T2, officially registered as Tea Too, is a chain of specialty tea shops with stores in Australia, Singapore, and New Zealand. The company was established in Melbourne, Australia in 1996, and was purchased by Unilever in 2013.^[2] In 2013, T2 had 40 stores across the globe and made an annual turnover of A$57 million.^[3]

History

T2 was co-founded by Maryanne Shearer and Jan O'Connor. In 1995, they registered a homewares company, Contents Homeware.^[7] Shearer and O'Connor changed their focus after identifying a gap in the tea shop market, and chose the name Tea Two, written as Tea Too (T2) to denote the two co-founders.^[8] The business has been credited as "paving the way for the tea revival",^[9][10] and "transforming the tea industry in Australia"^[11] by educating consumers and promoting different flavours and types of tea.^[12]

Ownership

Startup

In 1996, Jan O'Connor and Maryanne Shearer each put in $50,000 to start the company as equal co-founders.^[13]

In T2: The Book, Maryanne Shearer notes that her business relationship with O'Connor deteriorated when she returned to work in March 2000 after having her first child. A legal battle ensued, leading to O'Connor's departure from the business. Bruce Crome, Shearer's partner, purchased O'Connor's share in the business at the end of October 2001.^[14][15]

Investment partnership

In 2007, Maryanne Shearer and Bruce Crome sold 50 per cent of T2 to retail investors Jonathan Dan and Phillip Blanco. After disagreements about growth strategies, Shearer and Crome bought 25 per cent back from Blanco, with Dan continuing his investment.^[16]

Acquisition by Unilever

Multinational company Unilever acquired T2 from Shearer and Crome in October 2013. As of 2015, Shearer was T2's Creative Director. In announcing the acquisition, Shearer highlighted Unilever's role in adopting sustainable agriculture practices for the tea industry as being a good values fit for T2.^[17] T2 had worked with Fairtrade since 2009 on its English breakfast tea blend.^[18] The Sydney Morning Herald noted that restaurant owner Michael Ryan reacted to the acquisition news with a tweet describing the company as "Unilever's Teas'r'Us".^[19] In 2017, writer Jayne D'Arcy used the term "Unilever-ed", to describe the company's shift from being locally Melbourne-owned.^[20]

The purchase price was estimated to be less than $100 million,^[21] and was later disclosed as $60 million.^[22] Legal services for T2 were provided by Baker & McKenzie and Harris Carlson, with financial advice from Deloitte. Legal services for Unilever were provided by Johnson Winter Slattery, with financial advice from KPMG.^[23]

Outlets and turnover

Stores

On 1 July 1996, the first store was opened at 340 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. A second store was opened on Fitzroy Street, St Kilda,^[24] but was closed after 12 months due to low patronage. However, the following year sales increased 20% which prompted the company to expand into Sydney.^[25]

In November 1999, a store was opened in Chadstone Shopping Centre, Melbourne. The success of this store helped to increase T2's revenue beyond $1 million.^{[citation needed]}

In 2002, T2 expanded to Sydney with a store in King Street, Newtown. In 2004, there were six stores in the chain, and by 2005 there were eight stores, 55 team members and a turnover of $4.4 million. In 2006 the turnover was $8 million. In 2008, T2 moved its operations from Fitzroy to a leased office in the Port Melbourne area.^[26] In August 2012, the company leased a warehouse at 50 Cyanamid Street in Laverton North.^[27] In September 2012, T2 leased a building at 35 Wellington Street in Collingwood, with the intention of relocating the head office to that location.^[28]

In March 2012, Shearer declared that T2 were "being brave" in the difficult retail climate by continuing to expand their number of stores.^[29] In September 2012, the first Tasmanian T2 store was opened in the Cat & Fiddle Arcade, Hobart.^[30]

In May 2013, a T2 shop was opened at 269 Little Collins Street, Melbourne, after it was vacated by designer Bettina Liano due to rental costs.^[31] That same year, T2 opened a store in Cairns Central.^[32]

In 2014, 18 new stores were opened. Three of the stores opened in London^[33] (including on Shoreditch High Street^[34]) and one in New York City. A year later, a fourth London store was opened at 290 Regent Street, in the West End.^{[35][verification needed]}

In 2015, there were over 70 stores in four countries, and around 1,000 team members.^{[citation needed]}

In 2017, the first T2 stores were opened in Scotland^[36] (131 Buchanan Street, Glasgow^[37]), and in Singapore,^[38] the first outlet in Asia.^[39] As of November 2017, there were over 96 stores across Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Asia.^{[40][verification needed]}

In 2023, T2 announced that due to "unprecedented changes" of the past few years, they have decided to "close all operations in the Northern Hemisphere to focus on regions closer to home, such as Australia, New Zealand and Singapore".^[41] T2's US stores closed on 19 February 2023, with its US websites trading until 22 February 2023 (with the exception of their Valley Fair location in California, which remained open until 25 June 2023).^[42]

Wholesale

Towards the end of 1996, O'Connor developed a custom tea blend for Geoff Lindsay's restaurant Stella. The T2 Stella blend created a lot of interest from diners. After recognising the opportunity in supplying tea to restaurants, O'Connor created a wholesale division for T2.^{[citation needed]}

From the mid 2000s, T2 was supplying 300 cafes and restaurants across Australia.^[43] By September that year^[when?], the number had increased to 400 with a few international accounts.^[44] By mid 2001, the number of wholesale accounts was approximately 500.^[45] In 2015, the company had 3000 wholesale accounts.

Currently, the T2 Distribution Centre is located in Laverton North, Victoria.

Branding

T2's store design is focused on the rituals of tea-making, and has been described as "a modern version of an old wares store-cum-apothecary".^[46] The first store had a pink-painted ceiling and Chinese newspapers as wallpaper.^[47] The stores' interior design is dark, with orange and black as signature colours.^[48][49] T2's signature orange has been analysed^{[by whom?]} as having vibrancy to appeal to a younger market while retaining simplicity for older tastes, and to imply the colour of brewing tea without being murky or brown.^[50] Stores offer tea tastings and "smelling table" product displays of tea ingredients.^[51] The design of the first T2 store in Scotland offered a tea fountain constructed from tea ware.^[52] T2 store design inspired Sunshine Coast author Josephine Moon's debut 2014 novel The Tea Chest.^[53]

Tea blends

T2's wide range of blends has been considered^{[by whom?]} reflective of Australians' growing interest in boutique teas.^[54] The number of blends or varieties have been variously reported as "at least 250" in 2003,^[55] "over 200" in 2005,^[54] "about 180" in 2006,^[56] "250-plus" in 2015,^[57] and in 2017, one of T2's UK stores had over 130 types of tea.^[58]

Chai became popular in 2006, and was one of the three top-selling teas for T2 in 2010.^[59]

Until 2007, all T2 teas were sold as loose leaf, but at the demand of restaurants, the company then introduced tea bags made of sheer muslin cloth in a pyramid shape.^[60] The tea bags were produced with a purpose-built imported machine.^[61]

In March 2009, in response to the growing popularity of Chinese classic teas, the Perth T2 store launched black tea pu'er in cake form, where previously it had only been selling it as a loose leaf variety.^[62]

T2 has a black tea blend with vanilla for Melbourne, Melbourne Breakfast Tea, as well blends for other cities: Brisbane Breakfast with mango,^[63] Sydney Breakfast, and Perth Breakfast.^[64] In May 2013, T2 created Hobart Breakfast tea.^[65]

The Melbourne Breakfast Tea and Liquorice Legs were initially the best-selling blends in the Shoreditch London store in 2014,^[66] with later top sellers being London Breakfast and Earl Grey Royale. Flush Darjeeling was so popular as to merit a waiting list.^[67]

In 2016 T2 introduced the Veggie Patch limited edition loose tea range.^[68]

In 2017 T2 released a limited edition collection of chai teas, with blends tasting of popcorn, sticky honey, or honeycomb chai.^[69]

In line with the first store opening in Singapore, in 2017 T2 created Singapore Breakfast tea, a blend of pu'er, green tea, coconut flakes and roasted rice.^[39]

Awards

Co-founder Maryanne Shearer received the Veuve Clicquot Business Woman of the Year award in 2012.^[70][71]

The Shoreditch, London store was designed by Australian-based Landini Associates. It won the Store of the Year in the Retail Design Institute's 2014 International Design Competition.^[57][72] Landini Associates also redesigned T2's corporate headquarters in Collingwood, which was a Silver Winner in the Interior Design - Corporate Category in the 2014 Melbourne Design Awards.^[73]

In 2015, Christopher Stanko's T2 Tea Cotton Teabags designs^[74] ranked as a finalist in the Australian Packaging Design Awards (Beverage category).^[75]

In December 2016, Metsä Board's packaging design for T2's mini fruit tea range won a Merit Award at the 28th Hong Kong Print Awards (Paper Packaging category). The design also won the Limited Edition category in The Dieline Awards 2017. Also in 2016, T2 won an IF Design Award (Beverages Packaging category).^[76]

Book Writer

In 2015, Shearer published T2: the book, which discusses the company's history, profiles different types of tea and recommends tea cups and brewing techniques. Kristen Droesch's February 2016 book review in Library Journal highlights the artistic details of T2's design, stating that it is "more than just an advertisement for T2".^[77]

T2: the book was designed by Evi O and was a category winner^[78] for the Australian Book Designers Association's Best Designed Fully-illustrated Book under $50 in 2016.^[79]