Storehouse Tea Company
Paula Hershman
www.storehousetea.com
216-406-9139
The Storehouse Tea Company is a social enterprise that manufactures Certified Organic Fair Trade Loose leaf teas. Storehouse Tea is located in the Clark/ Fulton neighborhood of Cleveland. We hand blend 50 plus Organic Fair Trade teas and ingredients from all over the world. We employ internationals, newcomers to Cleveland to help us with our tea production work. We hope to improve people’s life chances, and support the community we are located in. We also support Fair Trade and provide an excellent organic healthy product. When social enterprise, profits society profits.
What inspired you to get started in Fair Trade?
It was a no-brainer for me, being a woman owned company. The majority of tea pickers around the world are women. Supporting them was an easy decision.
What is your favorite thing about Fair Trade?
Our favorite thing about Fair Trade is that we know that the extra money that we pay per pound of tea goes back to the women who carefully hand pick our tea leaves. Money also goes back to the small communities where these people have lived all their lives. All of the tea garden’s that we buy from are also Certified Organic which means the owners are responsible, they care about how their tea leaves are grown and take care of their workers. Happy workers = excellent tea leaves! That is what we are all about creating an excellent product that is all around doing good for producers, employees and end users.
What can individuals do to promote fair trade beyond the label?
First, there needs to be education about Fair Trade. Owners of products or brand holders need to tell the story behind their product with photos and interest. Stores need to provide customers with reliable Fair Trade options.
What else should we know about your or your product or both?
We are not an actual tea house but a manufacture of high quality Organic Fair Trade teas. We mostly wholesale our line of teas to stores and specialty shops and private label tea for other businesses who want to support Organic and Fair Trade. If you know of any wholesale opportunities we would be happy to have the referrals.