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

Russell, appreciate you joining us 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.

So I started crafting tea blends when I was in high school, truly after my ADHD kicked in one day.. About 7 years ago was when I started taking my craft more seriously and began playing around with flavor profiles and such, and trying to figure out how to make exciting tea blends. Finally at the end of 2020 I said “Know what? It’s a global pandemic, why NOT try and start selling teas!”

As to how “A Witch’s Brew” came to be, I have been infatuated with mythology and folklore since I was little and wanted to try and blend my love of tea and mythology. In a sense, I try to craft tea blends that are honorific of mythological figures. When I am set up at markets, I am given the opportunity to talk about these figures and how they impact my craft, and that has actually influenced people’s decision as to what blend they buy because they want to see how these tales influence specific blends.

Russell, 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?

A Witch’s Brew is truly the personification of my love of tea and myths. When I first started selling blends, I wanted to focus on some flavorful blends and more wellness focused blends, but I wasn’t as passionate about that. Once I flipped to focusing on these blends that honor world myths, I truly felt my passion for my craft take off, and all of my customers can see that now.

I try to craft my blends in a way that does not rely on multiple added flavors in order to make a delicious blend. Yes, I will use extracts to add an additional flavor element but I try to not do that with every blend, especially since you can’t truly have a distinct fruity flavor like lemon and orange without an added flavor or extract. All of my blends feature whole herbs, spices, and flowers, so not only are they delicious but beautiful to look at. These are a few things that I feel help make A Witch’s Brew unique and different. I don’t want to reinvent the wheel of drinking tea, I just want to do things to a way that feels authentic to me.

We’d love to hear the story of how you turned a side-hustle into a something much bigger.

I am still in the process of taking this side hustle and making it a full time hustle. When I am not crafting tea blends I am a full time licensed massage therapist. What does that mean for me? Well some weeks it is 5 days of massage, 1 day of setting up at a market, and 1 day “off” to try and actually catch up with things around the house. Add in still needing to find time to produce all of my blends and bag them up, and that makes for some ‘fun’ weeks. Especially when I was getting ready for the Black Friday/Small Business weekend. I think I made about 120 little bags of tea and about 100 regular sized bags of tea in about a 10 day period? Let’s just say there was a lot of excitement and a lot of loud music playing to get me through that crafting period.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I feel like my adult life has been all about pivoting. At one point I wanted to be an educator, then I thought I wanted to work in hotels, then that turned into a makeup artist, before finally coming to today which is a massage therapist and tea crafter. I feel as though the most recent pivot in my life, which was changing where I massaged at in order to try and condense work days and give myself a bit more stability as well as time to devote to my business is going to be a very positive pivot. I realized I was running myself into the ground as well as panicking over every little thing and needed to make a change for my mental health.

Contact Info:

• Website: awitchsbrewtea.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/awitchsbrew/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/awitchsbrewtea

Image Credits
All photos are taken by myself, Russell Underwood