Introducing… Bird & Blend
We find out what's behind the doors of Newcastle's terrific new tea shop
Tea is integral to how the world sees the English and how we see ourselves, although in recent years our consumption of our National Drink has fallen behind that of coffee.
Tea is fighting back, however, and there are innovative and fabulous new companies like Bird & Blend standing up for the humble tea leaf.
Bird & Blend recently opened their first Newcastle store on Grainger Street so we had a chat with UK Regional Manager Lee Slocombe to find out what they’re all about.
Bird & Blend was set up by a pair of politics students – Krisi and Mike – and from the start a key part of the company’s ethos was to do things right.
“Ultimately they decided that it wasn’t tea that was the driver,” explains Lee, who has been with the company for a year. “It was the idea that they could employ people to have a brilliant career, a brilliant life. It was that which very much drove them. Tea wasn’t exactly an afterthought - they thought ‘oh wow, tea’s a brilliant product!’. Crisi had some working knowledge of it and it just expanded from that really, she took over developing the tea, creating all these wonderful flavours, and Mike fully supported her, it’s just been a brilliant partnership.”
After a modest beginning selling tea online from their bedroom (“Mike used to do all the deliveries in his car”), they opened their first shop in Brighton nine years ago and now the Newcastle store is their nineteenth. And as Lee points out, at the Newcastle launch party Mike was behind the bar, still processing sales and talking to customers and just being very hands-on.
“Opening a store in Newcastle represented a great opportunity”, Lee explains. “We’d recently opened stores in York and Edinburgh, all just brilliant, vibrant cities. The Bird & Blend social media showed there was a huge demand for a shop in the North East.”
Bird & Blend sells a vast array of teas – there are more than 100 flavours available on the Tea Wall that is the centrepiece of their stores – and they’ve clearly had a lot of fun with the blends and the names.
“I think tea should be fun. We're not selling something overly serious… some of the best flavours we have are the Champagne Supernova, Duvet Day, Dozy Girl. It’s who we are, we want to have fun with what we do. We use bright colours, we have really engaged staff and I think the tea names represent that really well," says Lee
Asked to recommend one blend to a first-time visitor, Lee doesn’t hesitate: “Because you’re in Newcastle I’d have to say the Tea On The Tyne. I tried last week it for the first time and it was mind-blowing. It was so good. I think it just symbolises who we are.“
Bird & Blend really does sell all sorts of teas and tea-related supplies (from strainers and tea pots to syrups and mugs) and the staff are eager to help you find the right tea for you.
"We do loose tea or teabags to use at home," says Lee. "You can ask the staff to them down from the Tea Wall to smell them and get a feel for them. We do drinks to takeaway too and we've got a wide selection - you can literally have anything from the Tea Wall, plus we have specials like matchas and chais."
"Matcha is Japanese and it’s a slow release of caffeine throughout the day," explains Lee. "There was a standard matcha but it wasn’t Crisi’s favourite so she created all these wonderful other flavours from Birthday Cake to Raspberry Ripple to Ice Cream. The staff will give you a demo, show you how to make it with a bamboo whisk, you can have a go yourself and make yourself your own drink.”
They also sell matcha samples and starter kits for the novice who wants to get to know this most floral and flavourful of Japanese teas a little better.
Lee is clearly incredibly proud to work for a company that puts its ethics into action across the board, with their own Charitea charity and a strong focus on sustainability and staff well-being.
“Coming to Bird & Blend was a massive cultural change. I mean this from the heart - I think a lot of companies talk about putting people first and about doing the right thing and say profitability is almost an afterthought, but I’ve worked at companies that say that, and oh my goodness, Bird & Blend just blows it out of the water," he says.
"For example, we had our managers retreat recently and the actual time focused on spreadsheets and profitability was minute compared with talking about how we develop our people, how we have a great work / life balance and how we upskill and engage," Lee continues. "The charity work we do was a large part of the presentation.”
And it seems the public are very excited about Bird & Blend too, with as many as 200 people at the store’s recent launch party and a steady flow of custom ever since.
“Our expectations in terms of busy-ness have just been blown away," says Lee. "We're really happy and really pleased the team – they’re a brilliant team and we want them to succeed!”
Bird & Blend seem to be doing everything right – from great products to a great public image and a great environment for its staff. So why not pop in and raise a glass of Buttermint Tea or Gingerbread Chai to the great British beverage.
The Newcastle branch of Bird & Blend is at 123 Grainger Street and is open from 10am to 6pm from Monday to Saturday and from 11am to 5pm on Sundays. Find out more at www.birdandblendtea.com/pages/bird-blend-tea-co-newcastle-shop.
