AUSTIN – What would Granny do?  This is the question Clayton Christopher and David Smith ask themselves whenever they make a decision about their company Sweet Leaf Tea.

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Sweet Leaf Tea started in Beaumont with the two co-founders making Christopher's grandma's sweet tea recipe out of their kitchen.

Ranked #891 in Inc. Magazine’s 2008 list of fastest-growing private companies and #19 in the Top 50 Businesses in the Austin-Round Rock area, Christopher and Smith’s iced tea company has come a long way from the days when they made tea out of their kitchen in Beaumont, Texas. 

“The company all started because I didn’t like the taste of bottled iced tea,” said Christopher.  “I thought it can’t be that hard to make good tasting iced tea.”

That’s where Christopher’s grandmother comes into the story.  He wanted to make iced tea that tasted just like his grandmother’s did when he was growing up.  He said the difference between their tea and the others on the market has to do with how the tea is brewed.

“We make it just like my Grandmother used to make it.  We just make a lot more of it,” said Christopher.

Christopher and Smith have been best friends since Kindergarten.  They pride themselves on keeping the product simple by using organic tea leaves and natural ingredients.  Instead of using powdered teas and corn syrup, they literally brew tea leaves in big vats of filtered water, and then use cane sugar to sweeten it. 

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Best friends and Sweet Leaf Tea co-founders David Smith and Clayton Christopher said they take their work seriously, but not themselves.

“My grandmother  brewed strong tea for five minutes, and then poured it over ice to stop the brewing process.  We do the exact same thing with our tea,” said Christopher.

Christopher said the instant cooling process is one of the secrets to the great taste of their tea.  It stops the beverage from becoming bitter, which is sometimes a problem with other homemade ice teas found in restaurants. 

Sweet Leaf Tea’s revenue has grown 406% since 2004, but success didn’t come easy.  It took a lot of hours and hands-on labor.  In fact, when Christopher and Smith first started the business in 1998, they brewed the tea out of 50 gallon crawfish pots and used pillow cases as tea bags.

“Making iced tea isn’t rocket science, but making good iced tea can be a pain in the butt.  Most companies don’t want to brew the tea like we do, and they don’t use cane sugar.  Instead they use corn syrup as it’s faster and cheaper,” said Christopher. “In the beginning, David and I were working 16 hour days and working seven days a week.”

Christopher said there was even a four month period in 2002 when they had to shut down and reassess their business model.

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CFO Brian Goldberg of Sweet Leaf Tea was named "CFO of the Year" by Austin Business Journal in 2008. The company announced in May that it had raised $18 million in growth capital.

“Our original product was perishable and only had a two week shelf life.  We needed to come up with a better idea if we going to continue,” said Christopher.  “It was hard choice to shut down as our sales were growing. We’d have to start again from zero.”

Christopher and Smith said they didn’t want to compromise the iced tea by adding preservatives, but they found a solution that worked. With the help of a small bottling company in Pittsburg, they could hot-fill the bottles to prolong the shelf life.

“Keeping the tea natural and organic is important to us,” said Christopher. “But taste is our #1 priority.  Consumers ultimately vote with their palate.”

While some things have changed from the early days, others are still the same. 

“When we started out, we spent every weekend pouring samples.  That’s how we marketed the tea,” said Christopher. “What kept us going was people calling and telling us it was best tea they’d ever had.”

Today, 90% of Sweet Leaf Tea’s marketing budget is still spent on sampling.  They attend music festivals around the country, local events, and hand out samples in grocery stores. 

“They have to taste the product to love it,” said Christopher.

You can’t argue with Christopher’s logic. With 11 classic iced tea flavors, three lemonades and more flavors in development, it seems Christopher and Smith are doing something right.