Steep Me Tea Apothecary ~ Steep Me A Cup of Tea
We felt America was due for a shift in wellness, from modern medicine to the kind our great great grandparents lived. Functional nutrition and functional fitness are the beliefs that drive Steep Me a Cup of Tea. We have been building a business that has been patiently and painstakingly tested as something that was never offered in a class. We see this as the thinking of people today by the fact that we have been open, and growing both in customer trust and product offerings, for 12 years in North Dakota. Not a typical state one would think a business of such nature should even survive, let alone grow. We have defaulted back to our humble farm backgrounds, using the earth to feed our bodies.
Jerry and I have been in the business of tea blending 2 years prior to opening our store in Bismarck in 2008. We always thought that tea would be such a great alternative to other beverages available. After being open for several years…we decided in 2010 we needed to move the business into more health and wellness instead of just great tasting teas. So, we began developing the entire line of self-help teas you see today. We have approx. 75 teas hyper focused on specific ailments. We have really been selling a lot of Wellness, Kick Ur Kold and Virus teas because of the awareness of the Covid 19 issues. On top of physical issues with the changes we face we do a lot for mental health dealing with Anxiety, Stress, Depression and sleeping. We research and test all our own blends as well as build all of them in our Fargo warehouse. Many of our teas go through a year or so of testing and getting a success rate of 60% per blend by testing with over 100 people. This allowed us to get a good blend and start getting the teas into people’s hands. Having an alternative option for people is important…For most, our teas are their health…no more prescriptions…thus saving their bodies.
We also offer our highly functional teas in capsule form now. It is amazing how well the body breaks down the herbs. In addition to using hot water to make a tea…the capsules allow you to ingest the actual herbs without throwing them away. It is amazing how well we can manage things like Inflammation and Neuropathy with a capsule as a delivery method in addition to a tea. In the capsule making process, there are many ingredients that we source that are in powder form and a capsule is necessary to achieve the nourishment we need especially in the scope ranging from Fertility Health, PCOS, Hot Flashes to COPD.
As an additional transportation method, our customers have requested is the potential of using Hops in our builds. Upon studying the health benefits, nourishments, and healing qualities of Hops, we decided to create an entire beverage line from the studies. The beverage line is called BeBold Beer – NA. The beer will be alcohol free and gluten free. Ancient grains will be used such as Flax for their oils but will remain Gluten Free. We will create “FuFu” and Fun beers but also working beers for Anxiety, Insomnia, Muscle Recovery, and other options will develop as God and our customers help us progress. The beer will be available in cans at 11oz and drafted in store on Carbonation eliminating the need for preservatives.
As everyday people we still enjoy “living”. When we want to have a beer, we do so, we want to have scotch, then ok, say a cheeseburger sounds delish, well we add bacon, cuz why not??? We are not the typical people who would stereotypically be in this business. We hunt, fish, ride Harleys, live for the outdoors, believe in conservation, and pray. Welcome to Steep Me, we build on passion and are passionate about improving lives, every person who walks in our door is treated as just that, a person. You have value and we appreciate all!!!
Steep Me a cup of Tea was approached last year (2022) by FMS Franchise, and I franchise about expanding our business. These two national companies are the top in their fields and experts in finding new business and unique companies that can expand and have a quality product to provide a new business with a fantastic source of income. We have worked to move our local company from just selling fun tasting tea drinks to teaching our guests to make tea at home. Now our business has expanded into self-help and remedy teas, capsules, and tinctures. Plus, new delivery methods for these new blends into Pickle Brine, Alcohol Extraction, Non-Alcoholic Beer, and Coffees. After we did our research on the two companies, we decided to do several more interviews with FMS Franchise. We shared our tea knowledge and our teas with the owner and his assistant and told them our story. The owner was so moved to meet us, he flew in from Atlanta to Fargo ND to see where it all happens. He was so impressed about our warehouse and factory where we make all the tea blends, encapsulate our formulas, and make tinctures, and nonalcoholic beers. He could not contain his excitement and what we can do and the variety of options to offer others. We do all this work in ND with our own two hands. We desire quality manufacturing and import only high-quality products into our FDA approved facility. Chris from FMS was so impressed, and he feels that selling our business as a franchise with be something they would enjoy doing and because they are on the sales side…they feel this will be an easy sell. We really wanted to be able to expand our business into the new locations but, for all business, we see so many small businesses closing due to staffing shortages. For our Franchise, we are offering our business idea with two impressive selling points with the concept of health and wellness which we all need. 1.: This franchise concept allows this business to be ran by 1 person, or 2 which makes this an easy to own option without staffing issues. 2. We can finally expand into other markets which could be more profitable plus getting it to people who do not have easy access at this time allowing local people to understand their market and bring in the products that they need. With so many changes in the job market to closures, downsizing, environmental requirements – many people are losing their jobs. We want to make this business affordable to own plus the owners can “buy” their jobs and have a successful future.
With these future goals and all the changes our business has made over the last 15 years, we needed to go thru a revamp of our logo. We are currently Steep Me A Cup of Tea, but we are so much more then a cup of fufu tea. We are health and wellness, and the teas and herbs can be used for feeling better with weight loss, energy, cholesterol, hormone balance, digestive issues, and such. Along with moving into the franchise world we have developed a new logo and business strategy and turned our concept into Steep Me Tea Apothecary. This new name and logo change now encompasses our business and gives that average person more info on what we really do. We have completed the logo and have now submitted it to the USPTO for a new trademark. We are excited to see the future of Steep Me…over the years of tough economy and the crazy changes that COVID produced we are happy to be able to develop innovative ideas and products for our guests and keep expanding in our crazy times while bringing health and wellness to all our guests.
Terisina & Jerry Hintz
Founders