We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful James V. Pham . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with James V. below.

Hi James V., thanks for joining us today. Let’s talk legacy – what sort of legacy do you hope to build?

I want people to say and more importantly, experience a new kind of tea experience in their lives. One that is filled with more love, light, luxury, healthy premium loose leaf teas … and will say once I’m gone that EnlighTea and Tea Master James shared this experience with us, we will never forget him and EnlighTea and the tea experience in America will never be the same. Also, I love to have mainstream America have our own tea culture here that is deeper, more meaningful and brings us much more joy, fulfillment, love and health benefits than ever before. That’s all… not too much to ask for, I don’t think. :-)

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

Who am I? Wow… there’s a lot to say here! :-) … We’ll, I’m a fifth degree black belt in Kajukenbo, started when I was 6 years old … and the love of tea, tea culture, and loving and respecting the eastern arts and traditions started from my study of the martial arts.

After my son Evan was born in 2006, I decided I had to stick around for at least another 20-30 years so I thought I’d better do something of value, create a legacy I can pass down and something that would make me, my family, communities, and the peoe in my world proud. Something that represented what I wanted to contribute more to the world.

Hence, EnlighTea Cafe sharing Love, Light, Luxury, Healthy Premium Loose Leaf Teas and other Desirable Beverages, Products, and Services was born!

For over 15 years, I have been committing, establishing, developing, serving, sharing and working towards achieving the goals, plans and dreams of opening a chain of EnlighTea Cafes that will do just that … Share love, light, luxury, healthy premium loose leaf teas and other desirables to my family, friends, communities and world! 😱🎉🎉🥳❤️🙏🍵😊😎😇

We launched 4 pop up locations in the past to test our newly developed tea cafe model… all four were a great learning experience and helped us to really clarify what will best work, serve and be successful in the marketplace which we are super excited about opening our first tea cafe hopefully soon!!

We currently operate as an All Things Tea online ecommerce where you can purchase the best premium loose leaf teas in the world as well as our fine tea wares, accessories and products. You can even subscribe to our VIP Tea of the Month Club and be a member of that and our Black Belt Tea Program all for the price of one!! It’s a great way to learn, enjoy, connect, and experience our enlightening tea experience, which is a new kind of tea experience unlike anything anyone in the US has ever experienced. I guarantee it or your money back! :-)

Our EnlighTea Cafes will be amazing and will be a tea lovers and drinkers Heaven on Earth for the BEST premium loose leaf teas in the world that will give you an exceptional experience in store that you will never be able to experience online at Amazon or anywhere!! Plus, we will be serving the most amazing tea drinks including bobas, tea lattes, and exclusive drinks only EnlighTea customers will get to enjoy at our tea cafes and nowhere else!! When we open, come and visit us and see for yourself … coming soon to a city near you starting in San Diego!! 😱🎉🎉🥳❤️🙏🍵😊😃

In the meantime, until we get to your city, order some teas to sample, setup that tea time practice, ritual and sacred place in your own home to begin your enlightening tea journey! Need support, and a group of EnlighTEA drinkers and lovers to be around, connect and talk to, then subscribe to our VIP Tea of the Month Club and we will send you an invite every month to join our VIP Tea of the Month Tea Tasting, Tea Meditation, Tea Appreciation, Tea Food Pairing Tea Party and you will be a part of our Enlightening Tea Experience and no cup of tea will ever be the same! In a great way!! 😱❤️🙏🍵😇

Anyways, who am I again? They call me Enlightened Tea Master James but you can just call me Tea Master James…that’s who I am and more importantly, aspire to be every day more and more … and the more I drink, sip, serve and love my tea by myself or with my family, friends, VIPs or you, the more Enlightened Tea Master I become!! YOU too can and will become more enlightened yourself when you drink, sip, and meditate on our teas! Try it … it definitely will never hurt you, only help you become more healthy, happy, loving, light filled, luxurious … at least that is our goal, intention, plan, dream for you, our family, friends, communities and world. Help us help you by being a part of our new Tea experience … our Enlightening Tea Experience, join us for a cup of EnlighTea today! What are you waiting for? 😊

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

So I stated after my son was born over 15 years ago now. In this 15 years from the very beginning I stated and shared to my family, friends and the public that I am committed to opening 1000 EnlighTea Cafes sharing love, light, luxury and healthy premium loose leaf teas to the world. We opened up 4 pop up locations but had to close them… most people would give up on their dreams after closing 4 locations. Not me, I kept ongoing, doing event after event and sharing / serving tea wherever I could … Secret Knock Business events were one of them! This kept me inspired, motivated and more importantly kept business moving forward and my goals, plans and dreams alive and moving forward. Now I have an opportunity to open more EnlighTea Cafe locations and have partnered up with Brookfield Properties to make our dreams come true once again!! We had to wait 15 years for this perfect opportunity to come into our lives and manifest … but because I never gave up on my dreams and plans, and kept the business alive and thriving online and never stopped … I am here now able to take advantage of this opportunity and this time we will be victorious! Because now we are more experienced, wiser, smarter, more conservative, responsible and had time to grow up as a company, leader in our industry, and become the Tea Master James that I’m so proud and honored to be and now can really help, serve and provide the best most amazing, enjoyable and enlightening tea experiences for all my family, friends, customers, clients, communities and world!!!

Have you ever had to pivot?

So before COVID and the pandemic, we were preparing ourselves to raise massive funds from a Reg D which is a financial security instrument to raise tons of capital in the public. We spent hours and hours preparing, taking classes (at ceo space) to learn all we need and had to learn about raising capital, worked with Securities Attorneys, Advisors and Consultants and prepared tons of legal paperwork/documentation to be ready for investors to fund our dream plans and goals of opening up tea cafes throughout the USA and world.

Then the Pandemic hit, most restaurants and retailers were shut down, going out of business and the dreams of opening up a retail tea cafe chain no longer existed in this time period.

We had to quickly pivot and focus on selling and serving our tea experience online via ecommerce and that’s exactly what we did! We started focusing on our online tea experience , and created our VIP Tea of the Month Club subscription based model and it was a BIG hit during COVID and still continues to be a success after COVID!! We may not have focused on this during normal times since our goals and dreams are to open up a chain of EnlighTea Cafes … but we are sure glad we did because now we have both VIP Tea of the Month Club Subscription based model available and thriving and soon to be EnlighTea Cafe corporate and franchise based model on its way!!

Now that the Pandemic is over and retail and restaurants are open and thriving again, this is the perfect time and opportunity for us to continue our dreams of opening up EnlighTea Cafes sharing love, light, luxury, healthy premium loose leaf teas and other desirable beverages, products and services throughout the world starting with one location at a time… and that is exactly what we plan to do with the help of our partners, family, friends, customers and supporters now and in the future!!! 🎉🎉🥳👊🍵🙏❤️😊😇

Contact Info:

• Website: www.EnlighTea.com/shop-now
• Instagram: www.Instagram.com/EnlighTea
• Facebook: www.Facebook.com/EnlighTea
• Linkedin: www.LinkedIn.com/EnlighTea
• Twitter: www.Twitter.com/EnlighTea
• Youtube: www.YouTube.com/EnlighTea
• Other: 

Image Credits
John Hughes