Meet Margo Wells and Jenny Bolt of The FestiviTea Company in Colorado Springs

Today we’d like to introduce you to Margo Wells and Jenny Bolt.

Margoa and Jenny, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
We are Margo Wells and Jenny Bolt, owners of the FestiviTea Company and we love sharing tea with others! In fact, we began our business in 2008 catering festive tea parties. After the economic recession of 2010, we decided to restructure the company; with the focus on delivering the unique loose-leaf teas we served at our events. Margo, a recovering engineer was fortunate to live and travel through various tea-centric countries. Jenny, a gifted and classically trained graphic artist, visually brings to life the character of each tea. The teas we curate from some of the world’s best tea blenders are full of flavor and feel festive – like a celebration in a cup!

But there’s so much more than tea that we deliver:
We help other businesses and individuals use tea to tell their stories,
We provide education about tea, its’ culture, history, and traditions,
We encourage people to use this 2nd most drunk beverage in the world to create communiTea.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
We can’t say it’s been a difficult journey, but it has been winding. We’ve had the vision to use tea to bring people together, how we accomplished that has changed over the past 12 years. Each phase of FestiviTea has been fun and challenging – we loved seeing the joy on our customers’ faces at catering events, but catering is a tough job! We enjoyed meeting people at farmer’s markets and craft shows, also a tough gig with not a lot of ROI. Neither of those interpretations of the vision felt right, so we continued to experiment. We did pop-ups, big corporate events, small craft shows – all focusing on retail. Then in 2017 we acquired one of our first wholesale accounts, a cafe, where we created a private label line of teas. That experience ignited our creativity and since then we’ve helped multiple businesses and individuals use tea to tell their stories. Currently, like most businesses, with the pandemic we are looking at ways to pivot our business and stay agile. We live in a fickle world so entrepreneurs must always be ready to adapt and change.

The FestiviTea Company – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
At our online store, in our “tea suite”, and with business partners we offer a variety of loose leaf teas through retail, wholesale, and private label. We work with several professional tea blenders to curate fun and inviting teas, our focus is finding teas which make each cup feel like a celebration. We like to challenge people to think “outside the tea bag”, to not be intimidated by using loose leaf tea.

Something we’re especially good at is helping businesses and individuals create custom teas which help tell THEIR stories. We’ve created unique tea lines for companies which reinforce their brand’s identity, additionally, we’ve created private label tea products for military reunions, weddings, showers, and corporate gifts. Tea is such a powerful tool for connecting people and creating memories.

There’s so much to learn and share about tea, which is why in 2018 we started the Little London Tea Society; to promote education about tea culture and encourage tea traditions in communities near and far. Through the society we teach classes about tea, culture, its’ history, and traditions. We want the tea society to delight people everywhere, through education, community, experiential classes, and events. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic we have converted some or in person events to subscription-type box products, which we ship around the country.

In 2019 we opened our “tea suite” which is essentially a tasting room. Before the pandemic, guests were welcome to visit and sample any of our teas before they buy. Hopefully soon we’ll be able to offer that service again along with the live classes and events we love to host. You can learn more about all of our products on Facebook or our website.

Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
1. Uniqueness and quality of the teas we offer.
2. The education and experiences we offer to customers, like Little London Tea Society.
3. We strive to make drinking and learning about tea fun and approachable

Pricing:

• Bags of tea (about 2oz) start at $7.00
• Little London Tea Society Events and subscription-type boxes start around $25
• Other tea-related kits start around $25

Contact Info:

• Address: 4740 Flintridge Dr, Suite 220-P, Colorado Springs, CO 80918
• Website: festiviteallc.com
• Phone: 7199636092
• Email: festivitea@yahoo.com
• Instagram: @festivitea
• Facebook: @festivitea

Image Credit:
Jenny Bolt and Margo Wells

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