Story / té27

It all started as a game on a day like any of 2007. Liz, my wife, she has always loved green tea and infusions, every morning before leaving for work, she would make green tea for both her and me. Days went by, then weeks and I got real bored of the flavor of tea by itself, so I reached to the fridge to try find something to mix in with the tea, and there was lemonade and as a result, there was a very tasty and different flavor I had never tasted before. The morning routine became a perfect habit to play and try different flavors, after the lime, it was the pineapple, the Jamaica flower, the cranberries, the maracuya and then the stevia. It took around three years to perfect the recipe for pure personal taste and with the different opinions of family and friends. The most important moment, after we finished the recipes, on the summer of 2010, we had two nephews and our two children over for summer, we prepared them three jars of tea every day, it was really fun for them to discover the “flavor of the day” and for us it was fun to see their happy faces and to hear all their ideas about selling the teas.

When that summer was over, my wife and I started to seriously think about selling our teas. We were a bit scared because we had projects in the past that did not work and not for lack of ideas or attitude, it was because of our incapacity to make the businesses grow and make them independent, in other words, our fears, ignorance and limitations would not let us conclude our projects. I remember the afternoon we talked about this idea because I was recovering from a knee injury, I had lots of time to think and re think about it. At the start, it seemed like something impossible because we did not know our ways and even though we thought our teas were really original and unique, we feared failure, but with all our fears and insecurities, we decided to make it happen.

Very soon we realized that we had an amazing product on our hands, people received the product with joy due to its refreshing natural flavor, and because they loved the fact that now they had a healthy option with so much junk food being sold now days. Things were happening really fast without any real plan and on a very natural way, at the start the whole family was very involved on the project (My wife, my daughter, my son and I) but we grew to the point where my kitchen was not enough, we hired people and moved location to start a new phase. And then it came, the moment we feared the most: either the business starts growing and we make it work or we let it go like we had done in the past with the others. We did not wanted to mess it up but we didn’t know what to do exactly.

That's when we were joined by my sister-in-law as a partner to help us scale the company and give direction and it was also when, in May of 2014, we met Maru Medina and her Initiating Program (Programa Iniciadores) and we understood the phrase “The teacher comes out when the student is ready”. It was a very radical restart that made té27 a real business, still small but with a very ambitious and bright future. And the best part of all is that until today we still enjoy and have fun with what we’re doing, because we know what we want and we know how to achieve it. But do not misunderstand it, we do take our business very serious, but without ever losing the joy we’ve had since the very start.

Gus Reyes Asid =)