes they try to make additional sales, but that’s how retail is.

This review is way over due. First of all, I think this tea is overpriced, or maybe it is their customer service which left a bad taste in my mouth. This was my second time buying from this store, and I have to say the first time around wasn’t bad at all. My husband liked the tea, so when we ran out we went back for more. It was the second time that was truly awful experience for me. Even though I still purchased what I needed, it took a while to convince the pushy sales associate I didn’t want any more. I won’ t be coming back. Thank goodness for my Keurig and online Twinning’s tea store!

I’ve been in this store a few times and have made purchases in the past for gifts, but after today I will be doing my shopping elsewhere… Two employees and 1 customer (me) in the store during my visit. I could not walk around and just look at items/​teas/​etc without having samples, products, etc pushed on it by the staff. I was also asked if I needed help multiple times which is very annoying considering the same person asked twice and I explained my intent for looking around. My advice to any staff here is to BACK OFF some on your customers. I get that you might be on commissions based on the other reviews here on Unilocal,but if you want to actually get that two cents, then let us shop! Let us explore! Too much pressure will lead to your customers either not being able to form questions for you or kill off their interest as was my experience today.

Ok. I like tea. I like Teavana’s tea. I really wanted to like their store, but the the best description I can give of our visit was «exasperating.»
If you’ve never been to a Teavana location, there are a few things you should expect: cool (but pricey) tea paraphernalia, tasty (again, pricey) tea, and a crowded store with very pushy salespeople.
My first impression was good. The salesperson offered samples, check. She asked what kind of tea I liked, check. Ok. sales 101. The customer is in the store, knows the product, wants to buy. Be attentive, but leave them along and let them sell themselves on *way* more than they came in for, right?
No. Our salesperson followed us around like a puppy, explaining everything we looked at, commented on, picked up. I wanted to buy tea, but by the time she finished explaining the gift boxes (listing included teas that were clearly printed on the label, etc), my wife and I were so over-​saturated that we ended up leaving.
Remember the scene from the movie Tommie Boy where he wants chicken wings, and is explaining how he wants the sale so badly he ends up killing it? Yeah. Kinda like that.
Anyway, we won’t be back. We found a cute local place (Garden Tea Lounge) not far from there that will be getting our future business.

Do I love their tea pots and other toys!!! They teach novices like me things I would never have experienced. Cool, place, gotta visit!

Tea is great, service is not so great. Take cash or you’ll be waiting for 30 min.

This place has the pushiest salespeople I have ever experienced. It makes used car salesmen seem indifferent. There seems to be a lot of pressure on them to oversell.
Anyway, the matcha here is OK and one of the only places to get it at a physical store in San Antonio. For anything else, do yourself a favor and order from an online store. Everything here is medium-​quality tea sold at an incredibly high markup. Because they use a lot of flavorings, they can mask mediocre tea.
This place is expensive and regardless of what they say not very high quality. Save your money. Any health claims they make are an exaggeration, and apply to any tea, really, (green, black, or oolong which all come from the same camelia sinensis plant) from any other grocery store in your area.

I love tea, but I hate this place. I assume the salespeople are paid by commission because they’re astonishingly pushy. The ones assisting me were also quite pretentious and critical when I tried to tell them I was looking for similar teas to what I buy online. Apparently, they didn’t approve of my previous suppliers. I did end up buying some teas, and I must say I wasn’t terribly impressed by the quality compared to other tea stores.
I’d recommend sticking to sites like Adagio or similar or visiting Garden Tea Lounge for high quality tea at lower prices. Sadly, we tea lovers don’t have all that many options in San Antonio.

my first — and last — visit to a Teavana. Relentless high pressure tactics by salespeople who know little about tea, mislead you with dubious math, and peddle outrageously overpriced tea from a limited selection. Avoid.

Neat place for the tea-​lover in your life. They carry all kinds of mug and saucer sets in a variety of styles, most made in Japan and are very good quality. The tea selection is pretty good and all is loose-​leaf. Definitely a place I’d go for tea over the goodness-​knows-​how-​old stuff int he jars and tins at CM and WFM. Staff was very friendly and helpful, assisting customers with navigating the tiny mall space even in the midst of the Christmas rush.

Hot tea. It’s what I used to drink when I felt guilty about all the coffee I drank in the mornings at work. I started my habit using the cheap grocery store brands I knew I liked, eventually moving on to fancier Whole Foods brands. Well, grocery stores, I will buy tea at you NO LONGER! I have found something far better.
While walking through North Star Mall, I was lured into Teavana (downstairs, down the hall from Victoria’s Secret) by several employees with hot tea samples. Samples? Yes please. I tried a few of the samples and was wowed by how much better they tasted than my stupid tea bags from HEB. Refreshing, slightly sweet, and delicious! In the store, there were no less than 7 different pots of tea brewing and available for tasting. There are booklets around the store to help you figure out what kind of tea does what (antioxidants, relaxing, etc), and the employees are also really knowledgeable and helpful.
When you decide which tea you’d like (I chose a white tea that was being sampled at the front, a blend of two types of leaves), you go up front and tell the TeaMaster (I made «TeaMaster» up, but will recommend it to Teavana as a job title). Behind the register are giant tubs of the dry tea leaves (that can be mixed together if you find two that work well as a blend), which they’ll portion for you and you purchase by the pound. You also are supposed to buy a (refillable) tin that’ll keep the tea leaves fresh for up to a year, but whether that’s mandatory, I’m not sure.
Admittedly, this tea is a little more expensive than what I’ve been used to buying at my grocery stores. However, the variety of the tea they have there and the willingness of the employees to help you find what you’re looking for makes up for the increase in cost.