Quinnipiac Welcomes Bigelow Tea President to Test ‘Time 4 Tea’

From Quinnipiac University: A group of Quinnipiac University entrepreneurship students had the opportunity to test an app it’s developing for tea drinkers with Cindi Bigelow, third-generation president and CEO of family-owned Bigelow Tea, April 18, at Quinnipiac.

Bigelow, who called Quinnipiac, “one of the jewels of the state,” addressed students from 9-10 a.m. in the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship in the Lender School of Business Center, before getting a first-hand look at the “Time 4 Tea” application created by Laszlo Dinca and Tamara Leskovar, Fulbright Scholars at Quinnipiac from Hungary and Slovenia, respectively.

“I came up with the idea for the app,” Leskovar said. “I like to drink tea and usually try to stick to the instructions for steeping time, but I fail a lot of times as I get distracted doing something else.”
Leskovar approached Dinca, executive assistant of the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, and they developed, “Time 4 Tea.” The app, developed by Quinnipiac student Tejas Kumar, allows tea drinkers to scan a QR code, or two-dimension bar code affixed to the tea bag tag, with their cell phones. The app reads the barcode and sets a timer on the phone for the correct brewing time.

“It is very cool and very interactive,” Bigelow said. “It’s a great app.”

Following her speech, Leskovar and Dinca used tea donated by Bigelow to test their app. “Time 4 Tea” stations were set up in the Lender School of Business Center and at the Carl Hansen Student Center. Users tested the app and fill out a brief survey so the developers can collect data on tea-drinking habits and feedback on the app.

“It’s basically a test run,” Dinca said. “Until we can prove that it works, we cannot step forward. We have big hopes for this event.”

Photo courtesy of QU (A group of Quinnipiac University entrepreneurship students had the opportunity to test an app it’s developing for tea drinkers with Cindi Bigelow, third-generation president and CEO of Fairfield’s Bigelow Tea, on Tuesday, April 18, at Quinnipiac. (Autumn Driscoll/Quinnipiac University).)