The kitchen is greater than a spot to whip up good meals for Titilé “Tee” Niamke. It’s a sacred area the place she combines the medicinal properties of tea and honey to assist her group.
Certainly one of two Black girls beekeepers in Memphis, Tee’s enterprise, the Tea Bar 901, sells health-boosting teas and local raw honey infused with herbs, fruits and spices. Since beginning the enterprise in 2016, Tee’s merchandise have acquired reward for his or her outcomes. One girl who suffered from neuropathy just lately instructed Tee how her Aid tea, made with pain-relieving turmeric and ginger, helped ease her aching joints. One other buyer bragged on social media about how Tee’s turmeric honey facial cleaning soap zapped away her pimples.
“I make these things thoughtfully within the kitchen and it makes me blissful to know that what I’m making for society helps individuals,” Tee mentioned. “I hope my teas and honey convey lifelong well being, wellness and concord to many generations to come back on a bodily and psychological degree.”
The kitchen is Tee’s sanctuary of happiness for a purpose. It’s the place the ladies in her life discovered pleasure via cooking. Her grandmother’s well-liked tea desserts is made with a recipe that’s a number of generations outdated. The combination of heat and candy spices made the tea desserts style like Christmas. Tee’s mom, Thelma, has been cooking since she was 9 and her meals had been at all times the speak of the city. The recognition impressed Tee’s mom to start out a catering enterprise referred to as Thelma’s Cookin’.
Tee might not be serving up pies and tea desserts, however she nonetheless follows the guidelines she discovered from her grandmother and mom as she makes her personal merchandise for the Tea Bar. A type of classes taught her the significance of caring for your village. In response to her grandmother and mom, you don’t simply cook dinner for your loved ones. You fed the neighborhood, too.
“You by no means simply make a bit bit for your self. You make sufficient for everyone simply in case any person else comes over,” Tee mentioned.
So when Tee discovered in regards to the well being properties of herbs, she knew she needed to share that information with others.
As a Center Tennessee State College pupil within the throes of post-breakup nervousness, she began ordering tea. Unable to acknowledge any of the components on the packaging, she performed her personal analysis that unlocked a life-saving treasure trove of knowledge. One tea helped calm nervousness earlier than she attended profession gala’s. One other tea helped a buddy with ADHD give attention to finishing an essential job software they’d languished for every week to complete.
After a yr’s price of studying up on herbs, Tee launched the Tea Bar 901. In all, she has studied the therapeutic properties of about 200 herbs.
Tee realizes how her household’s cooking taught her in regards to the supportive energy of Black love. If a neighbor wanted meals, her household had it dealt with. If a father or mother needed to work late, they’re watching your children.
“So typically individuals painting Black individuals as crabs in a bucket. When you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket and one tries to climb out, the opposite crabs will climb on that crab’s again and push him right down to attempt to get out,” she mentioned. “However from what I’ve seen in my household and different Black households I do know, Black individuals are a number of the most giving individuals on the planet.”
Tea Bar was a number of years underway earlier than Tee acquired into the beekeeping enterprise. She needed her teas to be sweetened, however she didn’t need to dilute the well being advantages with processed sugar. She began learning the advantages of honey, which has wound-healing, cough-soothing, seasonal allergy eliminating skills.
One drawback: persevering with to purchase jars of honey as a university pupil on a price range was turning into dear. She thought, why not get it from the supply? So she tapped an area beekeeper who agreed to mentor her and educate her the significance of bee care. Tee discovered what to placed on the honey body to guard the bees from illnesses and pests. She stayed calm round her buzzing new buddies as a result of if she acquired too aggressive, the bees could begin knuckin’ and buckin’, too.
The primary time Tee labored with a body of honeycomb was in 2018. However she didn’t get to style uncooked honey till about two years later. Golden pleasure oozed from the honeycomb as she picked it aside.
“It was method too candy, however I didn’t cease consuming. It was like nothing I ever tasted,” Tee mentioned.
In fact, Tee had so as to add her personal kick to the honey. She started infusing it with the identical herbs she makes use of in her teas. Her first mixture eucalyptus and honey as an immunity enhance for the winter.
Tee now works with 40 hives and has infused her honey with a number of flavors, like strawberries, lemon and cinnamon. Tee believes honey could be like an elixir for the Black group, particularly in a metropolis where the air quality isn’t the best, according to the American Lung Association’s 2021 “State of the Air” report.
“In Memphis, all people has horrible allergic reactions due to the toxins within the air,” she mentioned. “Honey helps individuals with their allergic reactions, bronchial asthma and sinuses. The diabetes charge can be excessive within the Black group. Uncooked honey doesn’t spike blood sugar like processed sugar does and it has antioxidants in it.”
As Tee’s enterprise grew, so did her clients’ acceptance of utilizing pure components to take cost of their well being. Again when she was simply handing out tea samples on the native mall in 2016, she mentioned individuals had been largely ingesting sodas and a few of onlookers weren’t fascinated with her spiel about how herbs can heal. Her merchandise have now been shipped to clients in all 50 states and two nations. Extra individuals come to hunt some medicinal assist via her teas and honey. As extra Black People lean into veganism and holistic well being practices. Tee, who’s 25, credit her technology’s entry to information via expertise for the change.
“We study issues our mother and father didn’t have time to do analysis for. When you’re working 40 hours every week, you are attempting to offer on your children. You’re not too involved about discovering pure treatments,” Tee mentioned. “Now we have much more free time and much more accessibility with our cell telephones. Our technology is among the largest leaders to the change, as a result of we introduced it up and our mother and father adopted go well with.”
Some people should still want some convincing. Tee’s father appeared reluctant to strive one thing new. However Tee discovered a option to slip her dad a style of her ginger lemon tea a pair months again. Her dad and uncle appeared mighty thirsty after slicing down a tree. So she poured a few of her tea in a tall glass of ice and mentioned it was ginger lemonade. Her dad now has his personal stash of lemon ginger tea at his home.
“I acquired him when he was essentially the most susceptible. He drank the entire thing,” Tee laughed.
Tee is aware of that the love and information she shares along with her group is appreciated. Throughout our dialog, a girl referred to as Tee to inform her how she has spent the previous couple of days searching for the Tea Bar 901 as a result of she was decided to purchase Black-owned honey. Tee apologized for the difficulty the girl went via to seek out Tee Bar 901, however the girl kindly mentioned, “There’s no drawback. We on this collectively.”