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Test Kitchen: Our cozy cooking community

Test Kitchen: Our cozy cooking community

This summer is going to be a ton of fun. We're firing up several new concepts in our proverbial test kitchen, and can't wait to start sharing them with you (don't forget — if you're in the Seattle area, our new tea counter can set you up with a sparkly tea experience!).

Our next new dish? We're alllmost ready to share it: an online community space, a free & cozy digital club for all of us to share tips, ask questions, find inspiration, and learn from each other as well as culinary experts we'll invite in. And we'd love your help testing it.

It's a space meant for sharing, not doomscrolling past recipes we'll never get to, and to empower you to make your kitchen an even more flavorful & confident place.

Our recipes will be there. Spice & tea tips from us & from you will be there. Opportunities to show & tell your latest culinary experiment will be there. A digital version of our old Cookbook Club will be there. Our staff will be there, listening & answering questions & sharing their recommendations. Fun little challenges and opportunities to win spices, merch, or gift cards will be there, too. Plus, the ability to curate lists of your favorite tips & techniques will be there.

Hopefully, you will be there. ❤️

Actually, and you may not realize this, but you already help build this community. A lot of people read our newsletter, which means culinary experts with a unique story or technique to tell know that if they share with us, they will be heard. They’re not just casting messages off into the sea of Instagram and Facebook, hoping they go ashore.

Knowing you will be heard: that's powerful. That's our goal.

So! When can we share this community space? We're almost ready to beta test it, and before we announce it to everyone, we want to share it with those willing to taste a new dish before it's menu-ready. 

It should be just a few more weeks before we're ready to invite you in!

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Retail Rebirth, Two Years In

Retail Rebirth, Two Years In

This is a very special month for us: exactly two years ago, we renovated and reinvigorated our special little spice shop on Western Avenue. We did it to make the store more experiential: you've got to come try our Taste Bar if you haven't yet... and we just launched a new test: a freshly-brewed tea counter for you to buy a cup. We also did the renovation to make the store more inviting to newcomers, smoother, and — here's the scary little secret — to stay open at all. It's true: the plan was to close the store. The previous owner had set that in motion, and the numbers didn't lie. Our mothership was bleeding cash. But oh, do we love Seattle and we love connecting with you. We mean it! I mean it. And, it's practical romance: we're keenly aware that our work is supported by you plus other businesses in the community (look out for new launches with Local Tide, the Museum of Pop Culture, and more very soon!). We also sure as heck didn't want to be the ones who took away the warm, spicy aromas wafting out onto our section of Western Ave. You might say that we feel a certain responsibility to emit into our local environment. 😘 So, we did the insensible thing: made a bet that we could make the store overall more engaging yet more streamlined, withdrew $20k, borrowed some power tools, bought this and that from the SoDo Home Depot, and then did this: And this: Nearly all of of that — updating and partly replacing how World Spice worked for 28 years — in nine breakneck, 16-hour days. That's all the time we had. What changed: new taste bar, new look, unified sizes in-store and no more packing & sealing custom sizes. (I know that this change was, for some of you, a loss.)  Check it out: What did not change: carrying everything! I actually suggested we only offer bestsellers in-store, and ship everything else on-demand. (And I had a fantastic spreadsheet to make the case.) The store team politely explained to me that this would be stupid, as so many of you come in to get that one thing and that's a key service we give. It has worked. Financially, the store is profitable, and now growing. We kept our team (which is to say, kept literally decades of knowledge, care, and insight). I'm very proud we raised wages and introduced a $500-deductible health plan to protect each of us while also getting the store stabilized. It's also worked in that we see people experiencing more of this enticing spice & tea catalog right in the store, knowing and not just believing that we can make their homecooking that much better. And it's much easier for our team to attend to you. There was magic in the grinding and custom packing at the old store, but there were also a lot of customers we couldn't give enough face time to because we were operating as a mini-warehouse inside a retail store. I've buried the lede a bit, as this is the real thing: Our team and our vast catalog of products are what truly make the store work, not simply the layout or model. We just needed to get some obstacles out of the way of connecting what we have with you. Come say hi, try a tea or spice! Please, if you're in the area, come say hi. Try a spice blend, or have a freshly-brewed tea. Get a high five and some culinary tips from our team. And if you're not in the area, just know that every purchase and interaction we have with you online supports the store and our place in the Seattle community, just as we use the store and knowledge there to try to make sure your cooking is delightfully doable no matter where you are. Thank you for supporting World Spice, and letting us support your culinary adventures. Here's to many more years.

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What's Happening, What's Ahead

What's Happening, What's Ahead

Good morning, & happy Sunday! What a few weeks. This was going to be an email about tariffs, but instead, we’ll talk about more enjoyable things like community & packaging, and then discuss tariffs at the end. (Like, at the end of this letter… not at, you know… the end of the world. That’s at least another week away!) Community — who would you like to meet? Let us know for a chance to win $25. In my last Flavor Note, I mentioned that we’re working on an online community space for you to learn & share ways to cook & brew with our spices & teas. It’ll be an opportunity to get tips & tricks from each other and our staff about this vast spice library, ask questions, and show off any favorites you have. We’re also recruiting culinary experts. Maybe they’re famous. Maybe you think they should be. Maybe there’s a type of food or a technique you want to learn about, and we can find someone to teach us all that thing. Please tell me: I would love to know if you have a few favorite culinary influencers or authors or personalities you think others would like to know. OR, if you have a certain cuisine or technique you’d love to learn more about and how our spices can help. If you contribute a few ideas, you’ll be entered into a chance to win $25 of spice cash — on us! We’ll pick one winner from these suggestions. Stacking Packaging This is just a teaser. I cannot wait to tell you more about what we’re working on, our new “flagship packaging” to sit or stack in your kitchen, protect your spices, and still be easy-to-open. Stay tuned for a future Flavor Note. How Tariffic We’re getting asked a lot — how are the tariffs affecting your business? It’s hard to say. Some of our importers raised costs in anticipation of tariffs. Some have not. Some might still. Then direct suppliers from overseas… same story in that there’s no consistent story. (Just like the tariffs themselves.) We last really raised prices in 2023 when we took the baton from the previous owner, our old boss. Just in the past 3 months, we’ve seen several costs jump (like cumin, +42%). A few things skyrocketed (cardamom seed doubled). In all, most of our spices & teas are up since 2023 in the 10-25% range, some much more, and a precious few have somehow dropped. Right now, with tariffs, I think this will be a slow boil. Just an opinion, but that’s guiding our approach. How We’re Beating Tariffs (and Whatever Else) You. You’ve supported World Spice for 30 years, through financial crises, a pandemic, and no doubt a few recipes gone awry. Hopefully, you’ve felt the love back, with aromas and flavors that light up your senses. Each other. Our team cares a lot about each other and our products. Being smart. We try to run lean. We do our own everything! We renovated the store ourselves, we handle our own technology & design, you name it, we get our hands dirty. The #1 thing you can do right now? Try something new, enjoy a warm cup of tea, or tell a friend about us. It means the world. Yes, Some Price Changes This is part of us trying to be smart. There are some prices changes happening…some up, some down. We recently unified our blend pricing, which meant most blends went up a touch, while some prices dropped (Cascade Mushroom for one!). We did this the week of Liberation Day the tariff increase, but we’d already decided on the pricing plan. We’re about to tweak our pure spice & tea prices, and as a rule you’ll see some of the larger quantities actually decrease in price. We don’t expect major shifts to single spice/tea right now. Thank you. It’s a real treat to get to spend time in your inbox on a Sunday morning.

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Our Mission

Our Mission

Wow. What a year 2025 is, and what a story it tells. The world at-large is changing rapidly, and here in the US, it's turning inward in so many ways.  At World Spice, we're focusing on turning outward. As keepers of a vast library of spices, teas, and recipes, and as enthusiastic lovers of sharing a good meal and taking culinary adventures together, we think it's a good time to talk more about where we've come from and to lay out the mission our team is on. Three Decades in the Making World Spice was founded 30 years ago in a 1300-square-foot Seattle space that we still call home. Back then, it was a retail store and a warehouse where we'd receive large sacks and barrels of pure spices from around the world, somehow storing it all. So many flavors, such a small space — a culinary genie crammed inside a little lamp on Western Avenue. Two years ago, almost to the day, our previous owner and boss retired, selling the company to us — her team. We're now an employee-owned venture we like to call The Spice Company That Cares. We raised wages to sustainable rates, improved our healthcare plan, maintained our vendor relationships, and started moving forward in a familiar but bigger direction. Our Mission: Opening Doors to Global Cuisine At World Spice, we believe every bite for every diet should be spectacular, achievable, affordable, judgment-free, filler-free, and rooted in culinary wisdom from all around the globe. I'm proud to share this mission and how we plan to achieve it through empowerment and connection. You know as well as we do the difference fresh, quality spices make. A quick whiff or taste lights up the senses! And what joy it brings to create something delightful for the people we care about. We also know there are barriers to cooking and brewing at home. You might be short on time, too dang tired, or find certain dishes — especially new cuisines — intimidating. Your diet may have also changed. This leads me to our first core team value. Empowerment To us, empowerment takes on many shapes, but it centers on giving you knowledge and support through:  Fantastic recipes, from the easily-achievable to the daring Spice tips from our expert team — like this recent post on Creole Spice Coming Soon: Series — recipes & guides that build on each other, particularly to learn about cuisines from around the world Access to the best spices, teas, and tools we find scouring the world and the web We're investing more and more into each of these categories, with the goal that every product has plenty of ways to get you cooking and brewing any time of day. Connection Our second core value is connection. We can all use more of that now, right? We're building a community. It began in the store, where conversations help inspire & empower your next cooking adventure.  And now we're building an online community space, launching later this year, that we hope will bring that experience to you everywhere. Hundreds of you told us in our August survey that you want to read and share spice tips and recipes from each other, in addition to culinary experts. We're making that happen. We'll soon have a digital space where we publish — and let you publish — recipes, tips, and discussions. It's a space where we'll host culinary experts, whether well-known or just damned great at cooking up a dish and a story. And where we can all ask no-judgment questions, get answers and support, and have fun. World Spice will be the best place to try, learn, play, and perfect new flavor experiences from around the world. Thank you! We've come this far, thanks to you. There was truly a time when we weren't sure World Spice would survive, but with your support, we're beginning to thrive. We should get to profitability this year, and our vast library remains small batch and as fresh & flavorful as ever. We know that every single product you purchase from us enters your homes, makes its way onto your tables, and becomes part of your stories. Thank you. It's truly an honor, and we are SO EXCITED about what's coming next. p.s. Reach out Future Flavor Notes will dive into sustainability, our packaging and what's next, tariffs (or, maybe not! 😅), our remodeled & ever-evolving retail store, a tea rebrand, and more. Let me know what questions you have by sending me an email: porter@worldspice.com.

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