We were lucky to catch up with Emma Canoles recently and have shared our conversation below.

Emma, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

When I moved to the USA in 2005 I noticed a few things that was different to living in the UK. Firstly food desserts meant that she people did not have access to fresh food, secondly that the grocery stores did not sell GM free, local or Organic produce readily, thirdly that even when they did and it was accessible, people did not really know what to do with it.

I grew up cooking, gardening, foraging, learning homeopathy, herbal remedies and living in sync with my environment. In the USA there seemed to be disconnect to people and their food source. Home Economics was gender specific or removed from the curriculum and children weren’t cooking at home or growing at home in the same way I did.

I made it my mission to reconnect people to their relationship to their environment. To show that pure clean and heirloom versions of food, without additives and preservatives are more easily digestible and less likely to cause an allergy. That children that work with their hands in the soil, cook and learn about food feel more connected to their communities and feel a sense of duty and responsibility. The feel more useful and less alone.

Local food that shares the same elements as us, literally grows for us. It is biologically engineered to contain everything we need to thrive and bear the elements. Seasonally fruit and vegetables grow to sustain the season we are in. If a plant shows up in your life repeatedly it is probably trying to tell you about a nutritional need you have.

Food is medicine and unless we understand our impact on our environment and how the environment impacts us, we have little hope of looking at what binds us instead of separates us. This perspective shift is enough to heal so much.

We need to be protective of the mother that literally everything we need to survive grows on. Our custodian duty needs to be reinstated. We must know how to tend and nurture the Earth in order to be healthy and grounded.

Tea is the first form of injecting nutrients from a plant in ceremony. Tea means the gift from nature to man. It is symbolic of our connection and if we mindfully participate in this simple practice as a form of self care, great shifts can occur within our selves and our communities.

It is great act of patriotism to drink coffee in America. It was important to rally against the tea taxes imposed upon you. BUT in removing it from the mainstream, a direct root to the beginning of all civilizations was severed. Teachings, traditions and the plants that bind us are enclosed in this simple brew.

My mission is to reinstate tea as its consort to coffee, as a compliment to the cafe experience. To take it our of the outdated, special occasional treat and put it right back where it belongs. On every Main Street in America.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

After college I travelled across Europe learning street food and local customs. Getting to know why certain foods are paired, where they grow best and how different environments impact the cuisines, dress and customs of a country. I learned Horticulture, Reiki, homeopathy, Energy work, Cooking, Restaurant Management, Sommelier experience, as well as cooking.

I started a business in Fells Point Baltimore, teaching children how to grow food, raise bees and chickens and cook from their harvest. How to preserve food, create fermentations, vinegars and discussed food properties and companion planting and explained why certain food are paired. I taught local city kids about produce and knife skills and home economic style tools for being more self sufficient and less reliant on fast food. Explained why local food is not only better for you but cheaper, especially in bulk and how to process it.

Eventually people tarted asking me for remedies, recipes and access to clean food. Since being a child I have dreamed of working for myself, working off the land. Reconnecting people to it too. The American market was sorely missing tea’s, tonics and tinctures in its mainstream. To normalize the idea that we are connected. To REMEMBER our vitality and some home truths.

The concept of tea needs to change and be a vehicle for change. Life is a co-creation and the more mindfully we engage in it, the more it will respond. Being in our bodies and being present with ourselves is the best chance we have for living a life we love.

I wanted to give back custom that is not only a reminder of our divinity, a root to our oldest traditions but also a branch to reminding ourselves that we have the ability to heal ourselves and help ourselves and each other

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

I got a divorce in 2015 and moved to Hamilton, I managed to buy myself a home. The community was very welcoming and as I did not have any family I wanted to involve myself into my community and create a place to raise my son and meet like minded people.

There was a organic grocery store on the corner of Hamilton and Harford that used to be the old corner Arcade Pharmacy. A roaring period in Baltimores history where this little town thrived. Beautiful local green spaces, a lake, a thriving down town. I would go there and reminisce of home and dream of revitalizing this Main Street and all USA main streets to offer people the experience pf shopping in ones own town, a butcher, baker, dry cleaners, grocers, gift shop, all on the main stretch. Small business thriving to support their community. Foot traffic helping to keep crime down. Communities becoming a village and putting their money back into their neighborhoods.

I used to go into the store and imagine it was mine. One day the young pasty behind the counter mentioned it wa going up for rent. The landlord met me, heard my dream and granted me a probation period of substantially reduced rent to see if it would work for me and that is how Emma’s was born.

A little bit of luck, a little bit of love and a little bit of help from a whole township. Baltimore IS CHARM city and what better place to be the rebirth of Tea.

Its been hard, funding and pivoting, there is a lot of uncertainties in business ownership BUT I recall how things started and remind myself that this is a co-creation still. That as long as I am present and keep following the feelings that resonate with my dream then I have done the best I can do. I wake ups and invest in my day proactively and honestly and nurture this business into a model that hopefully will touch so many lives.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

We have our website, Instagram,. radio marketing, billboards, an APP and TikTok! We give away free swag and gift cards and support as many local schools, charities and events as we can

Contact Info:

• Website: http://www.emmasteaspot.com
• Instagram: /emmasteaspot
• Facebook: /emmsteaspot
• Linkedin: /emmacanoles
• Twitter: emmasteaspot
• Yelp: /emmasteaspot
• Other: Tiktok Emmasteaspotofficial