Naming a new enterprise is a critical matter, and the name they finally settled on honored Bill’s college roommate, an otherwise silent partner. Todd & Holland thus sold its first pound of tea in 1994 and became one of the first firms to break the ceiling on tea prices long since set by supermarket tea bags. Bill and Janet dared to charge what their top-quality tea was really worth. As Bill explained to his neighbor, the broadcaster Paul Harvey: “Quality is not expensive—it’s priceless.” Tea lovers began discovering them, and classified ads in Harper’s Magazine began winning a clientele outside of the affluent Chicago suburbs where Frank Lloyd Wright had his studio and built numerous landmark homes for his neighbors.
Before long, the Todds forged relationships with top-quality suppliers like Devan Shah, who’d recently founded International Tea Importers. New possibilities began opening for them. For instance, Devan took the Director of the Tea Board of India and me to conduct an exclusive tasting of great Darjeelings that Todd & Holland held for customers at the Notebaert Nature Museum in downtown Chicago. The hall was packed, and the event was glowingly reported by the Chicago Tribune’s wine editor, a man famous for his discriminating palate, who had become a devotee of great Darjeelings on the spot. Later on this trip, Bill and Janet hosted another stellar event at Todd & Holland’s new location in River Forest, one of the finest tea shops we visitors had yet seen—various tea friends from the US and over- seas have paid other visits since. The work was rewarding, and the business prospered. As the years went by, its success was also a tribute to Janet’s warm-hearted graciousness and Bill’s wry Scottish humor.
Over time, first children and now grandchildren have taken the place of airplanes in the couple’s life. I omit much I could add in praise of these friends I so admire, but Bill sums up the secret of their success in a word—genuineness. “Quick-buck artists fail. What matters is the genuine quality of the teas you sell and the people you buy them from and sell them to. All these are rewarding relationships, and ultimately, the customer gets rewards from quality tea, which no other beverage provides. And tea customers are quality people; we’ve had only five bad credits in over 28 years in business. From cultivation to consumption, tea in all its aspects attracts a self-selected elite of the spirit.” Let me only add that nobody exemplifies a genuinely rewarding relationship more fully than Janet and Bill Todd.
TeaTime Contributing Editor James Norwood Pratt, also known as America’s Tea Sage, is an award-winning tea educator and author. For more about him, go to jamesnorwoodpratt.com.
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