Become a tea person

ABOUT US

Since 2013 Song Tea has been importing the best loose leaf teas and handmade pottery from China and Taiwan. We operate from a small studio space in San Francisco’s lower Pacific Heights neighborhood, offering a space for tea lovers to shop in person, attend tea brewing classes and gatherings, and meet like-minded tea people. The studio doubles as our production facility - all of our botanical tisanes are blended here in-house, and we pack retail and wholesale orders that are delivered to customers, cafes, and restaurant partners worldwide.

All of this is accomplished with a tiny in-house team of 5, and occasional support from friends and family. Now we’re looking for a 6th team member to join us in growing the best tea shop in the world!


ABOUT THE ROLE

You will be one of three retail team members representing Song at our San Francisco studio.

- Your primary role is customer facing in a retail setting. You will be largely responsible for helping customers learn about the teas and pottery we carry, and helping them make informed decisions about their purchases. Heavy sales pitches are not required - we believe our products speak for themselves.

- You’ll be interacting with customers one-on-one and in group settings. As you grow into this role, you will be responsible for brewing tea for small groups of guests while chatting about each tea’s production and cultivation. We will teach you how to brew, but the ability to turn strangers into friends over a cup of tea is up to you! Our tea tastings are constantly evolving, and you will play an integral role in helping these events grow.

- Your secondary role is to support the team. Although you’ll be primarily customer facing and working in a front of house capacity, the size of our team dictates that everyone jumps in when and where they are needed. Washing tea cups, light vacuuming or mopping, and so forth, is no one’s “job” but everyone’s responsibility. During crunch times around the holidays or while we work on projects that have short timelines, you may also be tasked to support the production team. We ask for flexibility and initiative when it comes to such tasks.

- Your work week is Thursday through Sunday, for now. Our studio is open Thursdays through Sundays, and weekends are our busiest days. Candidates begin on a 1 month trail basis as a contractor working 4 days a week. If we’re a good fit, you’ll be coming on full time, for either 4 or 5 days a week (your compensation will be pro-rated to reflect your schedule.)


REQUIREMENTS

- 3+ years in retail and/or food service, or equivalent customer facing experience.

- Have strong communication skills. Being able to convey the flavors and characters of a tea through words is important! As is having a mental catalog of your own tasting experiences with tea, food, or wine, from which to draw parallels.

- Be a team player. This should go without saying! In the same way we cultivate a tranquil and inviting studio space, we extend these same values to our teammates. Our staff is tiny, and maintaining morale an imperative part of our ethos.

- Be an adaptable and enthusiastic learner. Prior knowledge of tea and tea culture is NOT required, but you should enjoy learning about it - and enjoy sharing that knowledge with others! Occasional assistance packing orders alongside our production team will be necessary, so a willingness to learn our shipping and fulfillment system is required.

- We will train and assist you on your growing knowledge of tea, but we would expect that you will have grasp the fundamentals, and be familiar with the Song tea collection within the first month. By month two, you should be comfortable with making recommendations to our guests, and by month three, you should be comfortable leading guests through tea tastings and classes.


COMPENSATION

- If we’re a fit, you will join the team on a trial basis as a contractor for the first month at a rate of $26/hr. You will be compensated for a 8 hour work-day, 4 days a week during this trial period.

- If you are retained full-time, beginning compensation will be $58,000 working 5 days a week, or $46,000 per year if you choose to work 4 days a week.

- We have a generous PTO (pro-rated to the # of days you choose to work).

- We provide full health and dental coverage a month after joining the team on a full-time basis.

- We offer 401K and profit sharing to employees after completion of 1 year of work.


HOW TO APPLY

- Please submit your resume via email to work@songtea.com. We’d like to know more about you even at this stage, so please include a cover letter either as an attachment or in the body of the email.

- Once we have reviewed your application and are interested in proceeding to an interview, we will contact you. Important: we respectfully ask that you refrain from calling us or stopping by the shop to drop off your resume. We need time to review submissions prior to reaching out to you, and we would like to dedicate our open studio hours to assisting our customers.

- One more thing! If your past experience doesn't perfectly align with the requirements above, but you are passionate about tea, customer service, and feel like you’d be a great fit, we still want to hear from you! Please apply!

Thank you so much!