Arkansas-based specialty tea cafe and shop expanding to JoCo with lattes, flights

Arkansas-based Savoy Tea Co. is expanding to Kansas with a new location planned for The District at Lenexa City Center.

It plans to open by Sept. 25 at 16953 City Center Drive.

The shop will carry more than 150 specialty and rare teas from tea gardens and family farms internationally. Flavors include cinnamon orange, lavender coconut rooibos, peach white, jasmine green and apricot black.

Customers can purchase loose-leaf teas to take home, or order any as a cup of tea to drink in the cafe, on the patio or to take to-go.

The cafe menu also will include tea lattes, sparkling teas, iced teas, tea flights, matcha shots, espresso, house-made quiches and baked goods such as scones.

The retail area will have tea candles, tea sachets, house-made tea syrup and T-shirts, and it will host tea classes, tastings and workshops.

It was founded in Rogers, Arkansas, in 2011. It now also has locations in Fayetteville, Arkansas, as well as Oklahoma City.

Owners Bill and Tina Beyer named it after the hotel they stayed at on their honeymoon in Florence, Italy.

They have since visited tea shops in their travels and then researched the market before starting their company. Bill is a certified tea specialist, and Tina is a certified tea sommelier.

They signed the lease for the Lenexa shop two weeks before the COVID-19 shelter-in-place orders, and were planning other metro shops.

“COVID had put a giant question mark on the whole thing, but we hope to open in downtown Kansas City and other areas,” Bill Beyer said.

This story was originally published September 16, 2020 at 4:47 PM.