Cup of Communitea

Meet Justine Duquette

CUP OF COMMUNITEA

✨ Products: All things tea
✨ Location: Williamsville
✨ Founded: 2020

10-second summary: Welcome to tea mixology. With blends, flavors and inspo sourced from around the world, Cup of Communitea is serving up kindness – and redefining our ideas of tea – one sip at a time.

Personal anthems: Upbeat tunes with fun lyrics. Good vibes! But when working and training, Justine prefers cooking shows to music – Bobby Flay and Alex Guarnacelli are among the voices she likes to hear in the background.

Why this medium?

Justine’s introduction to “the tea world” came while living in London. She was drawn to the way tea was woven into “every scenario of life” there, she says. It showed her that tea “is more than a hot cup – it’s self care, it’s culture, it’s education and so much more.”

It was a lightbulb moment for Justine when someone described what she does as “working in flavor.” Her work now features culture-spanning tea blends that are multisensory journeys around the world. What’s more, she’s added mind-bendingly innovative products like bubble gum-flavored tea syrup – “‘90s, Dubble Bubble Barbie nostalgic bubble gum.”

Cup of Communitea's tea infused simple syrups, each poured into cocktail glasses.

On finding inspiration:

Trying new things and combining new flavors to see what happens. “There are too many amazing flavors out there,” she says. “I didn’t know pomegranate and lime go together until I tried a new thing.”

Cup of Communitea’s tea syrup collection is the result of an exploratory process that included more than 200 different teas.

Feels happiest when:

I’m teaching classes, educating. It’s so much fun to see a lightbulb moment, a record-scratch where someone thinks ‘This is so interesting,’” Justine says. “Seeing those moments, when someone starts to grow that appreciation that I have into the nuances of it, the cultures of it and the work that goes into it.”

Feel-good fact:

When we asked Justine what her signature blend would be, she didn’t miss a beat. “A very even keel flavor profile, nothing too dark or grassy, with a very warm and nutty profile to it. Slightly creamy – naturally creamy, nothing added to the cup.” (One of the things we love about talking tea with Justine? Everything she says sounds like poetry.)

Bonus fact! Justine is continuing to raise her game – she is currently studying to become certified as a tea sommelier. (We love to see it!)

Cup of Communitea’s ‘Art of Chai’ class. Best. Frickin. Latte. Ever.

- Dani

3 things we <3

Where have tea syrups been all our lives?

The earl grey syrup, mixed with seltzer and served with a lemon slice – try it now, thank us later.

The focus on education through classes, special tasting events and more.

We’ve benefitted from this in our daily lives – the quality of our at-home chai lattes went through the roof after attending a class!

It never ceases to surprise us with something new!

Here at Cool Story, we’re hardcore tea enthusiasts – we’ve had *a lot* of tea from *a lot* of places. But Cup of Communitea’s collection of globally sourced teas and unique blends is one of the best we’ve ever experienced.