We are often asked how we came up with our menu, both for tea and food. The answer is really very simple:

As our goal is to make the work a better place one person at a time via the tea experience, everything on our menu goes towards accomplishing this. As we are constantly searching for new ideas for improvement, and fielding requests from suppliers to carry their products, we created a model that allows us to evaluate everything on our menu, and anything new, to decide whether or not it will help us attain our goal. Here it is, the Samovar Product Evaluation Guide--feel free to email us with ideas you have about interesting or unique products that you feel would be appropriate!

1. Taste
Above all else, does this product taste good? Does it tantalize your taste buds? Does it make you crave more and more and more? Does it make you want to linger all day, savoring every single drip or morsel? For our business to succeed, we’ve got to have absolutely delicious products that satisfy your deepest urges and bring you back again and again. We want you to tell all your friends how amazingly and truly delicious your experience was.

2. Quality
Nearly equal to taste is quality. Now, quality is subjective so we define it in a few ways. Regarding tea quality, we mean fresh, wholesome and as untouched as possible. (Read more about tea quality here). As for food, we define quality as wholesome, untainted, un-refined and without chemicals. We go with the Japanese foods that do not have MSG. We select products with unrefined sugar and ideally sweetened with maple syrup, honey, or raw cane sugar. When at all possible we choose organic over conventional because we don’t want you eating chemicals.

3. Environmental and Economic Impact
For us to accomplish our goal as a business, we need to partner with other businesses that value what we do, and that means working with suppliers that really try to limit their environmental impact on the planet, and walk the walk when it comes to sustainable business. That’s why we have been working so hard to source certified Organic and Fair Trade products. Instead of going with the cheapest, biggest, most readily accessible supplier, we first search out those suppliers that are aligned with us in practicing socially conscious business. Generally speaking, most of our food, tea and tea-ware comes from small farms, family operations, local companies, and companies where we know the owners on a first name business.

Traditional businesses source from suppliers who get them the lowest cost-highest availability products, so they can maximize their profit margin. We see profit as imperative of course, but, as only one part of the business puzzle. The other critical aspect is the “how” of the business. That means that cheapest is not necessarily best when looking at the environmental and community impact of a business.

This is one area that is in constant need for improvement. Especially in the food service industry, the environmental impact of food service providers is horrendous, and definitely behind the times. We are hoping we can serve as a role model for other businesses as we continue to find new ways of lessening our impact. (And we welcome any input in this area, just send us an email.) Stay tuned for an upcoming blog on the ways in which we minimize our environmental impact.

4. Unique
Is this product unique? If it tastes great, has high quality, and also has a minimal environmental impact and a good economic impact, but it is easily found in other stores or restaurants, we’ll probably keep on searching. We want to offer something special, something you can’t get anywhere else and that means something very, very unique.

5. Scalable
Right now we have just two locations, in the Castro and in Yerba Buena Gardens. But, we aim to grow so that we can accomplish our goal as grandly as possible (in case you forgot, the goal is to improve people’s lives through our tea experience) and that means creating a strong presence in the world. For that to happen we really need suppliers who are up to the challenge of supplying us with a huge volume of products that are...delicious, high quality, create a positive enviro/economic impact, and are unique. Suppliers must be able to scale with us.

6. Cost
There is no question about it, for us to accomplish our goal, we must be profitable. And, to be profitable, we’ve got to control our costs. Provided all the above criteria are met, we will definitely go with the cheapest possible supplier we can find.

Conclusion
We decided early on that creating a successful, profitable business was only worthwhile if we knew that we were doing something good for the world. When it’s all said and done, at the end of the day and the end of our lives, we wanted to know that our efforts went toward the betterment of the world and humanity. It may sound grandiose, but, it’s true.

And we certainly aren't the first to have both noble aspirations, and success. After all, even in this era of Wall Street driven companies, massive corporate mergers, and societal debacles like Enron, there are many admirable companies leading by example. The big names out there are companies such as Patagonia, Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, Ben & Jerry’s, The Body Shop, Seventh Generation, Starbucks, The Social Venture Network, Whole Foods Market, and Working Assets.