LIVERMORE - Somewhere in North Carolina,
someone is ordering tea that has been harvested by a family in the
Aso region of Japan.
In the middle of this transcontinental transaction sits Paul
Kotta, clicking away on his home computer in a room surrounded by
posters of Star Trek, Bruce Lee and Bob Marley.
"A lot of our orders, surprisingly, are from people in the
south," Kotta said as he typed away at his computer. "Maybe people
in the south are more used to drinking tea than we are."
Kotta has turned a lifelong passion for Japanese culture into a
home-based business venture, selling green tea on a Web site called
Mellow Monk. Kotta and his wife, Akimi, buy the tea directly from a
family farm in Japan and then present it for sale on a site packed
with tea tales and tidbits.
Mellow Monk is one of probably a "couple dozen" such specialty
tea sites nationwide that fill different niches, said Joe Simrany,
president of the New York-based Tea Association of the United
States. He thinks there is room for these tiny ventures to grow.
"Tea is in its infancy in this country," Simrany said.
"Especially upscale teas."
Spurred by increased awareness of tea's health benefits, the
industry has grown domestically from $1.8 billion in 1990 to more
than $5 billion at the end of last year, Simrany said.
"What the Internet does is it brings these specialty tea products
to anyone who wants them," he said.
Kotta likes that his Web site is reaching the tea-deprived
hinterlands, and the site includes tips on brewing for
beginners.
But he thinks the most important part of his business plan is the
unique nature of his focus on the narrow green tea niche.
"We want to focus on people who drink it frequently," he said.
"We're not trying to be the Costco of green tea."
Kotta, a 38-year-old Daly City native, began his serious green
tea drinking when he studied the Japanese language in college. He
met his wife while studying abroad and later lived in Japan for 10
years, working as a translator. Eventually the family moved to the
East Bay, where Kotta now works as a technical editor and writer at
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
About a year and a half ago, Kotta completed a business degree
through the University of Phoenix, and his thesis became the Mellow
Monk business plan. He spent several thousand dollars to get the
business up and running, with the primary expense being the purchase
of the domain name https://www.mellowmonk.com/ for
$1,800.
At first he feared that processing orders and keeping the Web
site updated would be daunting, but like a growing number of
e-commerce entrepreneurs he has utilized services like PayPal that
handle part of each transaction. To keep the home page fresh he
regularly updates a blog with information on tea and Japanese
culture.
Mellow Monk's tea comes from the Negata Tea Plantation, a
family-owned operation in the Aso region of Japan. The tea draws
high marks from Fumio Nakayama, proprietor of the Nakayama Japanese
food store in Pleasanton that is the one location outside of
cyberspace where customers can find Mellow Monk's signature
product.
"It's excellent tea," he said, adding that a customer recently
told him he now drinks it each morning instead of coffee.
Kotta buys tea from the Negata farm in bulk. He and his wife
paste shipping labels on the vacuum-sealed packages, which sell for
$9.75 each and make 40 to 50 cups of tea, then drop them in the
mail. Mellow Monk processed about 50 orders in September, Kotta
said, up from about 40 the previous month.
Kotta says he is "barely" breaking even right now, though he is
laying the foundation for a repeat customer base. Eventually he
hopes to add more teas and perhaps some Japanese foods to the
site.
One day, he would like Mellow Monk to move into an office,
although at the moment, the home headquarters has its advantages, as
Kotta pointed out to a visitor last week.
He showed off a map of the United States by the computer where
he, his wife, and their two children, ages 6 and 12, stick pins each
time a new order comes in.
Kotta said, "It's an interesting geography lesson for the
kids."
Dan Laidman covers small businesses and professional-services
firms. Reach him at 925-943-8263 or dlaidman@cctimes.com.