A tea brand's first piece of press coverage rarely comes from a polished pitch to a major outlet. More often it starts with a food blogger, a regional lifestyle writer or a small newsletter editor who stumbles on the product and sends a short, informal email asking for "a bit more information." What happens in the next hour often decides whether that inquiry becomes a published feature or quietly disappears. A press kit is what makes the fast, useful reply possible instead of an improvised one.
What a press kit is actually for
A press kit is not a marketing brochure and it is not the same document as a retail sell sheet. Its job is narrower: give a journalist or blogger everything they need to write about the brand accurately without a back-and-forth email chain. That means facts they can quote without checking twice, images they are cleared to publish, and a way to ask for more if the story needs it. Treat every element as something written for someone on a deadline, not for a shopper browsing a website.
The brand story: the one page journalists actually skim
Most writers decide within a few sentences whether a brand is worth covering, so the story page should lead with what makes it distinct — the founding idea, the niche it serves, the ingredient or format that sets it apart — rather than a chronological company history. Keep it to one page. A second paragraph can add context: where the tea is sourced or produced, who the brand is built for, and any detail that gives a writer an angle beyond "new tea brand launches." Avoid adjectives that every brand uses; specific, checkable details are what a journalist can actually build a sentence around.
Product photography a bylined article can use
Photography is often the single biggest reason a press inquiry stalls, because most founders only have images sized for Instagram. A usable press photo set needs high-resolution files — at minimum 300 dpi for print, several megapixels for digital — alongside smaller web versions for outlets that just need something quick. Cover the product straight-on, a lifestyle shot showing it in use, and at least one detail shot of the packaging itself. License each image clearly for editorial use in the kit so nobody has to email and ask.
A fact sheet that answers questions before they're asked
A one-page fact sheet does the job a full interview would otherwise have to do. List the founding year, where the brand is based, the product range in plain terms, and any distribution or availability detail a reader might reasonably want to know. Where a claim can't yet be made with certainty — a specific retail footprint, a launch date still moving — leave it out rather than guess, since a journalist who catches one inaccurate line tends to double-check everything else in the kit too.
The founder quote: getting it right in one paragraph
A single strong quote does more work in a press kit than most founders expect, because it is often the only human voice an editor lifts directly into the piece. It should sound like something a person actually said — specific, a little informal, tied to why the brand exists — rather than a line assembled from marketing copy. One good paragraph, attributed by name and title, is worth more than three vague sentences that read like every other launch announcement.
Setting up a sample request process that doesn't stall
A press kit that generates interest but has no clear next step wastes the interest it created. Include a direct contact for media requests, and be ready to move fast when a sample request comes in: confirm the mailing address, send the product in its actual retail packaging rather than a plain sample bag, and give a rough shipping timeline if one exists. A journalist working against a publishing calendar will often move on to a brand that replied within a day over one that took a week, regardless of which product was better.
Choosing between a PDF and a hosted press page
A downloadable PDF is still expected by many journalists and is easy to attach to a reply, but a hosted web page has a real advantage: it can be linked directly in an email, updated the moment a fact changes, and shared without anyone re-downloading a stale file. Most tea brands are best served by keeping both — a clean, current press page as the primary reference, and a PDF export of the same content for anyone who wants an offline copy. For brands whose tea or dried fruit is contract-packed by TeraVella, product photography and packaging specifications from the production run itself are often the fastest starting point for building both.
