Upton Tea Imports

Tom Eck left a career at Stratus Computer in 1989 to start Upton Tea Imports as a mail-order business run out of Upton, Massachusetts, aiming to bring North American tea drinkers the kind of specialist, personalized service he associated with European tea merchants. The company's first quarterly newsletter, published before the end of that year, ran just six pages and featured roughly two dozen teas, mostly oolongs and greens.

Thirty-five years later, Upton has grown to more than 2,000 varieties and over 30,000 square feet of warehouse and office space, still built around loose-leaf tea rather than bagged or bottled products, and still declining what the company calls "the overly commercial route" in favor of quality and knowledgeable service. The Republic of Tea acquired the Upton trademark in 2016, though the business continues operating under its original name.

From a six-page newsletter and two dozen teas mailed out of Upton, Massachusetts, to a 30,000-square-foot operation stocking over 2,000 varieties — still run on the same specialist, mail-order-first model Eck started it with.