Tea sales grow at Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf
By Michelle Knight knight@theacorn.com

The day David De Candia found a small box of tea-tasting cups was the day he discovered his spiritual side.

The warehouse supervisor had only been working in The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf's Camarillo plant a short time when he found the specialty items tucked away in a corner. With his interest piqued, De Candia took classes, attended expos and read all he could on tea quality.

"It captured me," De Candia, 46, said. "I never knew I had this ability to taste these teas."

While educating himself, De Candia began to meet tea growers from around the world. It was at about this time that the company changed hands and direction.

The year was 1998 and Coffee Bean had only 15 stores. The company bought its tea from wholesalers who made it available to just about anyone.

But purchasing tea directly from the grower would position the company to have better quality control. From De Candia's view, a tea company should be responsible for its product from start to finish, or in this case from field to tea cup.

"By doing that, you can create exactly what you want, as opposed to buying from someone who buys it from someone else," De Candia said.

He asked the new owners if he could grow Coffee Bean's tea line. If you love it then do it, he said they told him.

So he did and became Coffee Bean's tea buyer.

And tea sales have grown, company officials say.

"Tea is our fastest growing category overall," said Jay Isais, senior director of coffee and tea.

"With David's support," retail sales of teas are up more than 12 percent, lattes more than 6 percent and hot tea more than 10 percent since 2005, he said.

A global community

A building that once served as Coffee Bean's corporate headquarters, located in an industrial area near Pleasant Valley Road in Camarillo, is its distribution hub.

Teas and coffees arrive here from around the world, filling the warehouse air with the aroma of citrus and flowers. Coffee beans are roasted and teas flavored and blended here, then packaged and shipped out to more than 600 Coffee Bean stores across the globe.

Because Coffee Bean buyers have a personal connection with coffee and tea growers, the Los Angelesbased company contributes a share of its profits to construction projects in the growers' communities. Coffee Bean helped build schools in Papua New Guinea and Ethiopia and a day care center in Sri Lanka, for example.

"Its not charity," De Candia said, because the growers also commit part of their profits to the projects.

For De Candia, the connection goes beyond a detached working relationship. After the 2004 tsunami hit Sri Lanka, he felt compelled to help the people he's come to know and respect. He and seven friends raised money to form a foundation and open a home for 40 tsunami-orphaned girls. Coffee Bean donated $35,000 to the cause.

"That's what tea means to me," De Candia said. "It's more than something you put in a cup."

De Candia volunteers his time to oversee the orphanage, staying in touch year-round with the nuns who run it and visiting them when he makes an annual business trip to the area.

Without administrative overhead, all donations go directly to support the girls.

Immersion leads to expertise

In tea circles, De Candia is considered an expert. He teaches seminars across the country and wrote an article for the August issue of a well-known woman's magazine.

Recently he taught the value of incorporating tea into recipes to instructors at the California School of Culinary Arts in Los Angeles.

Among the dishes the chefs created were a blueberry pomegranate sorbet and chai tea marinade for pork.

"It was one of the best workshops we've had at this school," said chef instructor Jennifer Chin.

De Candia said that tea has "enormous" health benefits. Green tea is a natural body deodorant and tooth decay preventative and lowers the so-called bad cholesterol, he said. But it must be prepared correctly- for instance, you must have the right proportion of tea to water and never heat the water up in the microwave, he said

"That's a sin," De Candia said.

Then there's the proper water temperature- different degrees for green and oolong teas- the correct steep time, the right diffuser.

"Tea requires your attention," De Candia said. "You have to be focused in on it; otherwise you're making a really crummy cup."

All tea comes from the Camellia sinensis plant. Coffee Bean officials say their teas and coffees are of a higher quality- what's known as the orthodox grade for tea and Arabica for coffee- than what's found in commercial brands.

The different types of tea- white, green, oolong and black- are achieved through exposing the leaves and buds to different levels of oxidation. Black tea, for example, has been oxidized, or exposed to air, longer than green tea. The longer the oxidation the fewer the health benefits, De Candia said.

Tea is more than a beverage for De Candia. It's a culture and a way to connect with others. He likes to take his time on Sunday mornings preparing a cup of tea for his wife; they sit and sip and reflect on life.

"Once you do that with someone, it's sort of an unforgettable thing," De Candia said.

Judging from the packed seminars he teaches, the public is ready to learn the art of proper tea preparation, De Candia said. He plans to write a book on the subject soon.

The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf has some 300 stores in the country's southwest region, with a large concentration in Ventura and Los Angeles counties. Original owner, Herb Hyman, is still a Camarillo resident.