The McKnight Foundation does good work, which we at Andrews & Dunham Damn Fine Tea support. They “believe that the arts cannot flourish or enhance community life without the ideas, energy, and drive of individual artists, and that artists cannot make these contributions without unfettered creative time.” So they established the McKnight Artist Fellowships. They give out grants so artists can do art. Yay art!

We exchanged ideas and themes with Stuart and the talented lads at Aesthetic Apparatus. We decided to merge the creative process and the process of brewing tea: “Brew Tea. Make Art. Change World.”

The tins look great, the black tea tastes damn fine, and anecdotal evidence suggests they were a hit.

We’re proud to have had the opportunity to work with Stuart and the McKnight Foundation. And congratulations to the 2009 McKnight Artist Fellows.

Photos by Kathryn Andrews

We’re so proud of these little guys and their fighting spirit — we hope you love them!

We are proud to be review #97. It’s a good one! Bill even recommends our Nepal and Ceylon as good iced teas.

He also captures our crazy tea company idea perfectly:

. . . I was of the opinion that A&D might be on to something with their particular business model. To be honest, I’m growing weary of tea merchants who try to be all things to all people and thus offer a smattering of this and a bit of that and nothing that sets them apart from the mob.

Bill goes on to mention that there are tea merchants who successfully carry a wide inventory. We don’t hesitate to recommend other vendors. We want you to be happy even if it means sending you elsewhere for your tea. So check out some of the vendors under “Tea Shops” in our sidebar. Tell them Andrews & Dunham sent you.

And a big “thanks” to Bill!

I also wanted to step away from the design process. I was too attached to the company and we wanted new eyes and new ideas. We also wanted to bounce our ideas off of someone we were paying so they wouldn’t laugh in our faces.

So we started hunting down designers we might want to work with. We wanted designers that never did work related to tea and had a bit of a DIY vibe. We found the guy who designed the Rock and Roll Over album cover for KISS but didn’t contact him. Which is good because we would have demanded our logo look exactly like that album cover and he would have been pissed.

After some looking around, we decided to contact the fine gentlemen of Aesthetic Apparatus. We flew out to Minneapolis for a couple of days and chatted up the company and our dreams, hopes, and dietary restrictions. After a romantic sunset walk on the beach, a ferris wheel ride, and a picnic in a meadow, we knew we had found our designers.

The design process was perfect. They threw some ideas at us and we threw some back. They were very patient and quick with the solutions. They were the voice of restraint when we wanted to go nuts with visual geegaws. We once broke the cardinal rule of design when we asked them to make our logo smaller in a layout.

Which leads me to some advice: I encourage all designers to become clients. It’s an opportuntity to better understand the client/designer relationship. You will learn to better communicate your ideas and empathize with your clients’ crazy last minute requests and absurd scribbles on your comps.

Each label is screenprinted by hand in their studio. It’s a laborious process, but the results are worth it. The ink is thicker than everyday offset printing ink and the colors are richer. Each label is unique which is part of the charm of the process. We believe in our tea so the tins need to be special. And since we only produce a limited quantity of each series, we can revel in the creativity for every new series we select.

Now we’re rolling along, feeling great, and looking cooler than we ever did in high school.

If you were a follower of the old Charles’ Tea House, welcome to our swanky new digs. If you’re just joining us and feel inclined to root about in our past, head on over there and witness our humble beginnings. It’s a tale that has special meaning for us. Because it’s about us. And me.

Having just read through some old posts I’m in a nostalgic mood so I thought I’d throw up some pics from a few of the World Tea Expos we attended while concocting our Tea Plan. Not sure if we’ll be attending this year’s Expo since we’re actually trying to run a business instead of just talking it up to our wives but you never know.

Here’s me rummaging through samples at Expo ‘07 in Atlanta:

And Erik looking all business-urban in Vegas at Expo ‘08:

OK back to work. Now buy some freaking tea, will you?