Rosie Lee Tea Company
108 South Park Avenue • Sanford, Florida 32771
wavelengthcoffee.com • 321-315-1370
The Rosie Lee Tea Company, a charming little tea shop in Sanford, just north of downtown Orlando, has seen a recent change in ownership. Prior to taking over the tea brand and its flagship shop earlier this year, Jacqueline and Juan Chirinos weren’t regular tea drinkers. In fact, the couple were already steeped in a separate beverage venture, Wavelength Coffee. But since acquiring the tea-centric business, the Chirinos have gladly embraced the endeavor of marrying their original brand with an already established local tea brand.
When Juan met Kim Isaacs (the original owner of the Rosie Lee Tea Company) in 2019, she presented him with a unique opportunity to collaborate with her in creating specialty Arnold Palmers, blending homemade lemonades with her cold brew teas. Little did he know that this serendipitous introduction to Kim and her wares would pave an unexpected path for the family business less than a year later. When the COVID-19 pandemic caused economic uncertainty for the Rosie Lee Tea Company in 2020, Kim once again turned to Juan and Jacqueline to form a permanent partnership between their brands in hopes of helping their businesses succeed a little more. The newfound relationship prompted Jacqueline to quit her corporate career and work in the shop alongside Kim. During that time, Jacqueline became more acquainted with the tea side of the enterprise, while Juan continued to focus on their coffee company.
“I’m a very customer-driven person,” Jacqueline recalls. “I left my job and started managing the shop, and I basically absorbed all the information I could from Kim.”
Jacqueline’s time spent with Kim in the store proved useful when, in early 2021, Kim decided she no longer wanted to run the Rosie Lee Tea Company or its namesake shop. Though still novices in the tea industry, Jacqueline and Juan accepted the challenge of keeping Kim’s legacy alive while also running their original business.
As Rosie Lee is the cockney colloquialism for “tea,” the moniker was a fitting tribute to Kim’s husband’s British heritage. After all, he was the one who initiated Kim into the tea world by preparing her first British “cuppa.” It was that experience that even sparked her to start the Rosie Lee Tea Company in 2017. Jacqueline and Juan have opted to keep the sentimental name for the brand, but they decided to rename the brick-and-mortar storefront The Collective Sanford, an apt descriptor for their mission to combine the two businesses and simultaneously keep them separate.
When visitors wander into The Collective Sanford, they are welcomed with the sight of “the wall,” which displays more than 90 containers, each full of a different loose-leaf tea or blend. Guests will find classic brews like Earl Grey and English Breakfast alongside unique choices such as Cardamom Rose, Buttercream Truffle, and Blackberry Jasmine. Each tea can be brewed—hot or iced—in the store or purchased to be enjoyed at home. While Jacqueline and Juan acknowledge there were some initial growing pains when they first took over the tea business, they have spent the past year educating themselves to ensure that they provide the same caliber of teas and tisanes that Kim would have offered customers.
“Coming from a coffee background, we understand how important it is to get leaves straight from the farm, so we try to source as organic as possible,” Juan says. “Quality of ingredients is so important. In the industry, we’ve seen coffee shops buy out a tea shop, and we want customers to know that we are heavily focused on the tea. We want to invest in the tea side of the business and continue to add to ‘the wall.’”
The Rosie Lee Tea Company is open Monday through Saturday from 8:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m., and Sunday from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.
