When most people drink tea, they don't necessarily expect a mystical experience. The executives at Yogi Tea, Eugene, OR, would like to change that. The company has just undergone a complete overhaul of its product line and corporate image, with the idea of making tea more than just a beverage. Director of communications Jagat Joti Singh Khalsa explained, "We have been marketing Yogi Teas for 20 years; this started at our yoga centers and Golden Temple restaurants nationwide but has grown into the natural food channel as well. As the products began selling at retail and we became more visible in mainstream America, we decided it was time to change the way we market." He continued, "We needed to figure out what our core message was. Our products looked like everyone else's and that wasn't what we wanted. We wanted to share ourselves, our yogic lives, our values and our technology; the teas are a way of doing that. They're a universe unto themselves."
With that plan in mind, said Mr. Khalsa, "we went into meditation about the future of the line. We also started talking to consumers, asking questions like, 'What does Yogi Tea mean to you?'" The result is a completely reformulated line with new packaging and other cross promotional deals as well. "We completely redid our medicinal line, we made more of our products dietary supplements and we created the first organic beverage line. We also split our green tea into two lines, a 'Simply Green Tea' line and a formulated line with other ingredients as well," said Mr. Khalsa. "Finally we introduced three organic tea latts in aseptic, ready-to-drink form."
The company also continues to add more organic ingredients. "Whatever we can source organically, we do," said Mr. Khalsa. "We can't get certifiers for everything, but we will continue to update our line, even if it means we keep changing boxes as we add organic ingredients."
The packaging is also brand new and the result of meditation by the design artists. The boxes include hand painted images, which were inspired by poems and songs that are now included in the box along with the tea. The new line is expected on store shelves on October 1.
In addition to concentrating on the actual products and packaging, Yogi Tea is also building what Mr. Khalsa calls a comprehensive website, which was expected up and running September 1. "We have completed extensive changes to the site," he commented, offering examples of adding poems and songs to the site, creating personalized My Temple pages for consumers and offering extensive ingredient information, yoga exercises and food and tea recipes. The company has also instituted a "tea of the month" club-where free tea bags are sent to anyone who signs up-and created a tasting board of more than 250 consumers to work on formulating future teas. In addition, Yogi Tea has instituted a gift pack program, sending out free samples to more than 2000 consumers. -E.S.