Step up Your Steep with These Local Teas

Local growers and makers blend loose leaf tea centered around sustainability and health

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If you’re a tea drinker, that first morning steep is a ritual. And while a Twinings bag might be a great time-saver, preparing a cup of loose leaf is all about savoring. “Taking a sip of herbal tea first thing in the morning or last thing before bed is a deeply grounding practice that I love to share with people,” says Sydonia Axis of Seaside Botanicals based in Foster. Along with several other local makers and farmers, Axis applies her knowledge of homegrown and wild-foraged herbs to the loose leaf tea blends she creates, taking advantage of the plants’ holistic properties.

Homemade herbal teas, or tisanes, have been popping up at farmers markets and even in some local cafes for a while, all with names boasting their properties, like Seaside Botanicals’ “Calm Tea” or Kris Teas’ “Advanced Immunity” blend. Kristin Brawn Armstrong, owner of East Greenwich-based Kris Teas, explains that her journey to mixing herbs was motivated by her family’s unwitting exposure to toxic mold, which she approached by researching and blending tisanes that helped alleviate their symptoms. Radia Herbs also emerged from a healthful vision, deriving products that target different systems in the body.

Each cup of local loose leaf you steep begins in the field, down to the most unexpected plunders harvested and carefully dried for use. “All the farmers I worked for used the dandelion we pulled for tea or saved the purslane for a salad when we’re weeding,” explains Rachel Playe, owner of the Radia Herbs farm in Cranston, who got into herbalism through farming.

You’ll find sustainability at the core of many of these businesses, too. Axis notes, “I started farming six years ago with a desire to learn about sustainability and self-reliance. I gained professional experience working at local organic farms, learning about interdependence and the reciprocal relationship between plants and the people who care for them.”

And from the field to the market, many Providence tea-makers organize community outreach along the way. Mary Blue of the women-run Farmacy Herbs hosts education programs, including her Introduction to Herbalism class that influenced Playe to open Radia. Amber Jackson’s Black Leaf Tea and Culture Shop uplifts young Black professionals and engages the community with “Tea Talks”, and Sanctuary Farm was founded around partnering with local immigrant and refugee farmers to source their plants.

“I love herbs,” says Playe. “They smell amazing, they lift us out of our heads, and they’re very versatile…they help our bodies and minds heal, and they carry complex and interesting histories with them.” While the history steeped in your morning cup might not be immediately evident on the nose, those soothing notes of floral, spice, and earthiness certainly will be.

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