This spawned a tea cafe trend! With everyone having their own individual tastes in teas, Lisa decided to offer the service of creating personalized blends in the tea cafe. It was an instant hit, touching many as her tea cafe was gaining popularity while named in several magazines and newspapers, spawning speaking engagements from Barnes & Noble to local women's clubs. New Life...

Now residents of Greensboro, North Carolina after her husbands job required a transfer, Lisa and ARTISAN'S CUP ... TEAS BY DESIGN™ continue their popular personalized tea blending here in the South, using only the freshest and most aromatic high quality teas shipped directly from the Assam gardens to her site. Blending and flavoring all her teas now, in a newly built facility in Greensboro, which is expanding this fall 2005.

Lisa says: " We have outgrown our last site in just under one year..we never saw it coming. It was not easy learning the ropes, finding all the perfect flavorings, learning packaging regulations, all the licensing, branding, hiring the perfect design company to do our logo (The Design Group.. Thanks Lynn & Dave)! passing inspections, and trial and error with the ever changing shipping (yikes)!

Trying several teas types to flavor, and sadly tossing 50 lbs away that didn't work out, (sigh) Buying equipment we never even knew existed! Now we see it was a a key learning experience. It helped us learn how to *deliver* when the "big" orders came in. We needed to deliver and fast. Luckily we had our "ducks in a row" and have excellent vendor relationships, which is just as important as client relationships."

Lisa prides herself on "over the top" customer service. Personal and caring, she treats each client as a friend, taking time with each as if they were the only one. Although her commercial kitchen is not open to the public, her teas are available online, and at the Greensboro Curb Side Market (See "media Coverage" link) and in several states, now with dozens of territory reps and distributors nationwide, including top resorts, spas and B&B's.

Lisa's Vision...

"I wanted to zero in on specific clients and I knew I wanted to gear towards wholesale as a strong backbone of my company. Limiting myself to those tons of "one and two" bag orders at a time was killing me. I had a vision of working with large accounts across the nation as well as keeping my beloved retail clients. I also was driven to implement a "do-able" minimum order as a win-win situation for both sides.

"My pet peeve was the huge minimum orders I was stuck with when I was starting out in my tea shop years ago. It's unrealistic for newbie's. I swore I would never do that to someone else. It's almost as if they were not wanting my business unless I had a huge bank roll. My passion is "relationships with support" and none go unrewarded for their sales, which come full circle to help us grow. I take the time to train my clients staff as part of ongoing free support, I got a bit of slack in the beginning from well meaning friends for "giving away" my time (and about half of my tea the first year)!" but I believe it has set me apart from the others, and gained me larger orders in the end. It was a small price to pay for the harvest. I actually WANT my vendors to succeed..imagine that! I have learned that all Relationships have to be a two way street with good boundaries or they become toxic. "

Blending for celebrities and country singers, and her teas appearing at the 2005 Oscars, Hip Hop Awards, and Top 40 Awards gift bags this year, Artisan's Cup has grown by leaps and bounds since it's inception, with an average of 300% each quarter. Lisa has expanded her business to include: Ice teas, spa blends, Tea Slammers™ adult beverage, consulting, speaking and freelance writing.

She can be reached at 336.218.0108 9-5 Eastern time