Passion.

Passion. Ambition without passion fails every time. New Leaf was founded because I was passionate about creating a healthy, all natural beverage that also tasted great. I was so passionate about it, in fact, that I formulated the original recipes for the flavors you know and love today, in my personal kitchen, with my wife.  Then I hand designed a bottle and took my sketches to an engineer who fine-tuned those sketches into what you are now drinking your tea out of as you read this blog.

The passion only grew from there.

When you walk into the main New Leaf office in New Jersey, the passion permeates the air.  From our chief officers who are in meetings way before 9AM and who don’t get finish their days until after dinnertime, to our sales assistant who diligently organizes all of the distribution contracts and mass samplings, to our operations team, who not only make sure that packaging, bottling and distributing run smoothly, but also that our office does as well.  Everyone wears many hats here. There’s no task too big or too small for any one person to attend to, if it will drive the success of our brand.

And then, we have our sales team.  Our foot soldiers, who pound the pavement every day, across the country, securing retail space, ensuring quality distribution, being the face of the company to each and every person s/he interacts with during their day. It is their passion, their personality and their drive that ultimately determine the success of New Leaf Brands.

And what a passionate group they are!  You can’t do what they do and NOT be passionate, it just doesn’t work. All you have to do is sit through 15 minutes of a sales meeting and you start to see the passion come through: excitement over new products and POS, determination to fight for shelf space, elation over secured media coverage, tenacity to make New Leaf available to as many people as possible. We have brand ambassadors who work every day sampling across the NY metro area, introducing consumers to New Leaf teas and lemonades and generating consumer-focused video to populate our You Tube channel.

This is a family, and we live, eat and breathe New Leaf together, passionately nurturing a brand that we feverishly believe in.

Last, but not least, we have our fans.  True fans of New Leaf’s iced teas and lemonades are a very vocal, very passionate group. They truly believe, as we do, that New Leaf beverages are the very best on the market. There’s an old saying in consumer-driven business: Bad news spreads faster than good news. Meaning: A discontent customer will tell more individuals about their unsatisfactory experience than a satisfied customer will tell about their positive experience. In all my years in the beverage industry, I have found this to be the case. Until I founded New Leaf. Ever since consumers have been able to get their hands on the product, I have received letter after letter of positive feedback. Don’t believe me? Just take a look at our Facebook page and the “About You” page on this very site.

Passion is hard to contain.  In fact, true passion uncontainable. It continues to grow and grow, until it encompasses everything around it, just like New Leaf eventually will, as long as we all continue to nurture our passion, letting it grow and sharing The Official Beverage of Taste™ with others around us. Until, one day, when we can all sit down together and share a nice cold New Leaf. 

Eric Skae

Founder and CEO

Dispatches From the ’Squan: Lessons Learned About New Leaf Brands From a Pack of Surf Groms

My name is Dave, and I’m the CFO of New Leaf. I’m also an avid East Coast surfer. Once a year, my wife and I “minivan” ourselves to my favorite surf spot in New Jersey – Manasquan Inlet, also known simply as ’Squan to us surfers.

’Squan is a surfer’s only beach, and Surfline.com bills it as one of the best-known breaks on the East Coast. When the ’Squan fires off, the waves can get as high as a three-story house. ‘Groms’ (those young surfers who rip in the waves) love the ’Squan and come from all over the country with their families to surf this spot. This year, our family rented a beachfront surf shack next to an extended family with a pack of ‘grom’ surfers, ages 9 through 14.

Last Monday, with the sunny weather and the waves ‘rolling in’ waist-high, I decided to break out my longboard, leave my wife and kids playing on the beach and head out into the 70-degree water. A couple of hours later, I returned to the surf shack feeling good about the session. I stepped onto my porch, broke open a full cooler of New Leaf beverages and picked out my favorite flavor, Sweet Tea.

In mere minutes, I was surrounded by groms returning from their own surf sessions. “What are you drinking?” they asked with thirsty eyes. I tell the groms that I’m drinking New Leaf Tea, and if they wanted one, they would need to ask their parents for permission. They scurried inside their surf shack.

A moment later, the groms came back with blessings from the grown-ups. I gave the oldest (a 14-year old surfer/snowboarder) a couple of Sweet Teas & Ginseng & Honey iced teas and told him to share them with his siblings. He cracked open a bottle of tea, guzzled it down and broke out in smile. Then he shared his bottles with his brother, his cousin and later with the grown-ups. And yes, they all thanked me.

Throughout the week, the groms and grown-ups raved about New Leaf and how great the iced teas taste. Grandfather, aunts, uncles and groms alike flocked to our little porch to ask questions: Do you have any more? Where can I buy this? Does New Leaf come in a 24 oz bottle? Is New Leaf available in Southern New Jersey? Is New Leaf available in Boulder, Colorado?

I told the people about New Leaf’s 13 unique flavors of ice teas and four flavors of lemonades. I explained how New Leaf is made with pure cane sugar instead of the high fructose corn syrup widely used in the North American beverage industry. And I shared with them that I believe New Leaf is better for you than sodas, energy drinks or other iced teas. 

Word soon traveled around the ‘’Squan and before I knew it, I had run out of New Leaf. There was nothing left to do but direct the new groms in search of great-tasting beverages to the New Leaf web site and Facebook page.

The upside? New Leaf now has new friends and fans in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Maryland, New Hampshire and Colorado.

As for me, I’m back in the office crunching numbers for the company I love. But those groms got me thinking – how can I continue to bring New Leaf and smiles to groms and their families? Here are my mental notes:

Lesson 1 Learned: The surfing lifestyle and New Leaf mix VERY WELL.

Lesson 2 Learned: Next year, bring more cases of New Leaf.

Lesson 3 Learned: To my fellow employees, we’re all New Leaf Defenders of Taste…even when surfing.

Lesson 4 Learned: Time to check in with the snowboarders.