Maybe the Idea Was Bigger Than Tea

I started with tea.

And for a long time, that made perfect sense.

I love tea. I love what happens around tea. I love the ritual of it, the flavors, the ingredients, the fact that one little cup can somehow be refreshing, comforting, familiar, completely new—or all four depending on what’s in it.

So, Sipsy made sense.

It still does.

But apparently, I can’t leave well enough alone.

This should surprise absolutely no one who read the last Flavor File.

Something kept feeling too small.

Not Sipsy.

The box I was trying to put it in.

Because every time I thought about what I wanted to share, my brain wandered outside of tea.

I’d find an ingredient while researching a blend and want to know what else people did with it.

Then I’d find a seasoning.

Then a condiment.

Then something from a place I’d never been that sent me down a two-hour rabbit hole.

Next thing I knew, I wasn’t just thinking about what we drink.

I was thinking about what we taste.

What we cook with.

What we put on the table.

What we bring home from somewhere and immediately tell somebody else, “You HAVE to try this.”

And suddenly, I had to admit something.

Maybe the idea was bigger than tea.

That realization was exciting.

It was also mildly inconvenient considering I had already built a tea brand. 😂

But the more I thought about it, the more obvious it became.

I didn’t want to walk away from Sipsy.

I wanted to give Sipsy a bigger world to live in.

A world where tea could sit beside seasonings, pantry finds, ingredients, gifts, stories, recipes and things I haven’t discovered yet.

That’s where Source & Savor started making sense to me.

Not as a replacement.

As room.

I wanted a wider table.

That’s probably the best way I can explain it.

I’ve never been interested in food as just food.

I want to know where something came from.

Who eats it.

Why they eat it.

What they put with it.

Whether their grandmother makes it differently.

Whether there’s an argument somewhere about the right way to make it. There usually is.

I want to taste something unfamiliar and then know everything about it.

And I want to bring some of those discoveries back to my own table.

That’s bigger than tea.

It’s food.

It’s culture.

It’s curiosity.

It’s people.

It’s places.

And somewhere in all of that is the thing I’ve apparently been trying to build.

Source & Savor feels more grown.

Not grown as in stuffy.

Please.

I still plan on naming things things I probably shouldn’t. 😂

I mean grown as in there’s room here now.

Room for Sipsy to keep being Sipsy.

Room for seasonings.

Room for something I find six months from now that I don’t even know exists today.

Room to talk about food without having to sell you something every time.

Room to travel eventually, taste things, learn things and bring some of that home.

Room for this to become something I couldn’t quite see when I was trying to make everything fit underneath tea.

And that’s exciting.

So, no. Sipsy isn’t disappearing.

She’s just not an only child anymore.

And if you’ve ever watched an only child find out they’re getting siblings…

Well.

We’ll see how she handles it. 😂

But she’s got her own room.

Her name is still on the door.

And there will always be tea.

I’m just building a bigger house around her.

— RI