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Walk into Scented Leaf on any given day and you’ll find a line of people gripping plastic cups anticipating their first or second refill of the day.
In the last 15 years, Scented Leaf has become a beloved space in Tucson. It’s where you go for a simple green tea or a prickly pear blend with lemonade and edible glitter. It’s where seats are filled with first dates, best friends and plenty of study sessions.
Scented Leaf now has four locations across Tucson, but husband-wife duo Shane and Nin Barela never set out to open a tea business. The story actually begins with a perfume shop.
From Granada, Spain to Tucson, Arizona
In 2006, you could find the Barelas slinging perfume and cologne at the Tanque Verde Swap Meet before opening a brick-and-mortar fragrance shop in Main Gate Square near the University of Arizona campus.
“We were in a little store that was never really seen but we were there,” Shane says.
But then the recession happened. The country was in a housing crisis, Nin was laid off from her day job and the perfumery was losing money.
“This was not a ‘One of these days, I’m going to open a tea business.’ It was never like that,” Shane says. “We were in a bad spot financially and we were in a spot with a business that wasn’t producing enough money like it used to. We were in a world of challenge.”
The couple knew they had to do something fast to improve the situation when someone recommended Shane read Paulo Coelho’s “The Alchemist,” a story about following your dreams.
“That book made me think differently because it said if you want something, you need to basically ask the universe, ask your God,” Shane says.
It felt serendipitous when a couple months later, right before a trip to Spain, Nin found out she was pregnant.
“We went to Spain even though it was against what our money situation was saying and what her body was feeling in terms of flying and traveling,” Shane says. “It was kind of, going after the idea of keeping our eyes open because God’s going to deliver something to us or at least give us another opportunity.”
While walking through Granada, Spain, Shane and Nin decided to stray from the main path and stumbled upon a tea shop.
“I had a gut check to even get to that point — that’s why I think the story is so crazy,” Shane says. “My gut was like, ‘Stop what you’re doing and go down this street instead of the main street and see what happens.’ It was the weirdest feeling.”
The Barelas were tea drinkers before their rendezvous in Spain — but not like this. Shane grew up drinking Nestea, Nin drank Lipton. But this Spanish shop specialized in loose-leaf tea, which the couple didn’t know much about.
It only took a day for the lightbulb to go off.
“I told Nin the next day, ‘Hey guess what? I want us to start a new business,’” Shane says. “I said, ‘Let’s do a tea business,’ and she’s like, ‘That sounds cool but where are you going to do a tea business?’ And I was like, ‘Well, we have no money. We’re going to have to squeeze it into what we got.’”
In 2010, their perfume shop became Scented Leaf Fine Teas and Fragrances. On one side of the store, you could sample perfume. On the other, you could pick up a package of loose-leaf tea (which was then labeled as Tyler Teas, an ode to the couple’s dog).
“There were samples of both products which was really random but we had no choice — we had to do it,” Shane says. “People started saying the tea was pretty good, so they’d buy a little pouch and then we were like, ‘Oh my God, people are buying tea from us.’ That started the idea of — holy smokes, maybe there’s something here. The perfume thing started going down down down, but the tea was doing something.”
The Scented Leaf we know and love today
You might remember the cupcake craze of the 2000s when bakeries were pumping out gourmet cupcakes with elaborate fillings and even more elaborate decorations.
During the cupcake trend, Main Gate Square was home to a bakery called Red Velvet Cupcakery, which closed around the same time the Barelas introduced tea to their shop.
Shane noticed the closure when walking down University Boulevard with their son, Roman. Their tea and perfume shop sat on the same street, but farther west in the area where Starbucks sits now. The bakery, however, was in a prime spot — right on the edge of the UA and 1,000 feet closer to campus than the perfumery.
“The streetcar construction was about to start, so they were going to tear up the area and turn it into dirt,” Shane says. “This was an opportunity to get into a better location because where we were, no one wanted to go down that far.”
He phoned his landlord about the possibility of opening a tea house in the vacant space. He received approval the following day.
“I went in immediately and signed away my life and said yes yes yes before they could think about saying no to me,” he says. “Then all of a sudden, we had a signed lease and now we had to make a tea house. We had no money, we were broke, it was bad. I had a couple hundred dollars to my name. I didn’t know what to do but I had to make it happen.”
Shane worked with folks he knew from his days in real estate to set up layaway-type deals. He received hand-me-down appliances and furniture from businesses that were closing.
Just two months behind schedule in 2012, the Barelas said goodbye to their first brick-and-mortar — and the fragrance business altogether — and opened the teahouse at 943 E. University Blvd., where Scented Leaf still sits today.
“We opened up and the streetcar construction had started and it was all dirt,” Shane says. “Everyone said, ‘I’m so sorry you’re opening up right now.’ I was like, ‘Honestly, I’m so happy to be opened up.’”
The first year came with a lot of trial and error — learning how to make tea for the masses and a lot of running around for Shane who was unable to hire employees because he couldn’t afford to pay anyone.
By 2014, the shop was growing and Shane had an idea. At the time, all the drinks were loose-leaf blends that needed to be steeped — and all the coffee shops around Scented Leaf were pumping out drinks faster than the Barelas could.
But they had a secondhand keg cooler — what if they could offer tea on tap?
As it turns out, that decision was a game changer.
“It was four taps and that started a whole world of speed,” he says. “Then all of a sudden that turned into eight taps and 12 taps and now it’s at 20 taps.”
Once the taps were introduced, the drinks — and the creativity behind them — were limitless.
“People have always said they don’t like tea. We call it the grandma syndrome tea,” Shane says. “Grandma’s tea is what causes people to think, ‘I don’t like tea because it’s bitter’ or Grandma steeped it for too long and she’s using the tea bags so it’s not high quality. We kind of grew up with people around us not making good tea so there’s a stigma. This is a drink house and we’re trying to give you whatever you need. Whether you like coffee, tea, herbal tea or you just like flavor, we’re going to have a conversation with you.”
In the beginning, there was no set menu, there were no signature drinks. Instead, employees would figure out what you liked and prepare something based on your preferences. As you can imagine, the list of concoctions became longer and longer.
From there, the Barelas — with the help of the very innovative Scented Leaf team — started working on a menu.
The Fruit Bomb — a blend of fruity teas — was the first on the menu, followed by the Fruit Gusher which includes your choice of tap tea topped with strawberry lemonade.
My personal favorite is the Cloud Tea, which includes yerba mate, black tea, butterfly tea and sweet cream. It was partially inspired by the cold foam at Starbucks — except Shane found that the chain’s sweet foam didn’t mix into the bitter coffee.
Shane knew Scented Leaf could do it better.
“I told my mixologist I wanted a liquid-based sweet cream that goes into the drink — it starts off with a cap, but it has the ability to be broken down,” Shane says. “I wanted it to have that effect and that started a whole series of sweet cream drinks that we call the Cloud drinks.”
If you ask Nin what her favorite tea is, she’ll say matcha but she’s also excited for a new line of wellness teas set to release soon. She also loves Moroccan mint and the seasonal pumpkin chai. Shane loves the strawberry matcha and the new banana lattes.
“I think that’s the fun thing about what we get to do — we give people options so you don’t really get bored,” he says. “There’s people who always get this drink and they get it every time and that’s really cool that people have that drink they want every day. But then we also tell people you can have just straight tea without everything in it and you can start learning to love that because it’s clean and has its health benefits. But then there’s also dessert time and there’s also energy time and there’s also sleep time, so we’re able to get people the tea for their mood.”
Four locations deep, with more on the way
Most days, it’s hard to find an open seat at any of Scented Leaf’s four locations. That’s because the Barelas have created an atmosphere where you feel like it’s OK to stay for a while.
The chairs are cozy, plants hang down and TVs are muted with whimsical animations of fairies or serene nature videos. At all of their locations, you’ll find a shelf with board games and books.
“We really thought hard about that,” Nin says. “Shane has been in the hospitality industry for a long time and we know 1) people don’t get the service we feel they should be getting and 2) everyone wants to get together and have a place to hang out where somebody knows your name. That’s harder and harder to come by. We were really intentional about offering an experience and a place for people to gather.”
In the beginning, business owners doubted the Barelas — why were they letting people hang out in the shop for so long? The answer was easy: the Barelas want people to stay. They call it a community tea center for a reason.
“We want it to be like a second home,” Nin says. We started out on University with college students and maybe it’s because we’re parents but we know being a college student can be stressful and you’re away from your family. We always thought of it as — here’s your second home.
“We have a passion for this and we love bringing people together,” she says. “I’m also a health coach, so I know we’re giving healthy options to Tucsonans and that makes me really happy. To see joy coming in people coming together in a routine or playing games at the tea house or making relationship connections — it’s a little overwhelming and makes my heart huge.”
Scented Leaf has only grown since that tiny tea shop opened inside a perfumery in 2010.
After Scented Leaf opened its flagship in 2012, the teahouse opened a location downtown at 308 E. Congress St. in 2017. Then came the east-side location at 6612 E. Tanque Verde Road in 2024 and midtown, 2627 E. Broadway, in 2025. Another three Tucson locations are in the works, plus a potential opportunity outside of Arizona.
“I think there were moments when we were thinking, do we want to be bigger and travel and open up locations like what Starbucks did? Or do I want to stay within my own space and keep it easy so I can be with my family?” Shane says.
Their initial decision was to wait until the kids grew up, but business started to boom and they began to fine-tune their system.
“I started thinking if we want to take this further, we could go as far as we want,” Shane says. “It came down to — can I balance out my life where I can still come home every day to my wife, to my kids, but we still get to grow? We now have a system in place where we can do that. We can still be in Tucson and we can still live the life we want to live, but now we have people who are going to help us get there and grow with us and everyone’s going to be part of the story.”
☕️ Scented Leaf currently has four locations: 943 E. University Blvd.; 308 E. Congress St.; 6612 E. Tanque Verde Road and 2627 E. Broadway. Visit their website or Instagram for details.☕️
