David's Tea hasn't paid rent at any of its stores in three months

David's Tea has seen a massive drop in retail sales since the beginning of the pandemic, and the Canadian loose leaf tea company is now looking at closing some of its stores. 

The Montreal-born brand has already chosen not to renew three store leases in Canada and is now looking at exiting several more leases in the United States. 

According to Herschel Segal, David's Tea's interim chief executive, the company hasn't paid April, May or June rent for any of its stores. 

The company had around 230 stores as of Feb. 1, all of which have been closed since March 17 due to the pandemic. 

In a conference call earlier this week, the company shared that sales for its fourth quarter (which ended on May 30) was $73.5 million, down 11.6 per cent from $81.1 million.

David's Tea did see major growth in e-commerce sales, with an increase of 262 per cent between March 18 and May 30, compared to that time last year. 

The company still doesn't know when it will be able to reopen its retail stores, and which locations will still be operating at that time. 

Editor's Note: We have chosen to use the more commonly used spelling of David's Tea for this article. Technically, the company's name is DAVIDsTEA.