We’ve been gone a long time, no doubt about that. We’ve been silent quite awhile, no doubt about that either. A lot of emails have asked us :
Are you out of business?

Why no blog posts?

What happened to you guys?

I still love your Chai, but why don’t you love me anymore?

We want to answer those and more really quickly. 1) No. We’re..uh..restructuring.

2) Because it’s best not to say anything if you have nothing to say.

3) We’ve been battling bears in the wilderness and keeping their massive numbers from infiltrating our cities, stealing our Chai and going to theater’s to watch Inception and attacking people when they realize that they don’t have the brain power to figure out what was really going on.

4) We do love you. As a matter of fact, we just sent forty-eight letters to you in the mail talking about our undying love for you even though we truly are a bit jealous that you love our Chai more than us and by us I mean me right now.

Other than that, we’re working hard on permits and other crazy governmental paperwork that we barely understand. It takes us about two weeks to figure out some of this stuff. And other than that, just be ready for big announcements in the next six months.

And for those who KEEP emailing us about Vegan Chai — Yes, we are still working on it. Yes, we know it sounds stupid and you keep questioning why it’s taking so long. It’s not easy making amazing drinks that make you fall in love with us and our drinks. And blame it on bears, they keep stealing our ingredients. That’s why we’ve been fighting them in the wilderness…We’ll come back as soon as we are ready to announce something great or have something to say.

Yeah, the title says it all. We’re now moving our blog to an every other week debut. Why? Because we’re busy making the best Chai in the Universe for all the addicts out there. Not good enough a reason? Okay, then because making Chai isn’t the only thing we do; we also fight bears and that takes a lot out of us, sometimes too much, so we don’t have the time to write our amazing blog like we planned on doing every week. And also, our customers always come first and demand is up. Word on the street is that more people want it in the stores they go to more often. To do this, we have to plan, set things in motion and make sure it all falls into place. There’s a lot of writing in the word that will lead to a whole lot of nothing, and sometimes, it’s just better to quit talking and start doing. Problem is…we have to make sure our permits are all set and everything is ready to go. Phase two is in motion, but right now we’re just trudging up that hill first. Don’t worry, we’ll bring everyone along for every bump in the ride. We promise!

Oh yeah, and we’d like to thank all of you who have sent in the emails about all the stuff we’ve talked about in the past but haven’t been able to produce yet. We’ve answered all of you but to repeat ourselves one more time, we are hard at work on all of that stuff. It’s just not quite ready yet….and we’re pretty positive you’ll all be happy when it is.

I felt that since I hadn’t written a blog post for so long (blame it on traveling, talking to people across the state about our product and a new baby girl) that I’d post something that I had recently emailed to someone with a question due to the appropriateness of being honest with everyone about this business and how hard it can be sometimes.

When I first saw this question in my inbox I realized I had two opportunities: 1) I could act as if nothing ever happened and never answer the question or, 2) I could answer the question unflinchingly honest. I chose the number with a loop in it for a reason…

Question – I buy your Chai all the time and love the stuff. I read the blog posts and enjoy the sarcasm and the way you are willing to take a stance against or for something, whether it be a product or a message. Why doesn’t Stephen ever write any posts?

Answer – Thanks for the support across the board bud. First off, I ultimately believe that any company that can’t take a stance or position on something is simply moving in the wind according to what they believe will make them the most money. At 2GBC, I make sure that we fight for things that I believe in regardless if someone agrees with me or not. I believe in social and fiscal responsibility in business and would love to see more businesses looking into taking care of their responsibilities to their local communities and direction that local economies go. It’s not an easy task and we’ve received our share of complaints, but in the end, thank god I’m the owner and can steer this ship in whatever direction I want. I choose to steer it toward a responsible business in every action we partake in.

Now, to your question…Stephen does not work at 2GBC any longer. You may be wondering why and I’ll explain as honestly as I can. You see, we started this business as a partnership quite some time ago and in the beginning things were looking good. But it was the fact that in the end we didn’t see eye-to-eye. Now, don’t get me wrong, Stephen is an amazingly adept individual at looking at the business, but we had come to a crossroads of sorts. That crossroad was a tough one to deal with but one that had to occur. He had one vision and I, another. We were at a stalemate and had to make a decision on the future direction of the company and fast. But, please do not think that he left unhappily because left on his own accord with a mutually beneficial process in mind. But it is also a honest assessment that partnerships are a hard road for business. It’s my true and honest belief that someone must take the reins of a business and lead it into the uncharted territories it deserves to go. It’s like a wild animal that must be tamed. If there is no leader, there is no direction. And it’s my belief that business must always stick to the most resourceful method of travel just in case it runs into a bottleneck. Whether that bottleneck is human resources related, partnership related, idea related or manufacturing related it’s still the same bottleneck that hinders quick movement toward a more efficient method of action.
You know, after rereading this answer I’ve just realized that I may be sending a wrong message that I’m okay with letting a business partner go. But you know, we did what was best for this business in the long term. And, in the end, we make our decisions and must stick to them, realizing how right or how wrong we were sooner or later. And regardless if that road may be unrealized and unknown, it is always far better of a journey to live through action rather than inaction.

Hopefully this as-brutally-honest-as-I-can-possibly-be email answers the question with enough justice as it deserves. It is my experience that being honest and truthful stumps any and all lies. But had I lied to you, I would have just explained in detail the fact that he was killed in a brutal bear attack recently. I think that makes for a far better conversation starter!

Sincerely,

Chad

So, we’ve received about a dozen emails from people talking about using silver to buy our Chai. To most people this seems a bit extreme, but to me it makes sense. I’m going to bring you along with me to understand this whole idea a lot more thoroughly in a moment, but first open by saying that starting today we accept silver as bartered payment through our new “Bartering Program”. How, you ask? I’ll get into that later with a faq. But first I want to explain why we’ve made this decision.

Silver today is an amazing precious metal that has been traded and used for tons of things since the dawn of time (still trying to figure out the exact date of the dawn of time). Let’s take a quick look at it’s properties – It’s used to make ornaments, jewelry, computer chips, coins, for use in disinfectants and antimicrobials. It’s compounds are used in photographic film, mirrors and chemical reactions for dozens of products. It has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal. So, what does all this mean…it means this stuff is rad. It’s the coolest element in the universe, kind of like our Chai. Now it’s making sense eh?

But why barter with it since I can’t really use it to purchase things? Because silver holds your wealth similar to gold but at a much more reasonable price. Some of the smartest countries and business men and women in the world have realized this and now hold many millions of dollars worth of stores of silver and gold. If we open our trade with silver more people might use it and then everyone can have a little bit of wealth. Of course, we don’t want to alarm anyone and make anyone think that we aren’t taking US dollars because we are. It’s just that we decided to open up our cash books and allow the open trading of silver as bartered payment also, much like the addition of using a debit card or credit card.

Check out the faq below for more information for the rest of that info I told you I’d talk about:

Bartering Program? What does that even mean?

Bartering Program is a program designed to accept other forms of payment (other than US dollars) through a process of trading, which we think is pretty cool. It means you can stop by and barter directly from us at one of our many (none unless you count emailing me directly as one or talking to me directly as two) Bartering Locations. If you’re still confused, we probably can’t help you.

Can I trade chickens or my Porsche? What else can I trade?

Yes, as long as the chickens are inside the Porsche when you trade it for our Chai. We also accept 130+ acres of land, diamonds, dark wizards that we can control, and anything magical – Leprechauns and Unicorns we’ll give double the Chai.

Why take Silver? Why take the other things you mentioned above?

Because we can. And we like shiny things. And it’s awesome to barter.

Okay, so how exactly do I know it’s silver?

Uhhhh…..if you are asking this question we’re going to assume you don’t have silver.

Where can I trade silver for your addictive Chai?

At this time no where, except directly from us. You can email us and we’ll meet you in a dark back alley for all of our bartering needs. Hopefully sooner rather than later we’ll be opening the ability to trade silver at local shops that sell our drinks. Keep an eye out and we’ll let you know when.

Where can I buy Silver so I can then bring it to you and trade it for Chai?

Not sure this is the most efficient method to buy our Chai, but if you must, head to Royal Coin at 4658 Beechnut. When you go in, let them know you are looking to buy silver rounds. The people are all very nice there and it’s locally owned.

How much is my silver worth in Chai?

Depends on the daily worth of silver. You see, silver ounces move up and down in price. If you want to check the prices of silver go to www.kitco.com and check it out. It’s interesting to follow the prices. We buy the silver a little over spot from you. Depending on how we feel, you could get anywhere from two to four bottles of Chai.

This is stupid! You’re stupid for doing this! Why would you trade anything for anything when you can just use cash or a credit/debit card?

We disagree with your assessment of the stupidity of this process because we believe that as the economy continues to contract, more money should stay within our local circles to help keep our local economy afloat. Using tradable items helps keep a source of money rotating among us and helps keep local business and customers afloat in hard times. And, by the way, using cash is a form of trade. You’re simply trading paper for product. And before 1973 those dollars you’re holding were actually backed by Silver. But more importantly, we enjoy trading with people because we get to know our customers directly. We get to see their reactions to our amazing Chai and we get to make a lot of friends. This also allows everyone a reason to stop hanging out on the internet and start chatting with our neighbors, and we believe this is truly the way a strong local economy works.

If you have any further questions feel free to contact us or if you want to trade with us, feel free to email us regarding that. Go Silver.

Here are some other cool sites about silver usage and bartering programs:

http://www.opencurrency.com

http://www.silverbarter.com

We like to fight. And by fight, we mean things that destroy culture and our way of life. Bears fall into that category because they tend to try and kill us. But also certain ingredients fall into that category also. High Fructose Corn Syrup is one of them. So let me explain why our war begins today with this stuff.

1 – Corn should be able to be eaten off the cob right off the stem. In corn used to make High Fructose Corn Syrup you can’t eat it. Well, you could, it just tastes chalky and it’s not very good for you. Strike one.

2 – There is no reason corn should be made into a syrup. We don’t like the premise at all. Strike two.

3 – Sugar is bad when there is a lot of it. It’s bad for your system and everyone else’s. Fructosed corn syrup means that this stuff is really sweet. Too much sugar helps start diabetes and the US is currently in a major diabetes crisis. Strike three.

4 – Syrupy corn was bad. Fructosed corn syrup was even worse. Kick it up a notch and you get Highly fructosed corn syrup which is as bad as it gets. If I want you to shove liquid sugar into my system, I’ll hook up an IV and say thanks. This can’t be healthy. Strike four.

5 – Governmental subsidies for this industry have laid waste to other, more beneficial food industries that should be subsidized, such as farming (greens and vegetables), apples and oranges, and other things that we should all be eating. Strike one against government subsidies and strike five for ….well…HFCS.

6 – The FDA does not object to labeling HFCS as “Natural”. This is simply idiotic. Uh…strike one against the FDA.

Okay, so you get the picture. Today we begin our fight. HFCS…you’re on our officially started War list and we won’t stop until you…uh…aren’t used as often. And another thing, we promise we’ll never use High Fructose Corn Syrup in any of our products. Instead, we’ll stick with real sugar. As a matter of fact, we make sure to use only the best sugar out there.*

*Disclaimer: we currently use Wholesome Sweeteners Evaporated Cane Juice Organic Sugar, which is Fair Trade Certified and the company can be found in Sugarland, Texas. www.organicsugars.biz

Charity. What does it mean to most people? To be honest, we don’t care what it means to most people, because we started this business and we can give to whatever charity we want to. It didn’t matter if we didn’t make money initially or not, because charity is always a good thing. It helps with that little thing called karma. And after doing all the crazy things we’ve done in the past, it was about time we notched that up a bit. So, what charity do we give to? Good question. Considering we put 1% of our entire company gross into charity we’ll be opening our accounting records every six months and pulling that money out to do one of three things: 1) helping a local entrepreneur get their business up and running in the form of a direct-help loan; 2) helping charities in our local areas; or 3) sponsoring someone or a team in a local charity run/bike ride (i.e. MS 150).

After we choose the few things we’d like to put that money toward, we’ll be asking people to give us their take on where the money should go. We’ll make a decision based on a whole slew of things and run with it.

In the end we believe giving back to the community in which we were cradled early on is always a good thing. It builds a bond and trust that always stands the test of time. So, if you have any other ideas for charity that you think would be right up our alley, let us know. And as long as they have nothing to do with training bears on how to destroy mankind we’ll be totally interested!

What’s in the pipeline you ask? All kinds of amazing things. Remember the shirt I said we were going to produce but never did. Well, we ran into some issues on our supply lines on that. The art is done and ready. We just need to connect the dots on our side. It will and hopefully some time this year!

What about the Vegan Chai? Well, let’s say making the most amazing, kick ass vegan Chai ever is tough. It’s not rocket science tough, but it’s tough. I can tell you we are moving in the right direction with it even though it wasn’t as quickly as I had hoped. We’ll get there and we’ll invite you to taste it soon enough. Be patient and realize that we won’t produce anything that isn’t up extremely high standards. And also remember that we are doing multiple tests using rice milk, almond milk, hemp milk and (my personal favorite so far) coconut milk. This means we are doing a lot of tests with a lot of different liquids. In the end, we simply will say that that particular relationship, at this time, is very rocky.

Bears? Yes, we still hate them. Yes, we’ve had multiple run-ins with them. And no, I’m actually talking about the bears in the forest that prey on human flesh and steal our Chai when they get the opportunity.

The Future? Yes, chatting on phones while we stare at you is in our future. And an amazingly cool feedback page is too. We’ll have it done when it’s done otherwise, just understand…it’s not good enough yet!

Art work? More in the pipeline. We’ll be talking to local artists and artists in other cities to see what they can do. If you have art work, send it to us, or if you want to, make some up and send it to us – slap a few words to us about how after drinking our chai you made the art and we’ll post it unless it’s too psychedelic for everyone.

This isn’t a blog post, is it? No. You caught me. It really isn’t. But it was what I could do in the short time I had to produce one. And we all needed an update on things anyway. The “real” blog post will be coming, but I’m a bit of a perfectionist and am contemplating editing the thing or airing it unedited.

What’s in the pipeline other than Vegan Chai? You’ll see. We can state that we are working on smaller bottles for your “on-the-go” needs. And we’re working on some really amazing new drinks that will blow your mind and make you far more addicted than you already are.

So please travel with us into the future and beyond…it should be a fun ride.

-Chad

I don’t like polished. I don’t like perfect. I don’t like the robotic expression of most business. It’s not natural and it doesn’t personalize what you do and how you do it. People, customers, guests, whatever you want to call them, are human and want that human effort to be there at the end of the day. They want a personalized experience in an increasingly impersonal world. The moment you can do that as a person or a business, people relax and feel far more welcome than with people or companies that follow the same set of guidelines no matter what the circumstance is.

So the question then becomes, how do you do it? Simple. Quit using talking points and start a real conversation with people. As markets tend to contract I think they go more local. With this in mind, I tend to also think that people want to know who’s on the other end of the money. They want to see the face and talk to the person behind the curtain, if only for a peace of mind. I know myself, for example, enjoy going to farmer’s markets or smaller grocery stores where people know who I am and I know who they are. These are the places that I enjoy because conversation is direct, no mismanagement of my time waiting on a phone on hold for a customer service rep because I had a horrible situation happen to me. Nope, it’s direct. And at the end of the day, we here at 2GBC really believe in that. We believe in talking to people, getting their take, and letting them chat our ears off, because we enjoy it. This isn’t our job because we wanted to do this. We love making these drinks and we want to talk to people and see their reactions when they drink one of our amazing drinks.

And to all those people that keep saying that we have no business doing what we’re doing (you know who you are): Professional Experience isn’t wanted here…instead, we’re just going to keep trusting our instincts and we hope you get used to hearing about us, because we’re going to be here for quite sometime!

Q & A Session

Here were some great and interesting questions I’ve been receiving in my email lately, so I thought I’d post them up with my answers to them :

Q: I recently tried your Chai. Awesome stuff. But why is it so spicy? I really would love to have some that isn’t so spicy.

A: Thanks. The spice is what we believe makes a Chai so good. Also, there are different levels of spice we might actually produce at a later time when we aren’t so freshman in this whole bottling business and after we’ve grown a bit more. All the bottles of Chai we produce at this time are “Bold” because this is what initially made me an addict to the stuff in the first place and we thought that it would be a great place to start.

Q: Where’s the decaf?

A: There isn’t any. We don’t plan on producing a decaf version of Chai in the foreseeable future. In my mind, decaf is contrary to what true Chai should be. But we will be looking at a new line of teas in the future that have little to no caffeine in them. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised when we do.

Q: Have you really fought a bear with a bowie knife?

A: Unfortunately I have yet to gain the strength needed to fight without a bowie knife. I’ll let you know when I do.

Q: Tried it. It sucked. I threw the bottle out. I hope you get sick and die.

A: Bummer that you didn’t like it. Chai isn’t for everyone. Thanks for the high hopes for me. I’m sure it’ll happen sooner or later, but in response, I’m crossing my fingers and hoping you stub your pinky toe ten times in the next 7 days so it’s really painful by the tenth time.

Q: Chai is amazing. I buy at least one bottle a week, if not more. What’s next?

A: The next thing is going to be a Vegan Chai. Right now we are currently working on the perfect ingredient mix to make the most killer Vegan Chai anyone will ever drink. If we can’t produce an amazing product like our initial Chai, we won’t produce it at all. I’m sure, when we’re done, you will be singing it’s praises too. And I hope that you’ll be torn which one to buy. In my opinion, competition is best when it’s with yourself.

Thanks to everyone for emailing me with questions, comments, and very odd, personalized hate mail. I enjoy all of it. Keep emailing me and I’ll keep emailing you back.

- Chad

I know we’re still in tough times. Maybe the thief that stole our chai had a pregnant wife whose baby needs our delicious beverage to gestate big and strong, so I like to say that as a man with a worldly point of view, I understand what the thief might be going through. That is, before we found who the thief was.

Now, I don’t like my ringtone and I dont like being awoken before noon, so one could understand where my frustration comes from when the owner of Te House of Tea called me at around 8:00 in the morning to inform me that a more in depth investigation into the robbery concluded that, based on the nature of the crime, and the undeniably smooth style by which our chai was taken, our burglar was none other than the legendary super-thief, The Jade Fox! Notorious for pulling off the almost impossible theft of the Ctesiphon diamond right under the noses of Saddam Hussein’s Imperial guard, just before the U.S. Government’s recent invasion of Iraq.

Nobody knows for sure what the elusive Jade Fox looks like and there has never been a successful photo of him, but your’s truly has had the pleasure of spending time in a Turkish prison long ago and our super-thief happened to be a fellow inmate during my stay. The middle east has been his stomping ground for a good part of his criminal career. It is through this quick association that I was able to make a quick sketch of our suspect.

Though I am sure he is miles away by now, enjoying the spoils of his cat burglary in one of his many villas in the wine country of Italy, I have made a quick sketch of what he may look like today. The Jade Fox is incredibly cocky, and there may be a chance that he has stuck around town in a sense of adventure. If you see this man, report him to the authorities right away. I doubt that the local authorities will be able to catch someone as slippery as the Jade Fox, but any chance that we might be able to retrieve our stolen chai is a chance worth taking.

-Stephen If you see this man, call the police or contact us directly!