While studying abroad in Hong Kong nearly 15 years ago, Jim Lamancusa made the permanent switch from coffee to tea.
As he mixed his passion for tea with a love for backpacking, Lamancusa began to see a major hole in the traditional tea market.
While his friends could dump packets of instant coffee into hot water, Lamancusa found himself left with soggy, used tea bags that he’d have to store in his backpack. A broken seal and tea-covered clothes drove Lamancusa to finding a way to create instant tea that still tasted like the real thing.
He spent seven months and $75,000 trying to find the answer to his tea dilemma with little progress. Both hot and cold dehydration altered the flavor of the tea and Lamancusa was quickly running out of ideas.
“For two weeks I gave up on the idea,” he said.
Then, during a chance, teeth-brushing encounter, Lamancusa read the ingredients on a bottle of his wife’s beauty product. From there he was introduced to botanical extraction and his passion was reignited.
Lamancusa consulted with botanical extraction companies and adapted the method for tea, launching Cusa Tea in 2017. The Boulder company’s Cold Steep Technology has 22 patents on it and uses pressurized cold brew methods mixed with vacuum dehydration.
“Cusa Tea is innovating in a huge, but stagnant category. The tea category hasn’t seen anything new for a very long time. With our patented cold brew, evaporative dehydration process, we can deliver a premium cup of tea in seconds with any temperature of water, anywhere, all without sugar or artificial flavorings,” Lamancusa said.
Cusa Tea comes in a variety of flavors, from lemon black and green, to spicy chai and oolong.
Since launching two years ago, the company has rapidly expanded to over 1,400 retail locations with partners like Sprouts, REI, King Soopers, Safeway, HEB and Cost Plus World Market.
Cusa Tea also has a direct-to-consumer business with its own website and a registered brand store on Amazon.com. The company has commitments from over 3,000 new retailers to launch in third and fourth quarters of 2019.
The company recently announced a $2.5 million Series A round of financing, led by Boulder’s Break Trail Ventures and S Cap. Organic X Labs, Smart Capital and Service Provider’s Capital also participated in the round. The investment brings Cusa Tea’s total funding to $3.6 million.
Lamancusa said the funding will allow the company to continue its marketing push, expand its product line into other instant beverages and hire additional employees. Cusa currently has three full-time employees and hopes to more than double that in the next year.
“Our technology can be used for all beverages, not just tea, so we look forward to bringing other heathy and convenient beverages to the market very soon,” Lamancusa said.
As part of the funding, Jay Hirsch of Break Trail Ventures and James Cali of S Cap will join Cusa Tea’s Board of Directors.
Lamancusa credited Colorado’s entrepreneurial culture with Cusa’s rapid growth, saying he couldn’t imagine building his company anywhere else.
“The Front Range area is just an incredible space,” he said. “There are so many industry professionals and founders that have been there and done that.”
