Type: Private Company
Address: 50 Beharrell Street, West Concord, Massachusetts, 01742, U.S.A.
Telephone: (978) 369-3709
Fax: (978) 369-7972
Web: http://www.marktwendell.com
Incorporated: 1904
NAIC: 311423 Dried and Dehydrated Food Manufacturing
SIC: 2034 Dehydrated Fruits, Vegetables & Soups; 2099 Food Preparations Nec
Based in West Concord, Massachusetts, Mark T. Wendell Tea Company is a venerable importer of fine teas that toiled in obscurity for many years catering to the upper crust of society in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, but in recent years has taken advantage of the Internet to reach a far broader customer base. The company primarily offers loose tea leaves--not torn or crushed as they are in tea bags and conventional tins--although some products for the sake of customer convenience are available in bags as well. Wendell's signature tea, and a longtime favorite of Boston's Brahmin class and other wealthy families of the Northeast, is Hu-Kwa Tea, a delicately smoked Lapsang Souchong tea that has always been an acquired taste, often called the master's "poison" by servants.
Wendell also sells a wide variety of black teas, green teas, rare and delicate white teas, scented teas, oolong teas, pesticide-free organic teas, decaffeinated black and green teas, and flavored black, green, and herbal teas. The company also makes its teas available in sampler gift tins, and offers iced tea blends and herbal and fruit tisanes that do not contain traditional tea leaves.
In addition, Wendell imports a number of packaged teas, including Boston Harbour tea (produced by the British firm whose tea chests were dumped in the Boston harbor during the 1773 "Boston Tea Party"), Foojoy Gold tea from China, Sushi Chef Japanese Green Tea, and Indar tea from France. Other English teas include Heath & Heather herbal and fruit teas, Lifeboat tea, London Fruit & Herb teas, P.G. Tips tea, Ridgways teas, Typhoo tea, and the famous elephant tins of Williamson Fine Teas. To round out the tea-drinking experience, Wendell sells a broad selection of teapots, tea glasses for single-serve brewing, strainers, tea balls, filters, and Gilway brand sugars. Wendell is owned and operated by Elliot H. Johnson and his son, Hartley E. Johnson.
Origins in the 19th Century
Mark T. Wendell Tea Company was founded in 1904 by Mark T. Wendell, but the firm was in fact a continuation of the firm established by his uncle, Richard Devens, around 1840. Devens was one of a number of U.S. and British importers who did business in the Chinese port of Canton through a dozen sanctioned merchants, who each operated large warehouses called Hongs and were responsible for paying all import duties to the emperor. The head of the so-called Hong merchants was Wu Tun-yuan, known as Houqua (or Hu-Kwa as Wendell would spell it phonetically), who invested directly in the United States and at the time of his death may have been the wealthiest man in the world. Devens was also known for his honesty and generosity, and this legacy he would pass on through his nephew, Mark T. Wendell.
Devens imported a number of luxury items from Canton, including port, sherry, olive oil, coffee, snuff, and fine tea that he sold under the "XXX" label, an allusion to the traditional symbol for products of the highest quality. Shortly after graduating from Harvard University, Wendell took over his uncle's business, applied his name to it, and opened an office on State Street in Boston's Beacon Hill section. He continued to import the same products as his uncle but instead of marketing his smoky tea as "XXX," he recalled the tales Devens had recounted about the great Chinese merchant Hu-Kwa and adopted his name for the tea. The product became so popular among the gentry of Boston that in time Wendell dropped his other products and dedicated the company to the importation of tea, adding other teas to complement Hu-Kwa, including Cheericup Ceylon, Fancy Formosa Oolong, Jasmine, and MTW Keemun. Beyond that Wendell would not venture, for fear that additional teas might take sales away from Hu-Kwa.
Mark T. Wendell Tea Company was always a small concern, its courtly owner not willing to solicit business openly. Rather, he mailed gifts of Hu-Kwa tea, packed in distinctive black tins, to members of Boston society as well as classmates in New York City and Philadelphia, and waited for his clientele to find him. By word of mouth they did, and the gentry of Boston, New York, and Philadelphia formed the backbone for a mail-order business.
The extent of Wendell's marketing efforts was little more than the occasional mailing of postal cards, reminding his customers that supplies of Hu-Kwa were limited because it was "grown only in one little spot in the world"--in the province of Foo Kien, China--and gently suggesting that "whenever you find your supply of Hu-Kwa getting low, you let us know of your requirements as soon as possible." He would then personally attend to each order, most of the business taking place around the Christmas holidays. In time specialty shops including William Poll and A.S.J. Gentiles in New York and the Chestnut Hill Cheese Shop in Philadelphia would also carry his tea.
Mark Wendell Dies: 1967
During World War II, when imports were cut off from China, Wendell made do by offering his customers a product called "Hu-Kwa Matte," a blend of Brazilian matte and India-Ceylon Tea. Following the war he carried on as before and continued personally to fill orders with the help of his longtime employee Joseph Shair. Known as the "Bachelor of Beacon Hill," Wendell had no heirs and as he grew elderly he gave Shair the option of inheriting $10,000 or taking over the company. Shair opted for the company, and took charge of Mark T. Wendell Tea Co. after Wendell died at the age of 85 in January 1967.
Shair carried on the business in the same manner as his predecessor, limiting his line of teas and serving a very select clientele. By 1971 Shair was ready to retire and sell the company when he was approached by brothers Alan H. Johnson, Jr., and Elliot H. Johnson, food brokers who were interested in representing Mark T. Wendell teas in the marketplace. Instead, they bought the company.
The Johnson brothers' brokerage business, Hartley S. Johnson & Son Food Brokerage, had been established by their grandfather, Hartley S. Johnson, in 1929 as Specialty Food Brokers. Covering the New England states, he represented specialty food manufacturers, placing their upscale products in department stores while also urging smaller establishments to carry them. He was joined by his son, Alan H. Johnson, Sr., and they worked together until the 1960s when the elder Johnson retired. At the same time, however, his son's health began to falter. Stepping in to help out were Alan Johnson's sons, Alan, Jr., and younger brother Elliot, the former a graduate of Babson University and the latter still enrolled at Clark University. When their father died in 1966 they took over the business. They would learn of Mark T. Wendell Tea while making a sales call to a Cambridge, Massachusetts, shop, the owner of which raved about the company's teas and suggested that the brothers seek out Mark T. Wendell to see if it needed representation.
Johnson Brothers Buy Company: 1971
In 1971 the Johnson brothers acquired Wendell as a second business while continuing to run the brokerage. Elliot would become sole owner of both companies in the late 1970s after Alan left to operate a Boston Back Bay specialty food store called Malbens that he had purchased. Wendell was very much a small business from another era when the new owners took over. The inventory, packing machinery, and files were all contained in the minuscule State Street office. The rubber airmail stamp was so old that it featured a DC-3 propeller-driven airplane. Although the sale price included a large mailing list of customers, after the first mailing went out under new ownership, close to 2,000 pieces were returned, marked "Deceased." Moreover, the door to the business was always left open, to accommodate longtime customers who came in at their leisure to pack their own tea, complete their own invoices, and leave behind the proper amount of money.
The Johnson brothers did not wish to tamper with the charm of the company, lest they alienate a base of loyal customers, but they disagreed with the founder's premise that the addition of other teas would draw sales away from Hu-Kwa, and soon they added other teas, such staples as Earl Grey, Darjeeling, and English Breakfast. Of course, not all of the company's inherited clientele were hardened traditionalists. One letter they received pleaded, "You must put the Hu-Kwa in teabags, because the leaves are clogging up the drain in my yacht."
To drum up more business for Wendell, the Johnson brothers pitched the teas to the specialty food accounts of their other business. They also took out newspaper ads and advertised in upscale magazines. They built up a database of names and addresses and assembled a mail-order catalog to send to them. Outgrowing the State Street office they soon relocated the business to a West Concord warehouse.
Late 20th-Century Growth in Tea Market
Despite the changes made by new management, Wendell remained a small business, ensconced as it was in a country far more devoted to coffee than to tea. That would change in the final decades of the 20th century as mainstream consumer tastes began to become more discerning about wine, beer, and especially coffee. As coffee drinkers became enamored with gourmet coffees so too did tea drinkers begin to become more receptive to specialty teas. In addition to indulging a more adventurous spirit, many consumers of the baby boom generation were also showing an increasing interest in tea because of its reported health benefits. Hence, the tea business began to gain momentum in the late 1990s.
Hartley Johnson Joins Father: 1999
Elliot Johnson's son, Hartley E. Johnson, never gave much thought to joining his father at Wendell while growing up because the company was so small that it could not support another salary. While majoring in psychology and communications at Denison University, he developed an interest in industrial/organizational studies, and after graduating in 1995 entered the management training program with Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Boston. After four years he was a branch manager, in charge of three daily rental offices, but did not believe it was a career he wanted to pursue long-term. In 1999 he approached his father about going to work for Wendell, offering to manage the warehouse and staff. By this time the business had been enjoying several years of growth, making his addition both desirable and helpful.
Having developed import connections for many years, Wendell was well positioned to take advantage of the increasing interest in specialty teas. A number of high-end teas that previously were not known in the United States became available in bulk quantities that could be resold at a reasonable price. As Elliot Johnson explained to Tea magazine in 2004, "I'm trying to blend good business sense with good selection. There's a point on that S-curve where quality goes up incrementally and price goes up geometrically. That's a good spot to stop." As for customers, reported Tea, "the Johnsons continually pitch to baby boomers, cultural creatives, and émigrés from tea-saturated cultures, as well as individuals primed for a nostalgic brew. Indeed, many of the company's new customers are the descendants of its old mainstays, having responded to Hu-Kwa's smoke vapors as a Proustian reminder of childhood."
The greatest marketing tool for Wendell in reaching a wider customer base was without doubt the Internet. The company introduced a secure web site where customers from all over the world could place orders any time of day or night. The Internet was also far more cost-effective than the company's mail-order business, which naturally shifted to the Internet.
Increasing Internet sales in the first decade of the 21st century also led Wendell to begin importing popular packaged tea from overseas, including Boston Harbour, P.G. Tips, Typhoo, Indar, and Lifeboat tea. When consumers interested in those teas used a search engine like Google, Wendell would appear as a supplier, resulting in new sources of business. The company also began offering accessories such as teapots, strainers, and filters to round out its product offerings. Given sustained interest in quality teas, the company's reputation, and a second generation of the Johnson family waiting in the wings to carry on the tradition established by Richard Devens in the 1840s and carried on by his nephew, the future of Mark T. Wendell Tea Company appeared to be assured for some time to come.
Principal Competitors
International Tea Importers; Tea Importers, Inc.; Upton Tea Imports.
Further Reading
Drexler, Madeline, "Mark T. Wendell Tea Company: A Century-Long Tradition," Tea, Summer 2004, p. 2.
Norwich, William, "Style & Entertaining; Andy's Gang," New York Times, May 28, 2000.
Roberts, Nancy, "Tea Is Back, and Not Just Bagged and Black," Specialty Coffee Retailer, December 2000, p. 20.
Weber, Bridget, "A Healthy Take on Tea," Specialty Coffee Retailer, March 2005, p. 10.
— Ed Dinger
