Starbucks (SBUX) doesn’t want you to think about its ubiquitous coffee chain at all when you visit its fancy new Teavana teahouse, which just opened in New York and plans to spread across the country. And just to make sure, the company is taking the most familiar reminder out of your hands.
A Teavana experience—more relaxed and slightly pricier than the Starbucks equivalent—comes with a paper cup that can’t be mistaken for that old coffee receptacle. In fact, the gleaming white tea cup feels almost too luxe for the trash when the tea’s gone. The heavier, double-wall insulated cup is made by Italian packaging manufacturer Seda. Details like the embossed surface and distinctive lid shape denote Teavana’s upscale ambitions.
And while both the Starbucks and Teavana cups use poly-coated paperboard with 10 percent recycled fiber, there’s no mention of the recycled content on the tea cup, which was kept uncluttered; Starbucks, on the other hand, publicizes its green claims on the roughly 3 billion paper coffee cups it goes through each year.
Consumers are sure to see more of Teavana’s paper cups in the near future: the company is targeting 1,000 teahouses in North America within 10 years. Businessweek asked Starbucks’s Daniele Monti, creative director for emerging brands, to walk us through the design difference in the company’s two cups.
