Meet the Owner: TeBella Tea Company

Abigail St. Clair has loved tea since she was a little girl.

Her passion for the age old drink evolved to a business, one that she shares with her husband Hunter, whose knowledge and love of tea has grown with their relationship. The two find themselves racing back and forth these days between their second TeBella Tea Company location at the newly constructed Oxford Exchange and the original on Davis Island.

"Starting a business is hard but it's been great for us," Abigail St. Clair said. "Thankfully there are two of us so right now, Hunter is handling things at this location while I kind of handle the other one until things calm down a bit. We have a young son so my husband usually stays home with him, which is one of the great things owning a business allows you to do."

TeBella Tea Company

227 East Davis Blvd

(813) 254-1212

Coming to Tampa: The couple is originally from Wyoming, but moved to Tampa three years ago to join family that retired in Florida. "We just love the community on Davis Island because they work very hard to support their local businesses."

Inspiration: "Anything you practically need to make a perfect cup of tea we have. We wanted to take a more modern approach to tea whereas a lot of stores you'll see will be more Asian. We went for an industrial, more modern feel for how we set up the store and it has really worked."

What is it about tea? "Tea is like wine in that there is so much variety. There are so many different types and people love that. People are surprised when they start drinking tea that there is so much to learn about it. I get people all the time that are taken aback by how much there is to know about tea."

The Tea: TeBella teas come from all over the globe with green teas from China and Japan, oolongs from Taiwan, domestic botanicals and black teas from all over the globe from Kenya to China.

The Name: "It's just an Americanized version of Italian words. Te meaning tea and bella meaning beautiful. We just pushed it together making it one word and our own version of of the words for beautiful tea," St. Clair said.

What's next? In the St. Clair's ten year plan, they had every intention of opening a second location and offering afternoon tea. Now that they have both with their new location, the next hurdle to clear is further expansion. "We would eventually like to have several locations around the Tampa Bay area. Only time will tell, but right now we're happy with two."

Hours: Mon - Sat, 10am - 7pm; Sun, noon - 6pm