UPDATE:

Unlike most of America, the Seattle area was overcast and cool today which translated to not a lot of takers for the Honest Tea honesty experiment explained below. About 40 bottles were sold as a camera recorded a stand in front of Coastal Surf Boutique on Alki from 7:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. to see if the honor system was, well, honored. It was up to the customer to drop a dollar through a slit and into a clear container after selecting a bottle of tea. This promotion was repeated in 11 cities nationwide.

"We're just hanging out, monitoring the stand and the camera," said Jordan Mitchell, Area Marketing Manager, Honest Beverages. "We saw a few construction workers pick up a bottle and take off," he said. "We thought there might be a lot more monkey business but for the most part people have been honest."

He said the dollar bills collected around the country will go to a charity chosen by Honest Tea Facebook users.
___________________________________________

Today passers-by on Alki Beach may notice a stand selling Honest Tea, a popular brand that has won awards for its "green packaging". As part of a unique sales campaign, this is one "tea party" many area residents can support.

The stand will be unmanned, and will advertise the tea for a buck a bottle. A hidden camera will judge how honest Seattleites are compared to 11 other cities, Chicago, Cincinnati, Miami, Washington, D.C., Boston, Philadelphia, Dallas, New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. A city will then be named the most honest city in the nation. That means Alki has a lot of responsibility on its shoulders as it will represent the honesty of he entire city.

Some may remember the Candid Camera TV show where a bowl of singles was left on a store counter with the sign, "Please take one". Some took one. Others took the whole bowl, all caught on camera. Of course, that was before cameras were aimed at practically everybody, but also when a dollar was a lot of money.

According to its website's timeline, "We launched Honest Tea in February of 1998. Our first bottles hit grocery store shelves in June of that year offering five varieties of freshly brewed and barely sweetened tea(...)

Our first account was Fresh Fields (Whole Foods), which (founders) Seth and Barry landed with the batches of tea made in Seth's kitchen. Eventually, tea production was moved to Buffalo, N.Y. We finished our first year with sales of $250,000."

"2008 - We celebrated our 10th anniversary in February and also announced that The Coca-Cola Company purchased 40 percent of Honest Tea..."

"We were awarded Greenopia.com’s coveted 4-Leaf Rating as “the greenest beverage company” for the second year in a row, listed as one of PlanetGreen.com's "Top 7 Green Corporations of 2010" and recently ranked by The Huffington Post as one of the leading "8 Revolutionary Socially Responsible Companies," and The Washington Post named us one of the top five companies of the year. Sales hit $71.5 million."

We will update with results.