Since its start in 2018, Spokane's Revival Tea Co. has become one of the fastest-growing tea companies in the U.S., says owner Drew Henry, and it's not slowing down.
After gaining early success via online sales, Revival Tea expanded in early 2020 with a brick-and-mortar shop in downtown Spokane. In the unique, speakeasy-style tearoom customers can order anything from nitro-brewed chai to an Earl Grey mule mocktail.
"It's pretty amazing how we've made such a disruption in the tea world, with such little resources — just being this ma-and-pa shop out of Spokane," Henry says.
Soon after launching Revival, Henry and his wife, Cerina, began expanding their online selection from their initial spiced chai to a total now of 67 teas. They've since shipped Revival's products across all 50 states and to 24 countries worldwide. Five years later, the couple also continue to operate their thriving physical storefront, which they expanded earlier this year to add a boba bar above the basement-level tearoom.
In line with Revival's mission of creating an approachable and fun tea-drinking experience, this is not a typical boba bar.
"If we were gonna do boba, it needed to be craft — it needed to be on a whole other level," Henry says.
Walking into the Revival boba bar, customers enter a light, modern space that bears some familiar hallmarks of the original tearoom downstairs, with exposed brick, industrial fixtures and an open bar where one can watch drinks being made. The boba bar carries an array of drinks, such as Revival's chai milk tea ($7) topped with cream cheese foam and their tart wild berry taro blended tea ($7). From boiling the boba at the counter to flavoring each drink with Revival's tea blends, the company maintains a dedication to authentic flavors.
Henry says the boba bar is yet another step in making tea more accessible.
"People try to make tea very intimidating and very complex, and it's just not," he says. "So we're trying to really peel that curtain back, because a key part of it is showing people how we do what we do."
In the spirit of transparency, Henry hopes to move a tea blender to the shop from Revival's headquarters to literally show customers how their tea is made in a model similar to Starbucks' Reserve stores. Other aspirations for Revival Tea include multiple drive-thru locations, and even opening tearooms in other metropolitan areas.
Henry explains that the tearoom was never part of Revival's original business plan, much less the boba bar, but it became reality after the encouragement of so many people in the community.
"Most of the story of our growth has truly just been through people sharing our product," he says.
Since beginning by selling tea at local farmers markets and online, Revival Tea Co. now has hundreds of wholesale sellers. Henry explains that if the tearoom was going to be the company's final form, he would've been content. However, it's clear to him that there's more in store for the future of this company.
"We've always said that we were gonna take this company as far as it wanted to go," Henry says. "It's pretty evident to us at this point that this thing's not slowing down anytime soon." ♦
Revival Tea Co. Boba Bar • 415 W. Main Ave., Suite 101 • Open daily 11 am-6 pm • revivalteacompany.com • 509-315-8099
