Not All Is Nirvana at Teavana

There's a first for everything, and in this post we find ourselves improbably cheering on a Wall Street short. When Starbucks became serious about buying luxury tea purveyor Teavana, a California investment firm called Glaucus Research Group decided to do a little digging. Glaucus shopped at Teavana and then sent the teas off for analysis. They claim to have established that "Independent laboratory tests showed that Teavana’s teas contain pesticides in amounts that exceed US and EU regulatory limits." 

These guys didn't just send off the teas. They recorded salespeople in-store claiming the teas were pesticide free. In its report, Glaucus writes,

"Contrary to the Company’s claims,  100%  of the tea samples contained pesticides, many of which are classified by the EPA as Possible Human Carcinogens. One of Teavana’s most popular and expensive teas--Monkey Picked Oolong [$25.00 for 2 ounces]--was the most contaminated with 23 pesticides."

Teavana issued a press release to diffuse the situation. According to Glaucus, Teavana salespeople no longer claim their teas are pesticide free.

But even though this dogged little investment firm recommended against it, Starbucks did eventually purchase Teavana for $620 million. We wonder if Teavana will use some of that money to clean up their teas, or will they spend it all on lawyers who will clean up their marketing claims?