Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Paul Frushour. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Paul , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. How did you come up with the idea for your business?

I have always been fascinated with the idea of working for myself, building my dream and not busting my butt to make somebody else rich.

During COVID, I really dove into loose leaf tea, and my cabinet of whiskey, and this continued into 2021. It was in May of 2021, my son now 5 years old and my newborn daughter, almost 8 months old, that I decided it was time to put down the whiskey, the scotch and the beer. Giving up whiskey was a big life change for me. Whiskey wasn’t part of my identity, but I had built a ritual around the spirit. I needed to fill this void.

I first found a scotch flavored loose leaf tea, and then a bourbon flavored tea. While I enjoyed these teas, they still lacked what what I had in the actual liquor- pleasure. These teas were trying to replicate the relative liquor, which tea will never do. I decided it was time I do something about this and create my own line of teas. With this being a ritual, it was a requirement I use loose leaf tea. I began developing the teas geared toward men, the name at the time, MasculinaTEA.

I then began to play in my kitchen, coming up with ideas and testing different methods. During this time, I also met with various contacts that had experience in this world to validate my idea and to help get me going in the right direction.

I messed around with this for the rest of 2021 and all of 2022, it was spring 2023 that I looked through my notebook and realized how much time I had wasted on this idea. I decided enough was enough and it was time to get serious. I made some quick contacts with local businesses that could help me get this going. I worked with my local tea supplier, explained what I wanted and they were vital in the creation of what is now known as Bearded Man Provisions. I went from trying to replicate what I had with whiskey, to building an entire tea experience that now rivals what whiskey provides. The teas that I curated provide a great alternative experience. Anybody can sit down with a glass of this tea and have a full tasting experience. Instead of having whiskey flavored teas, I honed in on having whiskey inspired teas. That way you can build your own experience around the beverage and what you take from it versus depending on my take of what it is and explaining what you will get from it.

I am currently in the process of building and scaling the business. I’m working to get the tea in front of the masculine male market, which I am in direct competition with coffee for views and space. The teas under the Bearded Man label will stand toe to toe with coffee as I have surprised a few coffee drinkers with the flavors and boldness the tea and had more question on whether coffee really should be their drink of choice. You probably won’t find Fireside or Black Gold at my daughters tea party anytime soon, but keep your eyes open, it’ll continue to pop up. I am talking to people and businesses coast to coast and even have the stamp of approval from a great gentleman in England.

Paul , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I am a guys guy, along with being a husband and a father, I’m just trying to figure out how do do everything each and every day. I had zero experience in the CPG (Consumer Packaged Good) world before I started this endeavor, so there has been a lot of late nights spent researching and finding out that I need to spend more money on this permit, or that license.

Being new in a space that from what I can find, virtually doesn’t exist, I’m building my own path. There are no dedicated brands of tea that are driven toward the masculine market. I’m working every day to let these guys know there is something else out there they can enjoy, and it is just as rugged as coffee, and less acidic, and just as flavorful as whiskey, but allows you to drink it whenever you want.

The concept around everything I offer currently and in the future under the Bearded Man Provisions brand will be about slowing down, enjoying life and buy something that is worth it, not something that is only for a quick dopamine hit.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

A great inspiration for how I go about handling my business has come from the book “Slow Productivity” by Cal Newport. The idea in this book is don’t do it all, and please don’t do it all now. Take the time, do step one, master it, then move onto step two. The time it takes to do this, is the time it takes. In the business world today, speed is king, however what comes with that is burnout, cut corners and low quality products. Take on fewer ideas, sell fewer, but better products that you know well and the return will eventually match the effort. It may not be right now or even tomorrow, but the return will be there and will be greater than if it was rushed.

This has really helped me keep perspective in that this venture is a long play. I didn’t go into it to make cash right now. I’m working to build a brand, build an experience. Everything I sell I use every day myself. The experience that I have built with the products offered, for the prices, have no rival.

We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.

I blend and package all of the teas myself. I had no idea what I was doing when I started and to this day, I still compare the feeling of going to blend and package tea to Walter White making a batch of his blue crystal in Breaking Bad. I have my blend recipes that I hold close.

I’m always looking at ways to streamline and scale up the process. As the business picks up, I will need to shift to a warehouse space as right now I’m renting kitchen space on an hourly basis for blending and then storing everything in plastic bins. You could say Bearded Man Provisions is a yellow lid, black bin business.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.beardedmanprovisions.com
• Instagram: @beardedmanprovisions
• Facebook: @beardedmanprovisions
• Twitter: @beardedteaguy
• Youtube: @beardedmanprovisions