Anthony Chavez has a knack for catchy names and a lifelong passion for tea – so much so that he wondered if there was a way to make a living at it. A 2007 graduate of CSU Monterey Bay, Chavez had a name and logo for his tea business right out of college, and attending the World Tea Expo in 2008 in Las Vegas only heightened his resolve to make his goal into reality.
But as is key to all good tea, he let the idea steep for a while as he launched his career as a special ed teacher.
The pandemic shutdown was the catalyst that finally prompted Chavez to give birth to Zum Zum Tea. His high school friend, David Jacobs, had a successful farmers market coffee business called Jacob’s Bear Coffee Roastery. In 2020 and 2021, Chavez and Jacobs would talk business over coffee and discuss things like how to keep overhead down, plus details like which permits are needed.
Now that Zum Zum Tea is an established farmers market vendor, Chavez and his wife Kimberly (whom he met after noticing her tea cup) enjoy the relationships they’ve built as part of that community. It’s a supportive environment where vendors become friends. For example, Zum Zum coincidentally ended up being located next to Randy Seamoss, a purveyor of health juices, at a number of events and the two have since become good friends – now Seamoss adds Zum Zum tea as an ingredient to some of his products. They’ve also developed a relationship with MJ Farms, a honey producer. The fruits of this friendship are evident in a holiday gift set, which includes MJ Farms honey sticks.
These relationships have been a key to Zum Zum’s popularity and success – so much so that an upgrade to a brick-and-mortar hardly seems worth it. Chavez notes that it would only add to overhead that he’d have to pass on to customers. And besides, the couple would miss the camaraderie with what he calls the Zum Fam – regular customers of their tea, some of whom even help the couple with taste testing.
It seems the duo have found a perfect recipe for success: A blend of community that they can both teach and learn from.