Making a cup of hot tea in the morning is one of my favorite ways to start the day. I love the feeling of sipping a heart-warming, relaxing tea, and I appreciate the moment even more when drinking a custom blend I’ve purchased from one of my spiritual shops, a trusted company, or directly from an herbalist. Consuming everything I possibly can from small and black-owned businesses is an on-going goal of mine, so I was very happy to come across Ivy’s Tea Co. on Twitter shortly after the debut of their Trap China custom tea sets.
Herbalist + CEO, Shanae Jones, launched Ivy’s Tea Co. as a way to blend her passion for hip-hop and black culture with holistic health and wellness. Along with the creative, fast-selling, Trap China sets, that are scripted with popular hip-hop phrases, the Ivy’s Tea Co. products include original tea and honey blends with names that align with the same theme. Drinking some “Rise & Grind” out of a “Gettin’ To The Money’” tea cup really flows well with the brand’s tagline that encourages us to, Drink Tea Like an Adult. Ivy’s Tea Co. also has a blog that features informative content on herbal health and wellness, tea recommendations, original YouTube videos, and even special features that highlight customers within their community.
For this first interview feature of 2020, I talk with Shanae about her inspiration as an Entrepreneur and what she hopes to achieve through her work. You already know, it’s going to take a bit of time to read through, so make a cup of your own tea for our conversation about Ivy’s Tea Co.!
The Interview
(note: this conversation has been edited for clarity.)
Victoriadrianna: Tell me a little bit about yourself.
Shanae Jones: I’m a first generation American, born to Jamaican and British parents. I’m also a first generation herbalist. I got involved in herbalism after making a lot of my own teas, and simply not knowing what I was doing; I decided to take an herbalist apprenticeship so that I could figure it out. So from there I started really just getting involved with herbs and plant-based living, a little bit more on the survival side. Like, what would I do if Armageddon (or something like that) struck? — That’s more of my interest. On the flipside, my true love has always been music. Hip-hop music, in particular. Black culture; the celebration of blackness. When I decided to launch Ivy’s Tea Co., I just chose to take something that I loved which was hip-hop music and the celebration of blackness, and pair it with something that recently got to be more of a passion of mine, which was actually making teas and sharing herbal knowledge. I just mixed the two together, and that’s how I ended up with Ivy’s Tea Co.
Victoria: That leads into my next question — what is the concept behind Ivy’s Tea Co. and what inspired the creation?
Shanae: What we see right now in the wellness community is what I like to call, “wellness porn.” There is this pushing of what wellness looks like ideally and, just as it is in the adult-film industry, none of that stuff is real… And the way that a lot of people see wellness today, particularly as it pertains to tea and holistic health — a lot of that is not real either. It’s not authentic because it’s hard to achieve the balance that we see a lot of these gurus have. They have all day to do maintain balance, or they have a camera and share a little bit of that moment when they’re being true to what they believe is a life of wellness… But that’s a real challenge if you are the average American, or a young person who’s bogged down with college, or you’re a mother or a father, or just a person who works a lot. So, sometimes it’s difficult to achieve what you see as “wellness.”
I wanted to actually shift that narrative a bit and bring in a new idea of what wellness is and show that there is some real balance. You know, sometimes you will fall off the wagon, but for the most part, as long as you’re centered and doing what’s true to yourself, then you are living holistically. You are living a wellness-based life. So that’s like the true mission of Ivy’s Tea Co. — to change the way people see tea drinkers, to change the way people see herbalism.
The inspiration was simply just representing more blackness, more black wellness, and African holistic remedies to the herbalistic space. Right now, a lot of the traditions that we see are traditional medicine or ayurveda, sometimes they’re like western (European) traditions… So we have a whole coast of African, or African-focused, holistic health remedies that don’t get any attention. A lot of the remedies are white-washed, watered down, and not necessarily true to the original people who practiced them… So I think that I have an opportunity to share my knowledge of what it is to be black and a black herbalist, along with African holistic remedies. I just wanted to bring that to market.
Victoria: That’s a really great thing to push. Just last night I was at dinner with a friend… I got tea, and suggested he get some, but he said that he never drinks it. I tried to explain the wellness benefits to him.
Shanae: Yes, a lot of my customers are first time tea drinkers. I think the biggest thing is that a lot of people just don’t see themselves in that, “wellness porn,” I mentioned earlier. There’s an entire demographic of people being largely ignored by tea companies on the market right now because they don’t speak to young people, and they certainly don’t speak to black people. If you are a black person, then you usually have an idea of what people consider to be a ‘Hoetep’ or this supernatural, spiritual type of vibe with the incense and the crystals and all of those things, which is not a true representation of a lot of people. So that’s probably a big reason why your friend doesn’t drink tea. It’s just not something that hasn’t been presented to him as something that he can do, and if he can, then he doesn’t see himself in that demographic. And that’s a lot of people — that’s most of Ivy’s Tea Co. customers.
Victoria: What are some of the wellness benefits to drinking tea?
Shanae: There’s a host of them. From the simple practice of slowing down and taking a pause. Tea is the second most drank-drink in the world — only behind room temperature or cold water. In America in particular, we see a lot of people really going hard for coffee because coffee has this kind of grind, get you going, move, and get things done type of energy about it. Tea is literally the exact opposite of that in a lot of ways. I think that one simple health practice is taking a pause; allowing the kettle to boil, whether it’s electric or something on the stove. For [Ivy’s Tea Co.], we emphasize the importance of just using loose-leaf tea because it’s better. But even something, like using a strainer, to make it as opposed to something that’s quick or faster, like a tea bag… That simple act of slowing down is very important. It’s something that a lot more of us should practice daily. It doesn’t take long to make a cup of tea. If you take just 15 minutes to slow down, you give your brain a break. You give your body a break. You give yourself that caution, that pause, that we desperately need.
Once we actually get into herbs and start talking about different types of teas, of course teas are filled with antioxidants, and they can help prevent lots of cancers. Different herbs can be used for a wide variety of things from, raising blood pressure to lowering blood pressure, to helping you work through sexual trauma, to helping you find your voice to speak out about things, to helping women with menstrual cramps, to helping men with erectile dysfunction or other sorts of things/blockages. It’s limitless. Everything we need is here on the Earth. God gave us everything that we need for every problem that we have. We just have to connect with nature to actually get those benefits.
Victoria: So your line of china sets, is this a new product line that you’ve recently launched?
Shanae: Yes, the Trap China is another opportunity for me to bring an aspect of blackness to the holistic health space and to the herbal tea beverage space. There aren’t many black people; we are largely marginalized in that field. Trap China, for me, was an opportunity to give people something special. I feel like a lot of us are not into fragile things that we have to take super good care of. We’re really into a lot of disposable things in this day and age. Now, I don’t advocate for going back to plastic seat covers or dining room and living room spaces that we don’t use how our grandparents and maybe even some of our parents did… But I wanted to give us something special; something that celebrated us and celebrated our relationships with one another. That’s the whole point of the tea and how I got into tea was the bonding time with my mom, or grandmother, over cups. If I were able to bring an actual product that might bring people together, that would give them something to cherish and really be proud of, then maybe they’d be even more encouraged to drink tea. That’s how the whole thing came to be.
I’m really excited about the new collection, and I hope that people are still proud. People drag me because, I know, the idea of “trap” isn’t something everybody is necessarily interested in. I know that it can be kind of taboo. I see trap the same way I see funk, and soul, which are words that were used often times in the 70s. It was used to advertise a lot of different things, but I don’t take the idea of the trap lightly. I want people to understand that it is something I do understand is real. It does hold back, and it can oppress, a lot of people. Some people see it as a tool for their liberation even if it’s just something that helps them survive from day to day. I try to do my best as a business owner to remain conscious of those things, to treat all black people with respect. I don’t want anyone to ever feel like it’s my goal, or the goal of my business, to exploit blackness or to highlight what people believe to be, negative aspects of blackness. I embrace all facets of who we are and I’m going to celebrate them the best that I can; I am going to do my part to give back to the communities that are further marginalized than I am myself.
Victoria: What’s your favorite tea blend that you’ve created?
Shanae: One of my favorite teas is “Sister, Sister.” It’s a blend of chamomile, mint, rose, lavender, and cinnamon. It’s also one of the busiest teas I’ve ever made. I typically try to use as few ingredients as possible to make teas, so you can taste most of the ingredients. I never use more than seven ingredients in a tea blend — that’s my magic number. It’s just something that’s really relaxing, really calming. Being a first generation herbalist, there are some mistakes I make, mainly because I don’t have like a grandma or an aunt to say, “Hey, you don’t mix licorice root with that herb.” For me, it’s all, as they would say, tabula rasa. It’s pretty blank, so I just mix up anything, providing the constituents make sense and the flavor profile makes sense, then I just get to blending. This is one of those blends where a lot of people wouldn’t pair those herbs together, but they work really well. It’s one of our best-sellers. It’s one of the first teas I’ve actually released… It was one of the firsts I made and I was really proud of it, so “Sister, Sister” is my favorite.
Victoria: I noticed that you have a blog for Ivy’s Tea Co. What is your goal for creating that content?
Shanae: The goal is to educate. Moving into 2020, actually starting back in June 2019, I started to use the platform to really highlight LGBTQ+ voices. I feel that the platform will be better used in a way where I can give my supporters a space to actually talk about their experiences and how tea nurtures them and provides nourishment in spaces where they’re happy, sad, upbeat, depressed, whatever. So that’s where we’re going with it in 2020 — to really use it as a collective, community forum where people can talk about their relationship to tea beyond just scientific constituents like, “tea helps you fight cancer.” And yeah, it can, but there are other things that people might find that tea has helped them with. I want to give people a safe space to share stories and empower others.
Victoria: What do you want your brand to represent to the world in 2020?
Shanae: I want Ivy’s Tea Co. to represent black womanhood. I want it to represent me as a person who has taken a risk. I didn’t expect to actually be an herbalist; I didn’t expect to be an entrepreneur. What I’m doing right now with my business is risky. It’s scary to me… But I want it to be a testimony that when you follow your passion, and you pursue alignment, that everything will fall into place for you so that you can fulfill your purpose and do the work necessary so that others can do theirs. So really, a celebration of black womanhood from me as an entrepreneur all the way down to the products that I create and how they affect my biggest supporters, most of them happen to be black women.
Victoria: What is some advice you’d give to a younger version of yourself in need of motivation?
Shanae: Just do it. You can’t put anything off — just do it. Get it over with, whatever it is. Whether it’s something that’s good, something that’s bad, something that’s easy, something that’s hard… Just do it. It’ll be over with and then you can move on to something else.
Victoria: How would spend an ideal Sunday of self-care, free from rules and restrictions?
Shanae: In a condo, on the Charles de Gualle in Paris, overlooking the Arc de Triomphe. With a cup of Ivy’s Tea, a really good book, and probably some chocolate covered strawberries.
Learn more + shop from Ivy’s Tea Co. on their website, ivystea.com. Also you can follow the brand on Instagram + Twitter @IvysTeaCo.