Tea Maestro.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: Maria Uspenski shifted career gears and went into the tea business - Brief article

After selling her IT company in 2000, Maria Uspenski shifted career gears and went into the tea business. "Tea is a rapidly evolving market," she said. "Tea rooms are opening across the U.S. at a rate of 500 a year." With partner Karen Harbor, Uspenski founded the Tea Spot and began developing proprietary tea blends and developing consumer tea products, like the Tea Mate, a single-cup steeping system. In 2002, they opened a retail store in Boulder as "a research and development test bed," said Uspenski, and began selling teas and tea products of all kinds. New this month is the Tea...