How The Customer happiness of Paper & Tea became their greatest marketing channel

We at FAIRLING have the mission to connect brands and retailers from all around the world and to make the world of wholesale a better and more sustainable place.

 

In our Brilliant Brands category on this blog we have asked unique brands from all around the world about their story and mission. We want to look behind the scenes of amazing brands and tell their story. Today, we have asked the inspiring Brand Paper & Tea about their story.

Paper & Tea was founded in 2011 in Berlin as a provider of fine and rare teas and pioneer of a sophisticated, modern tea culture. Creating from the traditions and knowledge of the countries of origin of tea, their passion is to promote the appreciation of the beauty, pleasure and multiple applications of tea.

Paper & Tea values the venerable tradition of tea as a medium of human communication, creativity and culture. They want to share the gift of good tea with as many people as possible and inspire them to use tea as a medium for a healthy, creative and fulfilling lifestyle.


Founder Jens de Gruyter © Paper & Tea 2022

How did it all start? What’s the idea behind Paper & Tea?

The idea behind Paper & Tea is simple: To enrich people’s lives! Because for us, tea is much more than just a drink. It is a medium of human encounter. Just like paper. That’s why we are passionate about both of these influential natural products: Paper and tea. Both have had a profound impact on communication, creativity, culture and community around the world.

It all started 11 years ago with Jens de Gruyter, who was practically born into the tea culture. Out of his desire to turn a personal passion into a profession, he got in touch with smaller tea farmers in Japan, China and Taiwan, who instead of mass production pick their tea by hand and process it manually. To this day, we therefore carry only single-variety, hand-processed whole-leaf teas of the highest quality and regularly visit our producers in person.

© Paper & Tea 2022
Who are the people behind the brand? Please tell us a bit about yourself.

Our CEO Goran Pavlic is not called “by default happy” for nothing. With unbelievably positive energy and a tireless drive, he is currently taking Paper & Tea to the next level and surrounds himself with a veritable treasure trove of creative minds.

Managing Director and COO, Sven Kröncke, has helped shape this tea start-up since its inception. In the last year, the number of our colleagues has doubled, working in very different areas. From retail and warehouse, to e-commerce, design, product development, tea sommeliers and event managers. At the forefront is Vitalis Martin (Director of BrandCulture). This is why we write BrandCulture as one word, because for us these two are blended together as we strive to create a strong bond between our brand, employees and customers. This is also why we decided to depart from a more traditional company set-up and created the BrandCulture department combining Customer Care, Training & Development, Tea Experience and Brand Experience under one roof. Other important people of the team are Markus Schwitzke (Chief Brand Officer) and Katharina Fischer (Head of Brand Communication), whose entire focus is on “enriching people’s lives” – where and how our brand can be experienced and lived.

We want to create places of encounter and creative exchange: in our stores as well as at our events and tea seminars. Together and with all senses, people should be able to experience the “Chado” (the way of tea). For this, the quality of our products is everything and that’s why we have Eduardo Molina Anfossi (Head of Tea Experience & Education) and Anastasia Arampatzi (Tea Taster & Buyer). As tea sommeliers, they taste the new harvests, for which we prefer to travel to our tea producers ourselves and taste them directly on site. Eduardo has also created the School of Tea, a series of seminars on the different types of tea and preparation methods, in which our customers first become learners and finally become tea masters.

 

What was your favorite highlight Or happiest moment in the last months?

Just last month we celebrated our first Tea Time Session in Cologne and it was a huge success. The Tea Time Sessions are our new event series, in which we cooperate with artists, musicians and writers to create moments of encounter – all accompanied by the finest tea, of course. We started with the musician Moglii, who performed his own genre “Organic Electronic” – a modern mix of warm beats, analog synthesizers and soulful vocal samples – in our Cologne store. This experience is special for us, because we sell more than “just” good tea. Paper & Tea exists and lives exactly from such collaborations.

 
© Paper & Tea 2022
Do you remember the first retailer ever that stocked your products? How did that come about?

Our first retail partners were ABC Home and the MoMa Design Shop in New York. Especially with ABC Home, the first contact was very exciting: We had just opened our first store in Berlin-Charlottenburg and the Tea Magazine of the New York Times had reported about our opening. The owner of ABC Home, Paulette Cole, read about us in this article, how we wanted to demystify tea culture and what quality standards we had from the very beginning. This piqued her interest and she invited Jens to New York. A 10-minute buyer interview spontaneously turned into an hour-and-a-half long tea ceremony, which not only strengthened the contact but also laid the foundation for a real partnership. By the way, to this day Paulette orders her favorite tea – Happy Huizong – from us.

Which are your most successful and important marketing channels at the moment – and why?

In fact: Word of Mouth. People who try our products tell their friends, who in turn show up at our stores. This enormous customer satisfaction is a really good example of how much our quality is worth telling after all, the whole experience of deceleration that we live. We believe that our Paper & Tea stores are places of encounter where people can experience our products. We support that with events, seminars and tastings. In general, we don’t think in terms of channels, but omnichannel. Our customers have the same experience wherever they are, whether offline in stores or online in the webshop, on Instagram, LinkedIn, etc.

© Paper & Tea 2022
Where is the journey to go? What is your vision of Paper & Tea in the long run?

We have big plans. We are currently working hard on numerous store openings in Vienna, Zurich, Düsseldorf, Bonn. By 2025 we want to be represented in every major city. Furthermore, paper is also coming back into focus! We are very excited to release our new paper collection at the end of this year, with incredibly beautiful designs and made of fantastic materials.

What tips could and would you give to other young and upcoming brands?

Stay true to your principles and believe in your product. Growth can happen quickly or slowly, but you must be sure of who you are.

 

 

Thank you, Caroline, (Content & Event Manager), for the lovely interview! We wish you all the best for you, your team and Paper & Tea!


© Paper & Tea 2022
Company: Paper & Tea
Founder:  Jens de Gruyter
Country: Germany
Open Stores: 5
Stores in the making: 7
Bestseller: GOLDEN EARL N°514
 

Even if there are times when wholesaling seems more difficult, it’s still important to be visible and tell the shops about your great products. Maybe you got some ideas from this article and found inspiration on how to make your ads on FAIRLING interesting.

If this was an old hat for you, you are probably searching for some resellers for your products. We would love to help you find those. Just book a free demo call and we will be very happy to talk with you about your possibilities or answer your questions!


You are a unique brand and want to learn more about wholesale and reach out to potential shops? 

FAIRLING is an online trade fair platform and very easy to use.

 

Author

Comments are closed.