Love is a many spendored thing!
By April on Feb 12 Filed In Uncategorized 26 Comments
Today is February 12th, my 7th wedding anniversary and during this time of year, it’s hard not to think of love since the 12th is so close to Valentines Day.
I use this time to reflect over the last year’s trials and tribulations that come with sharing your life with another person. I wouldn’t change anything that has happened, not the good or the bad. Why? Because I’ve learned so much about myself. Sharing your life with another person often forces us to act beyond our comfort zones. Why is this? To help make the OTHER person more comfortable. We do this because we love them and they help to make us better people. It’s all worth while in the end. To love and be loved is an awesome feeling.
Recently, I received a very frantic email from one of our Fan’s asking me to help him find a particular Grannyism on a yellow bottle cap. I know you’re asking, “April, what does any of this have to do with LOVE?” Oh, I’m getting there, the story gets sweeter and sweeter, much like our organic cane sugar sweetened teas!
I wrote our Fan back and let him know that we’d search through our boxes of lids to find the particular Grannyism in question but that I wasn’t sure how successful we’d be. I asked him to write me back and tell me why he needed this particular cap so badly and this is what he wrote back and said.
Per Paul Nguyen: Well the story is I was helping a girl with her Calculus homework.
She had gotten a free Sweet Leaf coupon thing and we went to go get one.
We tried the Cherry Limeade, which is not too bad actually.
She didn’t know I kept the bottle cap.
We started meeting up more and more, and talking.
One day she was having a difficult day and I gave her the cap “keep your chin up”.
Like a week later she brought me cookies at work and she had given it back to me.
There’s a picture enclosed. 
Imagine that having someone fall for you over a bottle cap.
Basically it’s a precious memory and I was really sad when I lost it.
What had happened was I attached to my backpack so I’d have it with me all the time and it fell off somewhere. =[
After reading this note, I forwarded it around the office, and every woman that works here got out of their chairs and began sifting through boxes of lids looking for the one special bottle cap. After less than 5 minutes, Macy hollers "I found it!" and there it was. The yellow lid that said, "keep your chin up". I sent a note back to Paul letting him know all was right in the world again and he was ecstatic. I requested permission to make his story a blog entry, got some cool t-shirts together and some other goodies and sent them off to Paul. After Christmas break, Paul wrote me back with pictures of he and his girl, Audrey Yang modeling their shirts and their love for one another. Who doesn't love happy endings, no matter what time of year?
Happy Valentines Day to all of you from us. Go share some of yourself with someone else; not just February 14th, but every day.
The E! True Hollywood Story of a Sweet Leaf Intern
By Frances on Feb 9 Filed In Uncategorized Add a Comment
Oh heyy. I’m one of the new interns here at Sweet Leaf Tea. Be jealous!
So do you want to know what it really is like interning here? Well, if you’re wondering if I get endless amounts of free tea … then yes, I do. It’s pretty sweet (leaf tea). But besides that, there are a lot of other awesome things that us interns get to participate in.
You know the people at the grocery store who hand out samples? Yes, of course you do. I used to go to Sam’s with my mom back in the day to “eat lunch” … which really meant stuffing my face with free food. Well, Sweet Leaf Tea does demos regularly at Whole Foods and Central Market here in Austin and I got to participate in a few over the past two weeks. Super Bowl weekend, I went to Whole Foods with a veteran intern to do a demo. At first, we were in an odd place in front of some wine and it wasn’t really working too well but then we were moved right smack in the middle of the grab-and-go drink section and things started getting pretty crazy!
We were right next to the doors and check-out section so the customers really couldn’t avoid us… haha but why would they want to anyway?! It was really interesting to see their initial reactions after tasting the tea. “Oh… wow… oh wow… oh wow this is good.” It’s no lie that our products are unbelievably tasty and the demand was so obvious when they would have to keep restocking because the jars were flying off the shelves. I almost feel like people were proud to be holding their Sweet Leaf Tea’s… seriously! And it’s even more awesome to be standing there in your Sweet Leaf Tea shirt knowing that you just changed their life forever … haha ok that might be exaggerating, but not really.
Anyway, besides the demos I’ve met some cool people. Everyone who works here is super friendly and an expert in all things yummy. My boss Happy is awesome and has a Ben Folds poster tacked to the wall of his cubicle, which makes him even more awesome!
The semester has just started and I’m curious and excited to see what will swing my way. I think the company is on the threshold of pursuing new and great things as it is a new year for them as well. I love how involved they are with the community and I can’t wait to be an even bigger part of that.
I shall keep you updated!
Until next time,
Frances
Ode to Grannies: Past, Present, and Future
By April on Feb 3 Filed In Uncategorized 1 Comment
The coolest part of my job as the Consumer Services Manager for Sweet Leaf Tea is getting to build relationships with our fans via email, telephone and social networking sites.
I recently received a poem, and picture from a very passionate fan of our brand and I felt it needed to be shared with all of you.
Ken Owens a 5th grade teacher at James Sales Elementary School in Tacoma Washington, sent us a great poem dedicated to 5 generations of Grannies and their love for sweet tea.
From l-r, Sarah "Sallie" Ogle (Great-Great-Great Grannie), Annie Bell Lee (Great-Great Grannie), Gladys LaGrace Jones (Great Grannie), Betty Lou Medlin (Grannie) and Sandra Lee Yost (Baby in pic is Ken Owens mom!)
“Sweet Leaf Tea”
Like poetry
Sweet as honey
Soft as breeze
Take in to the leaves
On tips of tongues
Take them in
For they have sung
Our loved ones
They do pass
Away
They fall as leaves
As oak trees sway
And though our
Loved ones lives have past
Still, they’re remembered
Memories last
Like grannies voice
Beneath the oak
She sipped her tea
She rocked and spoke
Of times long past
Of one time when
She was captured
By Indians
She captured me
Beneath that tree
She held me in
Her hands like tea
Now every time
I take a sip
Of iced tea that
Flows over lips
I feel the spirit
Of the one
Who sat and sipped
As stories spun
I still remember
Me and she
Of grannie sipping
On
Iced tea…
Grannie’s gone
But not the tree
Where we once sat
She and me
Still, the tea
That she inspired
That sun tea
Hot sun did fire
Creating tea
And memories
Grannie and tea
Like me and she
Inseparable
Forever bonds
Her leaf lives on
Remembrance fond
Now I choose
Just one…one tea
The best…like granny’s
Sweet Leaf Tea
Try it and see
Get back to me
There’s nothing like
Her Sweat Leaf Tea
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