What I Love about Making and Selling Tea
Why tea?
That’s a question I hear a lot. It’s a question I sometimes ask myself. With so many tea brands out there, why did I choose to start a tea company?
Put simply, it was a matter of health. I started Cured Leaves Tea to literally bring healing and support to myself. Facing my own personal mental health challenges in life, I had started to explore various herbal remedies to help me feel more centered and at peace. I discovered that they often paired well with tea, giving me a sense of calm and mindfulness that I had never experienced before in my life. It became a healing ritual, and unlike other things I had tried, it worked!
After years of researching and developing blends that helped support my own mental health and clarity, I felt increasingly compelled to bring similar experiences to others. I knew that I couldn’t be the only person in the world dealing with mental issues. I see it in my friends: women who come home after a long day just feeling crushed by all of her responsibilities from work, home, and life. Many don't know how to process stress, and it is overwhelming and eventually leads to anxiety and depression.
I wanted women who feel like this, who have experienced these modern challenges, to be seen and have the tools that they need to improve their lives. I wanted women to have a way to center themselves at the end of a stressful day. I also wanted a way to help grow fair trade and improve the lives of women in distant areas where they might not have the same economic and social opportunities I have had in my life.
So, I decided to create a brand and business doing something I love, helping both the people who buy our products and the women-owned African businesses who produce them.
Creating tea blends reminds me of the process of life, planting the seed, watching it grow, going through stages of growth, being pruned, plucked and prepared. For me, creating blends provides a stronger connection to the products I work with and adds layers of flavors and meaning, making the teas more complex, sophisticated, or beautiful. Each blend is mindfully crafted with this intention. Each blend is developed with that stressed out, overworked, and depressed woman in mind. There’s nothing more fulfilling than introducing someone to that perfect loose-leaf tea that’s been made for them. It’s like a world of magic has opened and they are in for a delightful experience.
And that’s what lies at the core of Cured Leaves Tea. It all starts with finding a moment to be still and take care of oneself. That’s what I learned from tea and why I love making and selling it.
