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Sunday, July 6, 2025

Promoting the fusion of teas

by

Geisha Alonzo
2492 days ago
20180909

Shelly-Ann Daniel knows that a fresh­ly brewed cup of tea hits the spot. She is on a mis­sion to share the ben­e­fits of the bev­er­age with her range of ex­ot­ic teas, in­fused with in­gre­di­ents such as oo­long, cur­rants, corn­flow­ers and sea salt.

Afi­ciona­dos can en­joy even al­co­hol in­spired brews from the prod­uct line avail­able through Daniel’s busi­ness, The Tea Spott.

Cus­tomers choose from a range that in­cludes choco­late gin­ger bour­bon tea, a non-al­co­holic black tea in­spired by a cake which is served cov­ered in a rich choco­late bour­bon in­fused fudge sauce. There is al­so pina co­la­da, a com­bi­na­tion of fruity fresh pineap­ple and creamy, sweet co­conut just like the pop­u­lar cock­tail. It is a nat­u­ral­ly caf­feine-free drink gar­nished with co­conut and pineap­ple pieces.

Even more tan­ta­lis­ing is Daniel’s mulled wine in­spired tea which has a bright, spicy flavour. An un­der­ly­ing sweet­ness is preva­lent thanks to a flamed sug­ar cone added to the mix­ture which forms a carame­ly tone to the top.

For the health con­scious there is the turmer­ic ton­ic which fea­tures net­tle and three ac­tive root in­gre­di­ents–gin­ger, turmer­ic and sas­par­il­la. The spicy elixir can be en­joyed hot, iced, straight-up or as a “gold­en milk” lat­te.

Then there are the pu’erh teas—warm blends that com­bine bold and spicy flavours with hints of choco­late. Strong black pu’erh tea is com­bined with roast­ed yer­ba mate, malt­ed bar­ley, toast­ed co­coa beans, toast­ed rice and dark choco­late flakes. The aged pu’erh tea, which re­plen­ish­es vi­t­a­mins and boosts an­tiox­i­dant sup­port, as­sists in cleans­ing the body.

Daniel, from San Fer­nan­do, al­so has among her vast ar­ray of black, green, white, red and pur­ple teas the Masala High Chai, a fra­grant black tea blend­ed with gin­ger root, car­damom, all­spice, pep­per­corns, and cloves. It can be en­joyed straight or made in­to a creamy chai lat­te.

“The red teas are roobois teas which is an African bush, so it has no caf­feine. We have pur­ple teas which is ac­tu­al­ly not tea. It’s ac­tu­al­ly a blend of fruit and nut.

“All teas ex­cept, for roobois, come from the tea plant. How it’s processed will give you dif­fer­ent types of teas, so that oo­long teas are roast­ed. Black teas have more caf­feine than green teas and white teas,” she ex­plained.

The ma­jor­i­ty of her in­gre­di­ents are im­port­ed, ex­cept the choco­late mint and the roast­ed cof­fee, which are lo­cal­ly sourced.

So how did this hu­man re­source pro­fes­sion­al get in­volved in sell­ing tea?

Daniel re­vealed that it start­ed off as a hob­by and side job and de­vel­oped in­to a thriv­ing busi­ness.

“This is al­so my stress re­liev­er of sorts. It’s re­al­ly great meet­ing peo­ple and just do­ing dif­fer­ent things.

“I’m al­so a sin­gle par­ent and it’s a great way of show­ing my daugh­ter that you can do any­thing you put your mind to do. She is ten years old and has ac­tu­al­ly helped me a cou­ple times and she can tell peo­ple about the teas,” said Daniel who has been in the busi­ness for three years.

She has sea­son­al of­fer­ings for Christ­mas, in­clud­ing pump­kin spice, but the pop­u­lar ones in­clude choco­late lime, the dif­fer­ent chai teas, such as the dirty chai, a Masala chai and roast-style cof­fee from Rio Claro.

The gin­ger peach is an­oth­er roast-style blend which is a hit with cof­fee lovers.

“The al­mond cook­ie, which is a blend of dif­fer­ent type of nuts, is a good sell­er as well as the Mo­roc­can mint. This is ac­tu­al­ly rolled in­to a ball with the mint so in the steep­ing it opens out and it can ac­tu­al­ly steep up to two or three times.

“Then there’s bed­time which is one of my per­son­al favourites be­cause it’s a no caf­feine, non-ad­dic­tive ver­sion of val­i­um. It has val­i­um root in it so it will help you to sleep,” Daniel said.

More sup­port for lo­cal farm­ers

Part of the chal­lenge in the tea busi­ness, Daniel said, is get­ting in­gre­di­ents that are not on­ly con­sis­tent in qual­i­ty but avail­able lo­cal­ly.

“I have a sup­pli­er from the US who brings them in from all over the world but I re­al­ly do think we need to sup­port the lo­cal farm­ers a lot more.

“If I could get stuff lo­cal­ly I would buy it lo­cal­ly. I’m go­ing to be do­ing a moringa blend lat­er this year and I’m get it sourced lo­cal­ly. Just to have it or­gan­i­cal­ly grown has been a chal­lenge. I’m work­ing my way around the farm­ers to fig­ure out where I can get con­sis­tent qual­i­ty.

“If we can sup­port the farm­ers to do those things I’m sure we can re­al­ly di­ver­si­fy in a dif­fer­ent way be­cause our food im­por­ta­tion bill is so high,” she said.

Al­so im­por­tant is prop­er ad­min­is­tra­tion of the var­i­ous mar­kets to en­sure ven­dors have the best edge pos­si­ble to mar­ket their goods.

“How the mar­kets are ad­min­is­trat­ed is im­por­tant be­cause with­out the ven­dors there are no cus­tomers and no mon­ey to be made.

“Some spots are ex­pen­sive. You re­al­ly have to pick and choose and the times of the year to pick a good spot. Ju­ly/Au­gust is re­al­ly very qui­et,” Daniel said.

Her next step is open­ing a store which she hopes will ma­te­ri­alise af­ter her daugh­ter writes the SEA next year.

Her ad­vice to as­pir­ing en­tre­pre­neurs is to pay at­ten­tion to pack­ag­ing and oth­er prod­uct de­tails.

“How you car­ry about your­self and your prod­ucts is al­so im­por­tant. I have in­vest­ed in my prod­ucts and en­sure they are good qual­i­ty.

“If some­thing is dam­aged I will ex­change it and this is im­por­tant be­cause my brand is out there,” she ex­plained.

Daniel’s teas come in small sil­ver tins which con­tain about 10 to 12 serv­ings priced at $60. There are big­ger tins priced at $100 from which 22 to 24 cups can be drawn. Sin­gle tea bags cost $8.

The Tea Spott al­so sup­plies trendy tea cups and in­fusers.

The Tea Spott can be con­tact­ed at 488-3526 or 348-TEAS (8327). Email: tea­spott@gmail.com.


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