Boston-based Evy Tea is introducing a new identity for its ready-to-drink cold brew teas, changing the brand name to simply “Evy” and rolling out new packaging with updated label designs in 12 oz. aluminum cans.
The reformulated line features four flavors designed around different functionalities: Unsweetened Green Tea (Focus), Black Tea + Superberry (Immunity), Evy Palmer (Energy) and Hibiscus Tea (Super Antioxidants). The first three flavors each also contain L-Theanine, and range from 0 to 70 calories per can.
The new products are currently available online direct-to-consumer and will roll out into retail early next year, according to founder Evy Chen. The brand currently has a commitment to launch on ecommerce platform Thrive Market in Q1 and is in the “final stages” of confirming its initial retail partners.
Founded in 2012 as a brick-and-mortar tea bar in Boston’s Jamaica Plain neighborhood, Evy Tea introduced its first ready-to-drink product in 2016. Since then, the drinks have undergone numerous evolutions and revamps as it worked to establish a presence in the Northeast.
This latest rebrand, however, represents Evy’s biggest pivot to date: beyond just new packaging, the company had to rebuild its supply chain almost from scratch amid the pandemic. While the company has for close to a decade grown slowly as a small, mostly regional startup, Chen said the goal for Evy is to now become a national player that can disrupt the tea set with its clean label, cold brew positioning.
“The products come and go, the companies come and go, the trends come and go, and I think what stays is the spirit; it’s something that you can take away with you,” Chen said of the brand’s new image. “I think that is what the power of Evy represents. It represents a particular type of attitude and … being resilient, being resourceful and having your eye on the prize.”
The origins of the rebranding actually predate the pandemic, Chen noted. The company entered 2020 with a small capital funding round (an SEC filing shows at least $576,000 raised) and Chen was already beginning to retool the brand’s strategy when COVID lockdowns led Evy Tea to lose 82% of its revenue stream overnight. In addition to losing its on-premise and food service accounts, Chen was also forced to permanently close the tea bar — a moment she called “a true transition point” that turned her full attention to the CPG business.
Evy has now built out its leadership team, including a new director of sales and a COO. Chen declined to name who is now working at the company, but said its recent hires include “alumni” from Kettle & Fire, Soylent and Truly Seltzer. The company also launched direct-to-consumer sales for the first time and began selling on Amazon.
Most significant, however, was a rebuild of the brand’s supply chain and production network. The company has partnered with East Coast and West Coast manufacturers which will allow it to produce up to 250,000 gallons per production run, Chen said.
This new era for the brand, dubbed on its website as “Evy 2.0,” also includes a shift in its messaging, Chen added. The company is now doing more to highlight its partnerships with woman- and minority-owned suppliers and small farms while emphasizing the drink’s quality and its production process. Chen herself is also working to better position herself as the face of the brand that bears her name by appearing in social media marketing and using YouTube and other online platforms to promote the product.
“Historically, we have not been a company that’s that vocal about … diversity, but we’ve always had 50-plus percent of our internal staff and suppliers being operated by women, people of color, minorities and immigrants,” she said. “So starting from the supply chain to what ends up in the can is a huge pivot for me from an identity perspective and to be more vocal about what I stand for, which is pushing the movement of craft tea.”
Chen is also featured in a new BBC-produced documentary miniseries on tea called One Cup, A Thousand Stories. The six-episode show was commissioned by Migu, a subdivision of China Mobile, and debuted in China last month. To date, the fifth episode featuring Chen has been viewed over 200 million times in the country and the show is set to premiere in the U.S. and the U.K. in the near future.
The documentary appearance is particularly important for her personally, she said, because it allowed her to tell her story as a Chinese American entrepreneur to an international audience while also affirming that Evy Tea is a serious company working to make something that is “truly impactful.”
“Everybody can do ‘blah,’” Chen said. “There’s a lot of people who do a lot of selling and promoting that’s just transactional where you know they’re selling to you. But my story is real. I’m real. And the struggle I represent is real and the growth I live is real so we’re gonna flip the storybook there and say ‘This is who we are and this is what we’re about.’”