Bellefonte tea company started by 3 brothers looks to give back to veterans, first responders

Mike, Joe and Chris Britton are three brothers behind a new Bellefonte-based business: Artillery Tea Co., which launched July 4. With a passion for purchasing products with a cause, and a love for coffee, the three long supported veteran and first responder-affiliated coffee brands. But when Mike developed insomnia, he swapped out the coffee for tea and Artillery Tea Co. was born.

“I didn’t notice that there was anything like it out there,” Mike said. The tea that one typically buys in the grocery store, he explained, lacks a little from a quality perspective. Additionally, there aren’t many premium tea brands connected with causes he wanted to get behind.

“Commercial tea is actually made with a byproduct from the production of the kind of tea (we use),” said Mike. “Ours is more like whole leaf tea. The grocery store shelves carry the byproduct, called tea dust or tea fennels, which is just little, tiny specs of tea that affect the flavor.”

Artillery Tea Co. also sets itself apart with its tea bags.

“Most commercial tea bags are a combo of paper and plastic, and we’ve cited several studies that show that up to, I think, like 11.6 billion microplastic particles end up in your tea,” Mike said. “Our tea bags are entirely plant-based. They’re made out of a corn starch material, so there’s no plastic in there. You don’t have to worry about that getting in your drink.”

Artillery Tea Co. currently offers four tea blends: Bombardier Black, an Earl Grey tea; Morning M.O.A.B, a breakfast blend; Gadsen Green, a peach apricot green tea; and Howitzer Heavy, a vanilla chai black tea. Each tin includes 15 teabags and a subscription option comes with a 10% discount and deliveries every month, two months or three months. So far, the brothers say their top seller is the Gadsen Green, with the vanilla chai black tea being a close favorite.

“I think the apricot and peach are what really attract people to the Gadsden Green, and it’s the only green tea that we offer. It’s one of my favorites, but, surprisingly, out of the four blends that we have, the vanilla chai is actually my personal favorite,” said Chris. “It just surprised me how good it came out, me not really being an avid tea drinker … I think one of the best things about ordering one of these is just opening it up and smelling it. I mean, the smell, alone, will make me want to buy it.”

But, of course, the tea is just one aspect of the brand.

“From the beginning of our company, we made it a goal to donate to veteran and first responder causes every year or every quarter,” said Mike.

Joe is the nine-year army veteran in the family, so he’s in charge of finding the causes the brand will donate toward.

“The first cause I want to get behind is called Gold Star Families,” Joe said. “It donates to families of those who have lost a significant other overseas. It takes care of the veterans’ families, which is what I think the veteran would want the most. That will be the first one that we support, and we’ll change them intermittently.”

You can currently buy Artillery Tea Co. products online, at artilleryteaco.com, and at Magpie Interiors in Bellefonte. The brothers plan to expand their reach to more retail locations in the near future, even going beyond Centre County, to retail locations out of state. They also plan to expand the product line to include a non-caffeinated option or herbal blend. Their hope is, in five years, to be profitable enough to increase their contributions to the veteran and first responder communities.

“I just don’t really want this to be about us at the end of the day,” Joe said. ”We want to support those who have supported us and, sometimes, a lot of people don’t recognize that. That’s something that we really want to focus on and give credit.”

For the time being, though, the three are still keeping their day jobs, but Mike notes the business gives him a nice respite from his full-time work.

“What makes me excited to work on it every day is having it be my own thing. I do have a full-time job and I work for somebody else and I get assignments from them and I’m working on their vision. What gets me excited is working on our own vision that we made up. We can do whatever we want with it,” he said.

Chris added: “The sky is the limit. ... We want to offer cold specialty drinks. We want to have storefronts in the local area to start and then hopefully branch out from there. The ultimate goal for me is to have a tea that you can buy at Sheetz. I think that would be my ‘we have arrived’ moment.”