Tazo Tea Company (TAZO) is a tea and herbal tea blender and distributor founded in Portland, Oregon. It is now a LIPTON Teas and Infusions division and is based in Kent, Washington.

History

Tazo Tea was founded in 1994 by Steven Smith. The manufacturing and distribution was maintained by North American Tea & Coffee, a Canadian-based food manufacturing company. Tazo approached then Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz in 1998, seeking further investment partners. The company was purchased by Starbucks in 1999 for $8.1 million. Starbucks opened the first Tazo-branded tea shop in November 2012. It closed a year later and was converted into a Teavana store. In November 2017, Starbucks sold Tazo to Unilever for $384 million. Unilever reached an agreement in November 2021 to sell the majority of its tea business to private equity firm CVC Capital Partners for €4.5 billion. This included the Tazo business. The sale was completed in July 2022, with the new company named LIPTON Teas and Infusions.

Marketing

The company uses "New Age"-style marketing and product labeling. For example, every box of tea was once labeled as "blessed by a certified tea shaman" and an original tag line was "The Reincarnation of Tea." Until 2013, the logo used the Exocet typeface, slightly modified. For example, the T in Tazo was changed for readability purposes in 2006 by sliding the cross-piece toward the top of the letter.