By Nicole S. Daniel
The Birmingham Times
Tierra Robinson Jeter, owner of Fairfield-based La’Fleur Coffee Boutique, wants her customers to do more than just like her products. She wants them to know why they enjoy her luxury coffee and herbal tea.
“I’m always interested in what my customers like so that I can get an idea of what they want or need,” said Jeter.
To that end, the business owner makes sure she goes out of her way for her customers. “A luxury experience starts as soon as someone walks up to my table or into the store; I try my best to be as professional and approachable. I will always have a smile on my face,” she said, adding that you’re more personable that will make customers want to purchase from you.
Also, with every purchase online she tries to be prompt with responses and shipping out orders. “I really take pride in how I package everything; everything is hand packaged by me. If it doesn’t look, right, I’m going to do it again,” she said.
In addition to selling coffee and herbal teas La’Fleur Coffee Boutique sells accessories such as coffee mugs, gold stainless steel straws, coffee scoops, and reusable coffee filter cups.
“For some orders, I may throw in a free accessory because I want people to feel like their business is appreciated. I don’t ever treat anybody like they’re just the number because I’m grateful for every purchase, every customer that even inquires about my brand or feels drawn to my brand, and I’m appreciative of them so much,” said Jeter.
Her customers can purchase the gold stainless steel straws that come with one straw cleaner per order.
“It is a part of the luxury experience. I just get a different type of feeling when I use those straws. You save money and it’s not something that you’re going to throw away they are non-toxic, and they don’t peel,” said Jeter.
The Flower and The Flavors
Jeter knows her target audience. “I discovered millennial women make up the majority of the coffee drinkers in the United States right now,” said Jeter.
She would go to a local coffee shop to create content for her blog Blossoming Unlimited to empower young women and looked around “and I kind of just realized that I wasn’t in the environment that I felt comfortable in and God gave me the vision to create an environment for women of color and millennial women from all walks of life,” said Jeter.
After doing her research and connecting with other coffee shop owners Jeter launched La’Fleur Coffee Boutique in August 2020.
“La’Fleur is a French word for flower and the vision came to me while I was blogging years ago,” she said. “Whether you’re working woman, stay at home mom, whatever the case maybe I just wanted somewhere where we could feel empowered comfortable in a comfortable space.”
Her first step was to develop the product. “I actually sat on that idea for about four or five years before I actually moved forward,” she said.
While studying business management with a concentration in production and operations at The University of Alabama at Birmingham, Jeter researched how to start a business and where to purchase coffee products.
“I ended up connecting with some other coffee shop owners in the city and that led me to coming out with my first two products and they were the house blend and white chocolate mousse, both are ground coffees,” she said.
“House Blend is perfect to jumpstart your day and it provides a smooth harmonic taste with less acidity.” White Chocolate Mousse is 100 percent Arabic coffee roasted to a medium brown flavored with natural and artificial flavoring.
To create an effective product Jeter researched herbs and came up with the perfect blend using elderberry and lemongrass as a few ingredients which is one of her best sellers, said Jeter.
Lemon Berry Refresher is one of her favorites, she said.
She also makes another tea called Lights Out which is blend of chamomile lemon peels and lavender.
“Although it’s titled ‘Lights Out’ to help you with sleep, I also like the fact that the herbs help with anxiety and that’s something I’m overcoming. I created that blend for myself but when I started to talk about it and connect with my customers and learned they were dealing with anxiety and not being able to sleep I added it to my menu,” she said.
For non-coffee drinkers there is organic Jasmine Green Tea — “an alternative to coffee because it’s highly caffeinated but it’s still healthy,” she said.
Asked what makes La’Fleur Coffee Boutique unique Jeter said, “I feel like my brand as a whole is unique because of my brand colors, the name, and I definitely create like a luxury experience for my customers.”
La’Fluer Coffee Boutiqe colors are hot pink and gold.
“When you think of coffee you mostly think of like brown or tan you know, and I use those colors as accent colors, as well as gold. But I just want it to stand out and I feel like that was something very different,” said Jeter.
Family
Jeter’s love for coffee began as a child in her family home in Hueytown. She was attracted to the aroma every time her great grandmother Arsenia Jackson brewed a pot of brown coffee.
“My great grandmother also had a garden in her backyard. I would learn from her by being in the garden about herbs.”
Around age 5 she was introduced to herbs and its benefits while drinking tea almost every day with her grandmother Barbara Figgers.
“She would drink tea every single morning; I would sit at the kitchen table and drink tea with her. Both were very influential in me creating La’Fleur Coffee Boutique.” said Jeter.
Jeter, 29, and a wife to Jonathan and mother to Josiah 6, and Lynnox 2 said her son is her “number one supporter. He loves my business; he always tells me I’m doing a good job and he loves the smell of my coffee. I don’t make him any coffee drinks, but I make him Frappuccino’s without coffee, and he enjoys. My daughter’s favorite drink in the lemon berry refresher there’s no caffeine in that,” said Jeter.
Health Benefits
Jeter promotes coffee because outside of energy from the caffeine it has a lot of antioxidants.
“It actually helped me to not only speed up my metabolism but burn fat, a lot faster,” she said. “If you over if you have too much of anything, it cannot be a good thing but if you drink it and drink in moderation it has a lot of benefits for your digestive system,” said Jeter.
On her website, she also offers a Coffee Cleanse with lemon juice.
“I had picked up a lot of weight after my second child. I had digestive issues, when I started drinking just black coffee and took a lot of dairy out of my diet, I noticed how things were changing, and my digestive system was a little bit more regulated. I realized by adding the lemon juice, which also has a lot of antioxidants in it combined with the coffee, it really did help to burn the fat faster. So between the intermediate fasting and changing my eating habits, I lost over 50 pounds,” said Jeter.
To learn more about La’Fleur Coffee Boutique visit their website at https://lafleurcoffeeboutique.com/ The business operates Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. out of The Pink Trap located at 5230 Valley Rd, Fairfield, AL 35064.
