Our "State of Tea Union" for April 2025

WOW there is a lot happening in the US right now. Economic, social, and legal conditions have become increasingly hostile, and our administration has dropped us all in the middle of an exploding trade war impacting globalized, specialized trade in an ugly, unpredictable, fast-moving way. Specialty food and drink, publishing, jewelry, visual art prints, and textiles are among the industries most impacted, and the countries with the highest tariffs for US importers happen to be...the entire tea producing world.

So what does this all mean for us here at Friday Afternoon? What does this all mean for you, our beloved communitea and customer base?

Fortunately, I have decades of experience and connections, most of a degree in economics, and enough stubbornness to fuel a whole team of mules. We have plans to survive this.

Availability & Pricing Expectations:

Yes, things are more expensive for us now. Tariffs hit when items arrive stateside, and as we do a lot of direct small farm imports ourselves, we are on the hook for whatever the fees of the day are when our shipments come in at the port. We managed to do big restocks from most of our Chinese partner farms before the new tariffs came into play, but there is still one more on a ship en route right now. In current conditions, that shipment will now cost us 104% tariff when it arrives. That was a $3k order. Ouch.

[Update, this number changed as I was posting this and is now 125%, apparently. It will likely change again within the day. I won't take time to update this post about specific numbers again. This is what we're working with. -F]

I use this case to illustrate how painful these conditions are for small businesses, and how expensive it is to acquire and hold inventory. That being said, we are not currently raising our prices at all, and will reevaluate that position at the end of the year to see if it's still tenable.

There's a temptation to panic-reprice, but honestly conditions are changing daily and we refuse to pass that instability on to you. At this time, we plan to keep our pricing as-is, order as we have the cash set aside to pay the fees, and for awhile we'll all have to accept that the high end pure farm-direct teas will be a more precious commodity, less frequently restocked.

Fortunately, a large part of our business runs to the blended and botanical side, which means we are using a smaller percentage of the teas which have just become prohibitive. We'll be able to keep most of our teas in stock most of the time, and because the bulk of botanicals come from less-tariffed regions, we're not in trouble on the herbal front.

Through the end of 2025, we are committed to keeping current prices, though there is a possibility that international shipments may be temporarily halted as our governments retaliate against one another.

Quality & Consistency: 

We will not be compromising our quality, abandoning our farm relationships, or discontinuing anything (except Colombian Green Wiry, unrelated, the farm isn't producing that style anymore), so you can trust us to maintain the degree of excellence you've come to expect from our teas.

Packaging inconsistency may come up down the line if this continues for a long period. Our colorful new packaging is Chinese-made, so we may have mixed success keeping all colorways of the new pouches stocked as frequently as we'd like. We'll try to prevent it, but there's a chance you may see our backup packaging (plain black windowless bags with our current colorful labels printed and stuck on) scattered through your orders as needed between minimum order size restocks. This isn't a concern yet, but please be patient and understand if you see alternate aesthetics from us here and there down the line.

New teabag rollout:

Ok yes, this is a major concern for us. We have already imported our first in-house compostable pyramid teabag machine and its assorted packaging, so we're all good for about 18 different teabag box flavors to roll out to retail and wholesale customers within the month!

We crowdfunded for and planned to import two more machines within the next two months:

1. 1.  A dedicated high-frequency allergen machine to process teabags including strawberries, gluten, dairy, and nuts so folks don't have to ever worry about cross-contamination on those items (yes we thoroughly clean the robots between batches, but there are nooks and crannies that make us uneasy re: allergens), and
      
      
   2. A dedicated glitter machine to produce the world's first glitter teas in bagged form!

Unfortunately, due to current tariffs, we have to put an indefinite pause on importing the glitter and allergen teabag machines, as the cost will be an additional $40k* or so purely to import. We will eventually bring these machines in and add bagged glitter and high-allergen teas to our lineup, but we don't know when. The current import cost is simply too prohibitive and volatile.

[again, this number has already changed and will continue to do so. -F]

Kickstarter Backer Impact:

As promised in our recent updates, we will be working with our crowdfunding backers to figure out each person's best case outcome! We're already helping folks switch their chosen items from bagged to loose leaf, or from glitter bags to currently available bags, etc. We're offering split fulfillment for folks who are ok with paying a secondary shipping charge.

We are still committed to bringing on our second and third bagging machines when we can find the extra money, whether through investment, loan, or some other future option. For the time being, we are simply putting a pin in that aspect of our teabag project as we examine our options. Any backers who don't mind a long, uncertain wait can just hang tight and we'll keep you posted as our plans develop! Our custom tea dice are still being made, and we are committed to swallowing the tariff on that project to keep our recently extended timeline. Ugly, but not impossible. I simply refuse to make y'all wait longer for happy shiny tea dice.

FAQ's from socials this week:

Will you still sell loose leaf tea, or only teabags?

Loose leaf has always been, and will continue to be, the core of our business. We make our compostable teabags in-house with teas we've hand-blended, so all tea has to be loose leaf before it becomes teabags here. Loose leaf resource availability will not be impacted any differently than bagged tea, and you can expect no change there.

Are you going to be ok?

Fortunately, our crew is clever, flexible, and communicative. We're internally strategizing and taking everyone's input to work together and keep the business stable. We're moving cautiously, slowly, and maintaining transparency through this, which has always worked for us in the past. We're a tiny team of eight total humans (including myself!) who have all worked closely together for a long time and have oodles of industry experience.

Teamwork and group-sourcing survival tactics means we have plans, contingencies, and an ever-evolving combination of structure and flexibility working in our favor.

It also helps a lot that we do so much work on the herbal tea front, which is so much easier for domestic and/or low-tariff sourcing. We're able to pivot and make do and keep moving, and I honestly believe we'll be fine. We're also seeing a growth spurt on the wholesale side of things, which is very promising!

That being said, everything just got way more expensive and unpredictable, so we're definitely stressing.

How can we help your small business survive through this?

BUY TEA! Mostly kidding, but I do have three pillars to support indies in general for you here, as these apply to us as well as all of your other faves:

1. 1. Keep shopping small. Keep it local, keep it indie, keep it small biz at every single possible opportunity.
      
      
   2. Steady, smaller, regular traffic keeps us in business better than huge occasional waves of support. We love the outpouring of love when we go through hard times, but spikes and dips make it much harder to maintain quality, consistency, and speed. A steady flow allows us to keep the lights on and manage our finances with less uncertainty.
      
      
   3. Word of mouth truly is everything. Sharing our posts on socials, chatting about us to your friends, sharing our tea with your abuelos, whatever. Your word of mouth truly makes up over 75% of our newly converted customers. It's wild how often people tell us "my friend told me about you and I had to come check out the shop for myself" or "I had your tea at a church gathering and had to come get my own." That's how communitea spreads, and it keeps us growing in a steady, manageable fashion!

Can more financially stable customers contribute more to help?

Love this attitude! So teahearted! The answer is now yes, if you want to!

Important to note: we recently went completely tipless and all crew has been given a generous pay bump above previous average tipped wage, so their checks are steady year-round no matter what. That's first and foremost here as far as I'm concerned.

But yes, by request, we have enabled tipping at checkout for online orders, and can also take digital tips via our Venmo or PayPal.

Let this also be clear: etiquette does NOT ask anyone to tip on retail. It's not an expecation, it's not something you need to do, nor do we want you to if it causes you stress, but it’s now an option to help offset costs. These digital tips will go to right toward increased operating costs and we sure appreciate your generosity. 

That's the gist of it for now, friends. We're here, we're queer, we're tea'er than ever and still committed to serving you accessibly and warmly.

I'd say "leave your questions as comments here," but tbh I still haven't figured out how to respond to comments on the blog function here. Just ping me on our socials or send an email if you have questions or comments!

Thank you as always for your ongoing love and support. When our communitea invests in us, we're able to return that investment to our communitea. That's what the spirit of tea is all about, right?

xoxo, Friday