Rise Origins: Mary's Journey to Tea Matriarch

Hi.  My name is Mary.  Along with my husband Mark and my daughter Shelly, we own and run Rise Yaupon.  Shelly asked me to write a blog about myself, so here goes….

I didn’t start out in the tea business.  In fact, far from it.  I grew up in Hawaii (as did Mark - yes we met in high school and are THAT couple!) During my professional life, I was a Speech-Language Pathologist.  I worked with all age groups treating a wide variety of disabilities including: elderly stroke victims, dementia, traumatic brain injuries, swallowing problems, childhood developmental delay, autistism, and run of the mill speech problems.  You name it, I worked with them to maximize their communication potential. I loved being able to serve clients of all ages with a wide range of speech and developmental problems.  

When my husband and I both retired (in 2015), I envisioned a life of travel, beach, surfing, doing ceramics and my favorite pastime of reading.  How wrong I was! 

 

Mark was tired of travel and living out of a suitcase (he is a retired Delta pilot).  He convinced me to invest in a local tea company, saying that we would be silent investors, not doing any hands-on work.  It didn’t take long for Mark to be spending more and more time with this company.  As time went on, I started complaining - totally justified - as most wives would have done in this situation.  The response was unexpected.  If you want to spend time with me, come help in the factory.  That started the slippery slope into the tea business for me.

After a number of years, that company relationship didn’t work out.  We split and took some months off to regroup.  What now?  I was back to the travel and beach plan, but Shelly and Mark wanted to continue with producing a smooth, great tasting tea in conjunction with helping the community.  Rise Yaupon was born.

We all do everything in this business, but we also bring different strengths to the table.  Mark is the master inventor and builder.  There is nothing he won’t take on.  He is also awesome at doing demonstrations in stores and selling our tea at various events.  Shelly is the business guru.  She keeps tabs on the financial side and keeps that running smoothly.  I am the go-to person for production.  I keep everything running, making sure that supplies get ordered and our employees stay productive and happy.   You will find me at events selling our tea, but my comfort zone is behind the scenes keeping things on an even keel. 

Our other daughter, Lindy, is a physician and she helps with formulating some of our more exclusive blends.  Angela is our farm partner, and she helps with that side of things.  Oh yeah - we also have a farm with just under 800 Yaupon Holly trees… you know, starting small.  We recently built a greenhouse so we can propagate Yaupon and some of our blend ingredients… you know, just keeping things moving and evolving with tea as a focus.

I don’t know many people who have lived a linear life.  I certainly have not!  But I love all the different jinks and turns and am especially grateful for where I am in life right now.  I get to work  with my family, producing a fabulous tasting tea that is from a plant native to Florida, and hire those who could use a helping hand.  That gives my life meaning!

 

Happy Steeping!

Mary