On Thursday night, I had the pleasure of attending an exclusive preview event for Tazo’s first-ever (and maybe will be the only) retail store in existence. Opening day was the next day.

The Tazo store is located in Seattle’s University Village in the old Lululemon store location. In speaking with the designer and people in charge of creating this experience, it took them a total of 6 weeks end-to-end. Crazy!

My first impression was that this is, hands down, one of the most beautiful shops of its kind. While Tazo is a Starbucks brand, there were no similarities in the interior decor.

I would describe the store as being very modern, aesthetically-pleasing, and even whimsical.

As part of the preview, we were served plenty of cocktails and hors d’oeuvres that were all infused with a Tazo tea flavor. I wish I had names and descriptions for all of the items that I tried, but pictures will have to suffice.

Enjoying my tea-infused cocktail:

Plentiful tea-infused treats:

If you’re able to visit the Tazo, definitely make sure to try some of those chocolates! I definitely could have just sat there to eat the entire tray.

The interior of the store was also breathtaking. Like I said before, the decor was very modern and whimsical.

Here’s my lovely friend Archana who works on the Starbucks HQ Social Media team and invited me to this awesome event.

The store has incredible merchandising for items that would make great gifts for your favorite tea-drinking friends and family. My mom only drinks water and tea, so these cute products could make a great holiday gift.

In addition, the store features more than 80 loose-leaf teas and a very cool blending station. This is a tea tree that customers can use to sniff and decide on their own custom tea blend. Or, the super nice Tazo experts will help make the decision.

Once you’ve decided on the teas you’d like to blend up, the Tazo expert blends away in a giant metal bowl. Watch at home go!

Once the custom tea blend is finished, it then gets poured into a cool 2 or 4 oz pouch and a custom label is printed and affixed to the package.

Tada!! It’s as simple as that. 🙂 For my own tea blend, I chose three different teas to create a Mint Chocolate Green Tea using the following teas: Precious Green (the base), Chocolate Blend (the blend), and Northwest Peppermint (the inclusion). The smell is divine and I can’t wait to drink it up. I wish you could smell this aroma through the screen.

As you can tell, I love my tea. So yummy.

At the event I got to meet Katy who’s the Community Manager for Yelp Seattle/Washington. So cool! She throws all of the events for the Yelp Elite members (I need to get in on this) and works with all the local businesses. We hit it off, cool gal.

Here’s Katy, me, and Archana.

Before I forget, in addition to the custom tea blending and merchandise, they also have a cool in-store tea cafe complete with those amazing chocolates, savory scones, and more. Definitely an intimate feel.

I had such a great time at the event and am glad that I can show you how cool this new retail store is! Thanks you Tazoand Archana!

As a parting gift, they even handed out the most wonderful goodie bags, so that I’m equipped to try out the Tazo Tea experience at home. I squealed like a kid on Christmas Day! It does not take much to please this foodie gal. 🙂

I urge you to make a visit to the Tazo Tea store to try this all out on your own. 🙂

Disclaimer: I was not compensated in any way: simply a guest to the event and excited local Seattle foodie blogger happy to share with you my experiences.