“Spice & Tea Merchants” Coming to Wayland Square

“Spice & Tea Merchants” Coming to Wayland Square

A new business is coming to Wayland Square.

“Spice & Tea Merchants” will be opening in the Wayland Manor in the coming weeks, and GoLocal spoke with Matt Mazzarella as he prepares to open the first location in Rhode Island. 

“It’s a franchise that originated in Michigan. It’s a funny story actually — we went to a Michigan game last year and visited one of these stores in Ann Arbor and thought it was a cute little store, with the teas and spices and all-natural stuff,” said Mazzarella, of visiting the shop with his fiancee Jessica. 

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Founded in 2003, the first Spice & Tea Merchants store was opened “in the charming lakeside town of Saugatuck, Michigan, in a tiny storefront on Butler Street,” according to the business. 

“Customers to the shop were enveloped rich aromas of spices and the bright colors of teas in a cozy and welcoming setting reminiscent of an old world apothecary,” the company continues. “Our founder, Lisa Freeman, focused on offering only the freshest products to her customers, with spice blends hand-blended while customers watched.”

“We were kind of intrigued, and then this year we began thinking about opening our own place. So this was kind of kismet,” Mazzarella said. “So I reached out to the owner.”

 

Coming to PVD

Mazzarella talked about what people can expect when they come to the new store. 

“There are about 14 stores now around the country. So we’ve got teas, spice, blends — there’s about 80 of those, blended in-house, fresh,” he said. “We bag them up, in one to four once bags.”

And it’s not just tea and spices. 

“We’re going to carry soups, popcorn, chocolate, pasta, local honey, soaps and candles - we went with the old apothecary-type theme,” he said.

And the new owners have been putting in long days getting the shop ready. 

“We’ve been pulling 12-14 hours days the past few weeks," said Mazzarella. “We plan on having our soft opening next week."

Follow them on Instagram here.