I figured it was time to update everyone on our safety plan. We operate in a low traffic commercial building where each business has dedicated entrances, facilities and air. Everyone basically keeps to themselves, especially these days. So, there is no contact with anyone who is not directly involved with our operations. The only outside exposure is from our daily order pickups by the USPS and UPS. We also are in an area that isn’t densely populated and currently there are only three confirmed cases of Covid-19 in our entire county. There are none in our city.

Personally, we are observing social isolation, and Colorado has initiated some of the most aggressive isolation rules in the country. Schools, theaters and public venues are closed and all restaurants are restricted to delivery and takeout.

Even though we are currently shorthanded, we have ceased the search for a new employee, in the interest of keeping our risk of exposure as low as possible. In the unlikely event that one of us has symptoms resembling Covid-19, we will cease filling and shipping orders for 2-3 weeks, until we are certain it is safe to resume. In that event, we will continue to accept orders during that time, but will make it clear that completion of orders is on hold.

The FDA has rather stringent rules regarding the daily sanitizing of packaging surfaces and work areas, plus we are taking the additional step of sanitizing the exterior of the foil packaging of every shipment of tea we receive. We have also started sanitizing our shipping area.

A secondary concern is maintaining sufficient inventory. It doesn’t do much good if we take all these precautions to assure safety, but run out of tea. We are doing all we can to assure this doesn’t happen. It’s not possible to guarantee all teas will be available at all times, but we are doing everything feasible to assure inventory is available. Ultimately we are a small business and it isn’t possible to foresee every demand, but we’re doing all we can.

We’d like to thank all our wonderful customers for their many years of business, and we hope to continue for many more.