| Simply put, Tea is a café specialising in tea in London's financial district. It is also a hip, slickly marketed operation, serving tastes of exotica – Jade Oolong anyone? – in an up-to-the-minute reclaimed wood and exposed brick environment, infused with strong antichain, organic ideals. In short, according to founder Darren Spence, it is the anti-Starbucks. Spence, 33, opened Tea in May after a decade of working in private banking and wealth management with blue chip names like Arthur Anderson, Deloitte and HSBC. He says eventually he got tired of advising ultra-high net worth individuals (UHNWs) on their tax strategies. 'I wanted to be on the other side of the table, the person with the fortune,' he laughs.  The idea for Tea came one cold day in Hungary six years ago, when Spence and his girlfriend wandered into an elegant and busy tea shop. 'I said afterwards: that idea would work brilliantly in London,' he remembers, 'I wanted to reverse the coffee shop model and make tea the main course.' Half a decade of banking later, Spence dumped his day job and hurled himself into learning everything about the tea industry. Having brewed a business plan he secured funding from one bank and three private investors totalling €400,000. At the heart of the concept was the predication that the vast majority of tea sold as a fast takeaway is 'a horrible tea bag in a polystyrene cup', while the loose-leaf, connoisseur stuff is typically served for high prices in slow restaurants. Says Spence: 'As a specialist product, tea needs to be loose-leaf rather than in a bag, but loose-leaf tea takes time to brew and time is of the essence in a fast food, take-out situation. The result is a big problem for would-be tea operations trying to go head-to-head with Starbucks.' He resolved to discover a natural way of brewing tea in 90 seconds to tempt the aspirational latté-sippers. At first he looked at an expensive piece of equipment that pushed steam through the tea leaves at high pressure, 'but the tea tasted awful.' The eventual solution came in two halves – first some infusers he found in China, and secondly the realisation that to brew a given volume of tea more quickly, the only natural way is to increase the amount of tea leaves used. By calibrating the volumes for 41 different teas, the number currently on offer in Spence's founding café next to St Paul's cathedral, he reckons he has the 90-second solution.  Tea's menu marries the nest leaves from Asia with the marketing savvy of an LA cocktail bar. The Bohea Lapsang, for instance, is described as 'James Bond in a cup; smooth and sophisticated.' The most expensive drink, an oolong which 'combines peachiness with chocolate-like aroma', costs €5. There is also a range of teas directed at the health conscious – Daintea for slimming, Charitea for a charitable donation, Eternitea for anti-ageing and Activitea for 'energising'. One of the mainstays is white tea, which Spence insists is 'the new green tea' despite the fact that his current bestseller is Moroccan mint. Spence aims to open two more cafés in the next year in London, and then to move to a stock market listing to facilitate rapid expansion. Eschewing the McDonalds/Starbucks model, he wants each store to share common branding but local differences: 'Brothers and sisters not identical twins.'
First month of trading May 2007
2007-8 predicted sales €800,000
Start up money €400,000
Product range 41 types of tea served in store or for takeaway, plus fresh food made on the premises
Sales channels Bricks and mortar – website on the way
Marketing spend €15,000 on PR company
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