Sad news, tea-lovers; DavidsTea will only reopen 18 stores across Canada, a significant decrease from the 186 stores the specialty tea boutique was operating in March.

The beloved Montreal-based franchise initially planned to reopen 100 stores, but it announced on Thursday that it would close 82 of the remaining locations as part of its restructuring plans.

DavidsTea will now focus primarily on e-commerce sales and sales in grocery stores across Canada.

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The 18 stores will open by the end of August.

Seven of the stores are in Québec, five are in Ontario, with the balance in Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and New Brunswick. All of them are in major shopping malls, the chain said.

Herschel Segal, founder, chairman and interim CEO of DavidsTea, says that he believes the decision will result in a "more sustainable and resilient organization."

"Today, our customers and stakeholders have a better picture of what DavidsTea will look like in the near future," Segal said in the release. "Our decision to reopen these select stores is consistent with our objective to create a leaner, more efficient company."

Frank Zitella, CFO and COO of DavidsTea, says that the company was always planning to shift away from retail stores but the pandemic has forced them to act at an "exponential pace."

"The plan was always to significantly reduce our retail footprint and the strong performance of our e-commerce and wholesales channels in recent months has provided further validation of that strategy," Zitella said.

"We are very pleased that the landlords for these 18 stores have offered more advantageous rent conditions to us in light of the COVID-19 pandemic."