Ok, so let’s be honest, women are complicated.
Wonderful earth mothers and domestic goddesses one minute, hormonally-challenged booze hounds the next. One day, living on quinoa salad and mineral water, the next downing champagne cocktails and finishing off another sneakily hidden packet of cigarettes.
There’s an art to being a woman that men will just never get. How could they understand that we love all of it; the good, the traumatised, and the downright crazy. We just need a friend, a chat, and a good cuppa to hold it all together.
That’s why we’re here. With a passion for tea, art and life, our mission is to put a smirk on your face no matter what kind of trouble you’ve found yourself in!
Who’s Behind She-Tea?
I’ll introduce myself first as I do all of the artwork for our She-Tea canisters, and also have access to the editing facilities for our website. Call it first dibs!
I’m Jodie Fergusson-Batte. I live in Daylesford (Central Victoria), I’m an artist, mother, wife and now small (soon to be epic) business owner. Each and every She-Tea canister displays one of my original oil paintings, that hopefully bring that little something extra special to each cup of tea.
I met fellow She-Tea Director, Vanessa Carslake, while we were working in a medical device sales team in 2006. We were both nurses in our former lives and so the change to big salaries, car allowances and all-expenses paid conferences (including mini bars) was a welcome one. It’s fair to say we were both good at our jobs, and both made the most of the fruits of our labour, but when it came down to it, we wanted something more.
Tired of dreaming of working in a role we were naturally passionate about, we agreed to go away separately and write a list of all of the things that made us happy, that put that little sparkle in our eye. We met up again to compare lists and found that we had a few common themes between us; art, tea, family, girlfriends and humour were among them. At this point we decided to build a business, somehow, around these things…She-Tea was born!
As we had not yet bred, we worked, drank, smoked and partied most weekends, and then spent most Mondays repenting and jumping back on the mineral water and vitamins, only to repeat the process again. Needless to say, with blends named B*tch is Back, Booze Hound and Virgin, our first range of teas were a clear reflection of this.
Of course, after having our first children in 2009 / 2010, we mellowed somewhat and brought out the Love, Motherhood and Zen, followed closely by our Top Bloke tea and a couple of berry infusions for kids…
After all of this we realised that not every woman has the time to sit down and make a pot of tea from scratch, so in the interests of convenience, and sanity, we introduced our very popular new range of organic pyramid tea bags. Our organics cover most of the favourites including English Breakfast, Earl Grey, Green & Jasmine, Spicy Chai and our personal favourite, Lemongrass & Ginger. Yum!
Erica (top), Vanessa (left) and Jodie (right), formerly referred to as the "Bitches of Eastwick" in sales corporate meetings due to our apparently endless cackling, now the She-Tea Team.
What’s more, now we have come out of the other side of our “baby fog” (although not for long…more on the way), our cheeky black humour is returning and we can feel a new energy rising for She-Tea in 2012.
This may also be helped by the addition of our newest member, Erica Darke, who we also worked with in the same medical device company, all together in 2006 – 2009.
Erica may look like a sweet little mild-mannered princess at first glance, but I will tell you that our old company had to introduce a swear jar due to her colourful language during the monthly state sales meetings. She’s straight from Oklahoma and is already spicing up the office with her Southern accent and colourful reflections on life, and our highly organised office systems…
So stay tuned, join our mailing list, drink some tea, and keep an eye on us, it’s going to be a big year!
