Fittea

Hello again everyone.

After writing various blog entries on Recetas Erasmus, I have decided to take a break from the kitchen and return to my Erasmus experiences.

This time I will tell you about my experience living and working in Wiesbaden, Germany, during my curricular work experience with Fittea.

As I have told you before in an older entry for this same blog, Cómo encontré mis prácticas en Alemania, it was something very random and unexpected.

I decided to do an internship outside of Spain because I had really wanted to do another Erasmus in another European city but I couldn’t, so I thought I would do some work experience outside the country.

But this was not the only reason I decided to leave.

Apart from this, there was the salary problem. In Spain, internship trainees and students are undervalued and overexploited.

I will explain.

Normally, internships are not paid or many pay for transport costs and that’s it. The funny thing is that in Madrid the public transport pass you’d use to travel through all of Madrid and also Toledo costs 20 euros, so the companies made a lot of profit.

And, on top of not paying you for a job that the person next to you is getting paid for, there is the problem of working hours.

In the contract, they say that you will work 40 hours a week, with two days free, but this never happens. You’ll end up working around 60 hours or more a week, and the days you have off you have to be ready to work in case they send you something that you have to have ready for the following day. Complete hell.

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Obviously, there are always exceptions, but the majority end up having these working conditions.

And this isn’t the worst part. The students fight to find internships in Madrid, despite them being unpaid, so the companies take advantage of this incredible demand for work, and once they hire the student, they do whatever they want with them. In short, a total disappointment.

I would never accept an unpaid job, because that is called volunteering, which I don’t do.

And those that still consider working without pay continue to work because they think the most important thing is the experience, so they’re imbeciles.

So, well, when I found out that in other European countries internships pay either the same or only a little less that an employee with a permanent, full-time contract, I got serious about searching for an internship abroad.

As I said in my previous entry, my plan was to find an internship in France or a French-speaking country to practice and improve my French.

But, well, when I found an internship in Germany, I was very happy.

My curricular work experience was in Wiesbaden, right next to Frankfurt and Mainz. And around an hour by train from the financial capital of Germany.

I worked for six months for the company Fittea (that is now changing its name to Fitvia, most likely because of legal issues with another brand) in the Online Marketing department.

Surely, if you’re active on social media, especially on Instagram, you’ll have heard a little about this brand because there are many social media influencers online that talk about their products.

Fittea is a company dedicated to detox tea and accessories for tea such as thermos flasks, mugs, infusers, ice mugs etc.

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Personally, I don’t think the teas are great enough to buy, and also the quality/ price relation is disproportionately illogical.

The price is much too high for the quality of the tea. And, what’s most unbelievable is that the costs of the things or of production for the company are probably no higher than 3 or 4 euros, and yet they sell them for 30 euros.

In respect to the results, the truth is that I am impartial.

The Fittea detox teas are designed to reduce abdominal bloating and to help eliminate body toxins quickly and easily.

Then there are also people that also say they help for slimming and that drinking these teas has helped them to lose 10kg in one month.

I don’t know if they are telling the truth or if these teas produce a placebo effect that makes people believe they are losing weight when, actually, the company does not publicise this message and if you look on their website, you will see that only with exercise and a healthy diet will the tea help to reduce fat, but not that it is a miraculous tea that will help you to lose weight just by drinking it.

Some people confuse the American brand FitTea with the German brand Fittea, and they are in fact just different companies that produce the same detox teas but with a different design.

Detox teas from the American company are sold in individual packets with 14 or 28 small packets. The effect is the same as that of the German Fittea detox tea.

You will surely know the American brand because the Kardashians tend to publicise it on their social media (normally Instagram). I bet that FitTea is paying them a fortune, and yet they still have less sales than Fittea…

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Meanwhile, detox teas from the German brand come in one bag, and you have to use a spoon to put the tea into the hot water. They advise using two or three teaspoons of tea in a mug, and the packet should still last for at least 28 days. At most, you will enjoy this tea for around two weeks, then you will have to buy another bag to continue with the detox cure.

I say ‘cure’ because what both companies promise is that, after these 28 days, you will feel magnificent, and the feeling of bloating and discomfort in your stomach or intestines will disappear.

I also cannot give my opinion here on if it works or not because I have never tried this ritual of drinking tea in the morning for 28 consecutive days, and this is because I am not really a big fan of tea, and after drinking it a lot I end up not wanting to drink it again for a long time.

The good thing that Fittea has, is that in the office there is a kitchen where we could put our food, obviously, but we could also prepare there any of the teas we wanted because the shelves were full of Fittea tea packets.

More than anything, this was so that we could try all the types of tea [that I will explain and comment on in another entry] and so we could give our opinion to clients and influencers afterwards.

And now I suppose that you will understand why I grew so tired of trying this tea, because there was so much of it for free and, in the end, I was just tired of it.

Also, on my first day at work, they gifted me a pack of detox tea for 28 days and a very cute clear thermos. The detox tea that they gave me was the original, number one tea of the company, the top tea, with a lemony flavour.

In the beginning I thought it was quite good, but now I have about four packets in my house that I haven’t even touched since they gave them to me because I don’t like it as much as I did before.

In short, the kitchen cupboards were full of Fittea teas that we could drink whenever we wanted.

Regarding the fact that both companies have the same name and almost the same logo, and that they obviously sell the same product, it’s apparently something casual and not serious.

Technically, the German Fittea says that it’s not plagiarism, but the American FitTea has sued the German Fittea for plagiarising both their name and products.

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Something that annoys me quite a bit is that, when you try to search for when the company formed, you cannot find a year, and my theory is that it’s because it was created at the same time as the American FitTea because it’s 100% plagiarism…

But this is nothing more than a theory of my own, and of my work colleagues.

The unfortunate thing for the German Fittea is that, if they want to expand their market to North America, they need to change their name for sure, so now they are working very hard to change the name from Fittea to Fitvia. Let’s see how that goes.

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If you haven’t paid well enough attention to the name of both companies, Fittea means Fit, being in shape, and tea, for the drink: Fit + tea = Fittea, which tries to suggest something along the lines of tea to help you keep in shape or to maintain good health.

The truth is that it seems, to me, to be something quite original and it sounds good, but only if you’re Anglo-Saxon or Germanic, because if your language comes from Latin, like with Spanish, French and Italian, you will definitely have pronounced the name as Fittéa at first, and not Fitti (as tea is pronounced /ti/).

Although, to tell the truth, the first time I saw an advertisement I pronounced it correctly from the get-go because I realised how the name had been formed, but this is probably because I speak a few languages and this helped me to dissect the name. Who knows, but the important thing is that I said it correctly.

And, well, talking now a bit about what my job consisted of exactly in Fittea, there were two parts to it.

Firstly, I was working in the Customer Relations Department, despite having actually applied for the position in marketing. But the interviewer saw on my CV that I had worked in Customer Relations Management before, and asked if I’d liked working in CRM. The truth is that I said yes mainly because I was tired of looking for internships and it seemed like a good job with the pay they were offering.

The CRM, or Customer Relations Management, consisted of responding to emails and calls from clients to resolve any doubts or problems they may have.

Not only did I respond to emails, but I was also responsible for the Facebook page and Instagram account of the company, because there were people who had left comments on photos or sent direct messages about their doubts or problems.

The job was a bit repetitive and boring. I grew tired of it quite quickly, and after a week of starting work I already wanted to go back to Madrid.

But, luckily, my country manager in France, because I had worked in the French Market, saw how unmotivated I was and decided to talk to the CEO to ask if I could change to another department.

I had nothing to do with it, I didn’t even ask for this change, it was all due to my manager, and I really appreciated it a lot because it made my job more interesting and gave me the motivation I needed.

They decided to move me to the Online Marketing Department because, during the interview, they asked me about my social networks and how I used them, and I told them that I was an active user on Instagram, but that I had recently deleted my Twitter because I was tired of having so many followers that would retweet whatever I tweeted, even if it were just a full-stop, and that my Facebook account was personal.

They wanted to know more about my Instagram and saw that it was not too bad, and that I knew how to manage the platform quite well, so they permitted me to change department and I accepted without hesitation.

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In this department, by job consisted of contacting small influences on social networks such as Instagram, Snapchat, fitness or beauty blogs and Youtube, with more than 10 thousand followers on Instagram, more than 50 thousand views on Snapchat and more than 100 thousand subscribers on Youtube.

Obviously, what we looked for were profiles obsessed with fitness and healthy eating, so we couldn’t just contact whoever had enough followers.

So, every day I was on Instagram and YouTube in search of new representatives of the brand.

I found it entertaining because I would watch fitness or cooking videos, and so I ended up learning a bit more about how to take better care of myself.

After a while, they put my email address on the company’s Instagram page so that anybody interested in a collaboration with us would contact me.

As well as messages from influencers, I received messages from people complaining, asking for help or for more information about the products, but I didn’t have to respond to these messages, so I would normally send them straight to the girls in CRM or I would respond to the messages saying they should contact CRM, and I would give them an email of one of the girls.

My job was focused only, and exclusively, on Online Marketing.

After a while, I had so many emails that I sometimes couldn’t respond to them all during the day, and they would continue accumulating the following day. But I’m not complaining about this, it’s not something really makes me uncomfortable, so I took it easy (although at times it could be stressful for me).

After, starting my fourth month, I started making contracts for the influencers who worked well.

I will explain what I mean but ‘worked well’.

First, I contact an influencer that fits our profile, or an influencer contacts me to ask for a collaboration with our company.

Next, I offer them an exchange that consists of us sending them the company’s products for them to post photos of them using the products and giving their opinion of them in the description of the photo. We would also give them a personalised discount code for 15% off for their followers.

It will have worked if, a week or so after posting their photo, their code would be used more than five times; that is to say that five people had bought something online using their code.

In the case of more than five users of the code, we would offer them a contract for three months, which said that every 15 days we would send them a package with the products they wanted in exchange for four photographs or videos a month.

But, these were never paid. The payments were for larger influencers, with more than 100 thousand followers.

So, well, all in all it was entertaining. And also, this type of work, Online Marketing, is becoming more and more viral and more and more companies rely more on marketing via social networks. That is to say that, thanks to this internship, I will find it quite easy to find a job in the future (I hope).

I couldn’t be happier with this amazing opportunity that Fittea gave me, despite not being a huge fan of their teas myself (although, I have to admit that there are four flavours I do love and drink often).

And the best part about this was when, despite having free tea everyday in the office, we could also send orders of whatever we wanted, to whoever we wanted, from packets of tea to accessories like thermal bottles.

Look at the collection of Fittea products I ended up with.

Fittea Products

• 28 Day Body Detox.

As I said before, this tea is the number one in sales, the star product, and it’s the most well-known as it was the brand’s first detox tea.

Normally, people buy it in a pack with a clear thermos with a black lid, or with a green leaf infusor.

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This tea promises to help you burn calories faster, always and when you have a healthy diet and exercise regularly. It is also supposed to make us feel as though the tea has purified our metabolism thanks to the ingredients it is composed of, such as ginger, dandelion, green tea and goji berries among others.

This packet is available in the 28 days packet, or in the 14 days packet. Obviously, the price depends on which one you buy, but the 28 Days packet costs around 25 euros, but this is only for the packet of tea.

If what you’re looking for is a pack, the prices are:

• Tea + clear thermal bottle: 50 euros.
• Tea + infuser: 40 euros, if I remember correctly.
• Tea + clear mug: 45 euros.

The clear thermal bottle is also available with a rose gold lid, although it is more expensive, almost 80 euros for the pack.

However, these packs cannot yet be found online during the change to Fitvia, and they haven’t yet moved all the products over, but they will surely be available in a couple of months, although I bet that everything will be more expensive.

• Superfruit Detox Tea.

This tea has also become one of the super-sellers of the company, and at first it was my favourite until I tried a new tea that came out recently, the Tropical Detox (I will talk about this tea later).

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Normally, people buy this tea along with the rose gold thermus, which costs around 80 euros.

The bad thing is that it will often arrive broken to the customer, and I always had a lot of people complaining about the packaging or that they are very very fragile, and demanded that either another one be sent to them or, even better, that they got their money refunded.

The packet of tea costs the same as the aforementioned tea, 25 euros, and contains ingredients that help to strengthen the immune system and has antioxidants to help burn fat faster.

It’s ingredients are pomegranate, strawberries, nettle leaves, beetroot, green tea, raspberries, apple and more, but these are the main ingredients that you’ll taste when drinking the tea.

• Fitberry Detox Tea.

This is the tea that I liked the least.

In my opinion, this tea had a somewhat bitter aftertaste, and you couldn’t really taste the raspberries.

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The price is the same as the previous teas, 25 euros, and with a thermus it costs 80 euros, but people normally bought this packet of tea with a small rose infuser.

The effect of the tea is a bit similar to the rest, reducing fat and bloating sensations and detoxifying the body.

Its ingredients include raspberries, ginger, blueberries, blackberries, beetroot, dandelions, apple pieces among others.

It seems appealing when you look at the ingredients, but it’s not so nice when you drink it. But this is nothing more than a personal opinion because there are a lot of people that love this tea, more so than Superfruit.

• Pure Night Body Detox.

Another of my favourites. This tea is relatively new, it came out about four months ago, when I was still working at Fittea and I remember, before it came out, we had run some tests for this tea, combining different ingredients to create the perfect flavour (I could say that I contributed a little to the creation of this tea).

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Those in the Marketing department also had to collaborate to create a name for this new tea.

This tea helps to detoxify the body whilst you sleep, thanks to the moringa leaves. The boss showed us a video in which in an American television programme they tested a moringa-based tea, and you could clearly see how it eliminated all kinds of toxins and impurities.

When this tea came out, our manager told us that we had to emphasise this ingredient when talking to our influencers so that they would mention the moringa leaves in the description of their photographs on Instagram.

Apart from the moringa leaves this tea contains pomegranate, ginger, carrot pieces, cranberries, mint and lemon balm leaves among other things.

Pure Night doesn’t contain green tea, which means that it doesn’t contain caffeine, so it’s perfect for night time so that you’re not left unable to sleep, furthermore the lemon balm leaves help to improve sleep.

I sincerely loved this tea. I tended to drink it at home every night before sleeping with a bit of honey to help the flavour.

Ah, an important thing to mention. To be a detox tea, you’re not supposed to add sugar, but basically none of them need it because the flavours are good enough as they are, and the sugar would counteract the aromas. Maybe you could add sweetener, but in my opinion, it creates a strange taste and changes the taste of the tea. So, the best thing for it is honey, which is also good for your health, especially when with the tea.

• Tropical Detox

This tea is another of my favourites and tastes of summer. Also, it’s recently entered the market, they brought it out three days before the end of my internship, so I was able to take a packet with me.

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One thing I loved was that every time a new tea was brought out, they would gift us a packet to try and so we could explain to the customers and influencers the flavours and properties of each one.

The price is the same as all the others, 25 euros, and the properties are the same as well.

Like the other teas, the Tropical Detox is also available to buy as a pack, and normally people would opt for the new Fruittea Infuser, which was a PVC bottle, also thermal though not as good as the clear one because it was designed more for iced tea. The price of this pack was around 70 euros, if I remember correctly.

Truthfully, this Fruittea bottle seemed to me quite comfortable. I could put it into my bag without fear that the tea would leak and get everything in the bag wet. It was quite safe, and it wouldn’t break by accident if it fell out of the fridge.

The ingredients in this tea are pineapple, caramelised papaya, goji berries, coconut, ginger, orange, blueberries and other very tropical things. As you can see, it’s a very summery tea, and Fittea knew how to take advantage of that, bringing out the Tropical Detox just before the start of summer to incite people to buy it since the detox would help them lose those extra pounds to get into a bikini.

• Pack Detox:

All of these detox teas, the Body Detox, Superfruit, Fitberry, Pure Night and Tropical, can also be bought as a pack instead of buying them all separately, so you can save a few quid.

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In total, it costs around 100 euros or it could be a bit more, but it’s not available online right now.

And, well, these are all the detox teas by the company Fittea (Fitvia), although I imagine they will continue to bring out more things.

Apart from detox teas there are also others with other properties such as beauty, wellness, energy or health.

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