Tea for two: Cooper, Third Street go organic

LOUISVILLE — The founders of two local tea companies had so much in common that they created the new, organic Third Street-B.W. Cooper’s Iced Tea Concentrates line together.

 

(Photos Courtesy Cooper Tea Co.) John Simmons, left, president of Third Street Chai, and Barry Cooper, right, chief executive of Cooper Tea Co., combined efforts to create a line of organic tea concentrates.

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The project between Cooper Tea Co. founder Barry Cooper and Third Street Chai founder John Simmons worked so well that the two businessmen became friends who decided to merge their businesses together into the new DrinkWorks company in May. The iced tea concentrates come in four flavors — unsweetened black tea, mint green tea, pomegranate green tea and peach black tea. It sells in retail stores for $7.99 per bottle.

Like most innovations, the idea for the organic tea concentrate line came while Cooper, Simmons and a few others were discussing other projects, Cooper said. The idea to create something new with a pure ingredient list just seemed like a natural trend, he said.

“There’s nothing in the marketplace for something like this,” Cooper said. “John has a stellar reputation in the natural products business, and I’m pretty well known in the tea business, and we looked at each other and said, ‘We can do this.’”

The new company seems to be in the right place at the right time — its 35 workers can barely keep up with the orders, Cooper said. While the privately held company does not disclose revenue, the iced tea concentrate was the most successful new specialty item in two Whole Foods Market regions, said Colleen Norwine, a company spokeswoman and director of marketing and new business development.

“Timing is absolutely everything, and our timing was superb,” Norwine said.

As customers switch their allegiances from soft drinks to other beverages, they’re looking to the new organic tea concentrates, Norwine said. The company touts its 87 percent reduction in packaging with the concentrates from packaging for individual tea bottles as an “earth-friendly” message.

Before the new product line was rolled out, Cooper Tea was well-known for selling iced tea concentrates to the food service world. Chai concentrates from Third Street Chai have been mostly been sold in retail stores.

While the companies said they would be branded under the name DrinkWorks with the merger, they’re operating separately from an identity standpoint, other than the new tea line, Norwine said. Third Street Chai continues its “bag in the box” concentrate, which is made in a brewing and packing operation in Boulder. Cooper Tea continues to sell its branded B.W. Cooper iced teas.

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