Montreal tea company gets plug from Oprah

MONTREAL – David’s Tea employee Melanie Barbusci was at an office meeting when her cellphone rang Thursday afternoon. Just hours before, the Special events coordinator sent a basket of tea to the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth hotel for Oprah Winfrey.

“I picked up the phone and she said, ‘its Oprah Winfrey!’ Naturally when that happens you think its a practical joke,” Barbusci told Global News at the David’s Tea store on St-Viateur.

It was no joke.

The Queen of daytime talk was indeed on the phone to speak to Melanie about her love for teas and the team that works at the store’s 106 locations.

At her show at the Bell Centre on Thursday night, Oprah spoke several times about the store promising to share David’s Tea with the world through twitter and even feature it in her O Magazine.

“She’s one of the most inspirational people in the world, so it’s an honour that she chose to talk about us. We`re so passionate about what we do,” said David Segal, co-founder of the loose-leaf, Montreal based tea store.

According to marketing experts, Oprah gushing over any product, is the holy grail of endorsements.

“Depending on what Oprah does with David’s tea, this could be a gold mine. It could launch the company into the stratosphere,” said Concordia professor Robert Soroka.

Right now, the team is just focusing on keeping their feet on the ground and taking a tea time to help deal with all the excitement.