Starbucks opens first Teavana tea bar in NYC
Starbucks picked New York City for its first Teavana tea bar, as the coffee behemoth seeks to transpose its success onto the tea market after acquiring Teavana for $620 million last year. Teavana Fine Teas + Teavana Tea Bar, located in Manhattan's Upper East Side, aspires to have a "zen-like" atmosphere and will serve snacks, sweets and flatbreads next to a wide variety of loose teas. According to the company's CEO, Teavana is expected to open 1,000 such bars in the next five years. Also, Starbucks is not concerned about cannibalization between both businesses, because most tea drinkers do not cross over to coffee. The company may slowly add tea bars to existing Teavana locations and is likely to expand internationally while growing the business in the US.