Startup offers healthful benefits of tea

Graduating from college should be a time to celebrate, but for Grace Lee it was a setback.

“My health went downhill after graduation,” said the Reno native and Reed High School graduate who graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2013 with a degree in finance and Chinese.

Lee says while friends were starting new careers, she was too sick to look for work.

“I realized how important my health is, I can’t apply for a job, I can’t do anything if I don’t have my health,” said Lee. “So I started to look at my diet and to look closely at tea. I grew up in a Chinese family and Chinese people use tea as medicine and a way to balance the body.”

That was the beginning of Lee’s start-up business, Natural Warrior Tea, which this month began selling loose-leaf tea imported from China.

After her initial research and own change in habits, Lee decided there might be a business in selling tea.

That led her to last year’s World Tea Expo in Los Angeles and then to a trip to China where she learned there are many, many types of teas and a lot more to the business of the popular drink.

“The industry is really complicated,” said Lee. “I came back from China finalizing how I would do this. I wanted to do an online business to reach out to more people. At the same time, I wanted to form a connection with the community.”

Lee designed the Web site — www.naturalwarriortea.com — herself, using the Shopify platform for e-commerce.

She advertised for a graphic designer, received a bunch of portfolios and decided on a designer in Los Angeles who designed the company’s logo.

The packaging for the teas and other business materials are printed by Print4Mat, a print shop in Reno.

The community outreach Lee wanted to do started with a booth at Reno’s Journal Jog, the annual 8K run and walk, last September, where she and a couple friends provided tea samples and talked to people about the health benefits of tea.

Lee reached out to the local gyms and personal trainers to build up the business’ name.

She also took part in the Biggest Little Startup competition, a Shark Tank-like competition in November, presenting her company to a panel of judges.

Lee made it to the final round, but didn’t win.

“It was an amazing experience. It was nice getting to know a lot of people running businesses here and helped me realize what I needed to work on,” said Lee. “It helped get the word out (about Natural Warrior Tea) as well.”

This month Lee had what she calls a soft launch of the site, after no advertising and just word of mouth marketing.

“We sold $300 in about two days,” said Lee.

Natural Warrior Tea sells seven types of loose-leaf tea, including black, green, guayusa, an Ecuadorian tea, and yerba mate, a South American plant. Lee buys her product from farms in China and another distributor in the United States.

She says tea from loose leaves are better than crushed tea found in tea bags, more full of anti-oxidants and energy-boosting agents.

The web site provides information on the medicinal value of tea, a way for Lee to market her business.

“People will find it in Google searches,” she said.

Lee is also reaching out to people in the local fitness scene again to plan some events and eventually hopes to talk with some local stores about carrying her products.

As for her own health concerns, Lee says she is fine now.

“I’m totally normal now and a lot of it has to do with changing my diet and tea,” she said.