Tazo Tea Company is a tea manufacturer and distributor based in Portland, Oregon, now a division of Starbucks. Tazo Tea was founded in 1994 by Steve Smith along with his business partners Stephen Lee and Tom Mesher. Lee and Smith had co-founded the Stash Tea Company in 1972. Stash was sold in the fall of 1993 to Yamamotoyama, a Japanese tea company. Smith used his corporate connections within the food services industry to convince many restaurants, food stores, and tea houses to carry the new Tazo Teas. Smith approached Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz in 1998, seeking further investment... partners. The company was purchased by Starbucks in 1999 for $8.1 million. Smith started another tea company, Steven Smith Teamaker, in 2009. The company uses "New Age"-style marketing and product labeling. For example, every box of tea was once labeled as "blessed by a certified tea shaman" and an original tag line was "The Reincarnation of Tea." The logo uses the Exocet typeface, slightly modified. For example, the T in Tazo was changed for readability purposes in 2006 by sliding the cross-piece toward the top of the letter.
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