Latest / Glovisor Podcast / He Turned Tea Into a Business—and a Ritual for Better Living | Leaf Sweat (Stavros) (Ep 58)
Transcript
- Joe: What if tea can become more than a drink and become a ritual that changes how you think, create, and perform? Welcome to the Glovisor Podcast, where we explore business growth, communication, and personal development through real conversations with people that make an impact. Our guest is a founder, filmmaker, author, poet, artist, and musician who brings an unconventional creative perspective to the world of tea. What began as a personal search for a better way to stay focused than an energy drink evolved into Leaf Sweat, a bold tea brand built on flavor, creativity, and the belief that tea should be synonymous with delicious. Today, he shares his journey as a founder, along with insights in daily rituals, focus, performance, and turning a simple idea into something extraordinary. Glovisor welcomes Stavros. Stavros: Thank you, Joe. Glad to be here on Glovisor Thanks for having me. Joe: pleasure. All right, Stavros, let's begin. I'm excited to hear more. Please share a little bit more about what you do. Stavros: Well, I kick started a tea company about a decade ago. It was originally called the Vampire Tea Company, because I happened to be a Fang Smith and a vampire author. And I was trying to create something outside of that outside of that world because it was like that was my everyday. But I was mixing up this tea which under the leaf sweat brand, it's called immortality. Who doesn't want some immortality? You know? So I was mixing it up for the first time around. And it was just I kept putting all this stuff in it, all this stuff. And it was like, this shouldn't work together, but let's check it out. And I'm trying and I was tired. And usually when I'm when I'm making a blend, I have a very set pattern where you know, it's it's very ritualistic. I have little bowls that I use the same thing because I can equate the measurements and how it's all gonna Come down when I'm making pounds and stuff. And I usually put the the infuser inside the cup and then pour the water in so the water can come through the infuser and kind of you know s help the tea to steep. Well, I was already tired and I I poured the water in and then I then I wow, okay, it's getting cold. Then I should fill up the infuser, then then I put it in and I just watched all this red ooze just coming out of it. I was like, wow, that looks like the Vampire Tea Company. blood tea! And that's what kind of kicked it off back in I think that was 2014, when I created that that one, which became the our signatures selling brand through our wholesale distributors. still it sells out in at a at a New Orleans at the Vamp Boutique du Vampire and the Vampire Cafe. serve it there pretty regularly and they're constantly selling out of it and it's an amazing blend. with Leaf Sweat I'm tr trying to dial back from that whole vampire aspect and rely more on the history of tea my belief that that through tea you can find something beautiful for yourself you know It's a very healthy beverage to drink. Outside of like clean fresh water, there's nothing more healthy for you than tea. It's the it's the number it's the number two liquid drunk on planet Earth. so there's a huge market base, market shares out in the world for tea, and it's a crowded market, meaning it's full. So I'm trying to insert myself into a mechanism that has been in motion for hundreds of years and going up against giants. Joe: Sure. Now Stavros, how did how did you come up with this name? Stavros: Well, like I said, I started out as a vampire tea company. And back around 2019, I started doing some marketing and advertising for it. And then I found a guy who quote unquote trademarked the word vampire. Because of all the legal world. And yes, he did trademark the world, the word vampire and vampire. And now legally he can like jump on anybody's coattails and ride them like a vampire and suck money from them. So I effectively just kind of killed the company. I kept my wholesale distributors. but I just I stopped, I took the website offline and I spent literally six years looking for another name. I kept tooling at it, working at it, and trying to find different things. And lo and behold, I was at work with Chaos Custom Things and I was watching Ted Lasso. And for those who don't know anything about the show, he's an American football coach who's been brought over to the UK to coach a soccer team, real football. And he loathes. T and he always comes up with all these names anything that you could just just riffin on it. I mean, the actor who plays Ted Lasso is is really funny. So I started making a journal note of all these things that he kept saying. And I thought, because he kept attracting, I would find it kind of interesting and funny that he kept knocking tea And so I started adding to the list of things that Ted Lasso could say. And one of the things I wrote down was leaf sweat. Because when I thought about it, that that's actually what tea is. When we put an infuser filled with tea or a tea bag into hot water or whatever, just like we're sitting in like a sauna or something, the the tea is releasing its toxins, its essence. I came up with this slogan called Make the Leaf Sweat. So that way it I feel like make it work for you, you know. And I like it. I like I just liked it. Joe: Yeah, it's it's interesting. I like the backstory of it. So when you first began, how many blends did you have? And how many blends do you have currently? Stavros: when I first started, I only had like two or three. the teas that I had. I had Belalagosi's ashes by this time, which is made with a lapseng sushong, which is a roasted China black tea over woodlogs in the Fuhen province of China. And I made that tea because to me it is the most robust. Flavor that anyone could drink. It literally tastes like a campfire. You're drinking fire. I love that concept. And I was like, if I could make something with this tea blend, I know that I'm on to something. That's my little fur rays into it. There's something here. And I was making a cup of the Bella Lugosi's Ashes, and I was thinking about that. And I was like, you know what? If I can just make eight more blends, I could probably do something. and I started creating some stuff like Nosferat tea, which was a black cherry, mango, and almond tea, which was so delicious. I was in love with that tea. still in love with it but I just can't drink it so much in Albuquerque because we're mile high city in boils law so that the the it never really reaches peak two hundred and twelve to release the flavor but I take it with me every time I travel because I absolutely love Nostorapti. and so I hit the ground running and I found out that wherever I went with my my 12 blends that people were impressed with the flavor. Impressed with the smell, impressed with how it looked. because a lot of times you get like a blueberry or strawberry tea, and most people don't realize it, but the flavor comes from an organic spray. And now they'll add a couple little bits of dried fruit or whatever to sell it, but the flavoring actually comes from an organic spray. feels kind of unnatural to me. I'm like, well, why can't we have real fruit? Why can't we have real nuts? Why can't we have real ingredients instead of a flavored spray? So I kept asking myself that question, and I'd play around with a strawberry tea. Like I have one called strawberry paink, with a a green sentiment. you have to use a lot more fruit. You have to, you know, sometimes papaya is a is a beautiful fruit in that it attract it as once it's dried, it kind of absorbs the other flavors around it. So I found if I put papaya in with something like strawberry, raspberry, or watermelon, that it acts as a catalyst, same way that white nectarines will do as well. So things of that nature. So I started experimenting with how real fruit could react with real leaves and that the steep will help to bring out the flavor of the fruit because it has to be dried. You can't have a wet, you can't have anything wet next to tea. I mean, that's simply leaf and water equal drink. So I had to really kind of work on that. And through trial and error and experiment and just pure just joy, I found the balance between fruit, nuts, herbs, and and tea. and came up with a couple rules for myself on how to mix and blend that work. Joe: that's interesting, because I I can definitely see why going down this path meets all of the creativity that you need. Because you that's Stavros: Yes. Joe: if you look back at all your careers, they're all very, very creative. But I'm assuming Stavros: Thank you. Joe: you must have really loved tea to continue pursuing this path. Is that the case? Stavros: yes. yes, yeah, yeah. tea for me saved my life back when I was a teenager. I grew up in Southern Maryland. I wasn't like anybody. I was kind of more of like a pseudo-intellectual pacifist. I felt like an old man in a little kid's body. I didn't, you know, I had friends, I got along with people, but I didn't really feel any connections. I didn't think that there was anything out there for me. my personal home life was kind of violent and abusive. and I internalized that a lot. So by the time I was 16, 17, I was already having suicidal thoughts. I didn't think that there was really anything in the world for me, that I didn't have a purpose, that there is nothing. I mean, I was playing music, I was in a band, but that was a struggle because none of those guys respected me. They would make fun of me, they would joke me, you know. But I'm the only guy writing the songs. Okay, I didn't realize that until later. I wish I would have, you know, had the confidence that I had now, just or a little bit of it that I have now back then, because I was somebody who didn't understand my own self worth. and it just so happened that I had gotten a hold of some unsweetened tea. I don't remember where it was, but it was around 17. I had gotten a hold of some unsweetened tea because everything in Maryland is sickly sweet with lemon. That's it. So you're not really tasting any tea. You're tasting lemon sugar water that's brown. Brown lemon sugar water. Okay. And it tasted like crap. So, you know, and I didn't want to drink sodas anymore. I felt bloated and gaseous from it. and then there's just water. It's like, is this all I got? Is but then, like I said, I found some unsweetened tea and I was like, This is good. This has real flavor. This, wow. This feels good inside of me. And I felt the first connection I've ever had to anything in that moment. And it gave me the hope that there was something out there in the world for me. And I didn't even really pursue it until decades and decades later. It just became my own personal little joy, you know, trying to find it. But also at the same time, growing up in Maryland, where everything is black iced. Tea with sugar and lemon, that's just it. If you just say, give me an iced tea, it's gonna come with sugar and lemon. And I can't even tell you how many times I was ignored, going, I'd like to have an iced tea with no sugar and no lemon, please. And this is what I get. Just pick it out. But I started learning everything I could, reading books. The history of tea is amazing, changed our entire world. Commerce, Joe: So that's very interesting. I've never heard that T has saved someone's life. And so this isn't the very first time I've heard that. Stavros: See, you have to have hope. Just in Joe: Yes. Stavros: in wherever it can come from, you need to have some kind of hope to carry on, especially through hard times. And I had a lot of those growing up. Joe: Now how is your tea different than what's in the market right now? Stavros: on on one hand it there is a lot of some same but different in that I have particular taste and and and and I want a particular quality. Right? Now all tea blends come from the same single bush, so it all depends on wit what time of year you pick it. Now every farm you get a little bit of different soil, you get different climates. Nepal is new to the tea game. Dec a few only a few decades. but the altitude, the air, all of this, you know, matters when you're growing plants, you know, things of that nature. Tea, a green tea is processed different and picked different at a different time than a black tea or an oolong or puer. Or a white tea, all of these are picked at different times of years, and then they're all processed very different depending on their region and things of that nature. Now, different regions are gonna have different quality of bush. That's just it's just the way it is. Most people probably aren't familiar with really good tea. they'll buy an orange what an orange pico, it's kind of like shake. And so what I look for when I blend is I want to create something that looks good. That when you just look at it, like, wow, that's different. That stands out. That doesn't look like anything else that I've seen before. When you go to smell it, I want it to like punch you in the face with this aromatic deliciousness. flavor. I want to slap you in the face with flavor when you taste it. So it has to look good, smell good, and taste good to my standard to be a leap leaf sweat tea. So when it comes to my blends, you're gonna get more of everything. You're gonna get the better tea, you're gonna get the better fruits, you're gonna get the better nuts, and it's all gonna be mixed together with a better quality. But then I want to give it to you that anybody could buy it. So I want to try to keep it Cost down, so I gotta shave prices off in different ways. So I differ in that I want quality over anything else. I want you to have an experience that you're gonna remember. Even if you only drink it one time in your life, I guarantee you're gonna think about it for the rest of your life. I want that. I want to give you something more simply because that's. As an artist in person, that's what I want to do. So when it comes to ordering, when it comes to stocking the normal stuff like Earl Grey, Darjeelings, salons, things of that nature, yes, everybody has that. But with me, I'm gonna give you a higher quality at a better price. Joe: do you make it to order or do you already have some already in stock and you make sure that it's sent out within a certain amount of time? How does that work? Stavros: Well, I do try to keep my blends stocked, but I don't try to like it's not a huge stock, so it's all small batch. You know? So that way, yes, I can go fill in an order. I do get kinda overrun sometimes or with the between retail and wholesale, trying to maintain it. And you never know what's gonna come in or when stuff's gonna come in. But I try to keep things in stock all the time because I don't want anyone to have to sit and wait. I'd be a liar if I said it never happens. It does happen sometimes. like take my watermelon tea, the mermaid's tail. Watermelon is seasonal. You can't get that every every day every day, week, month of the year. So I have to dry watermelon in the summer to last me through the winter. And if I run out, ow. We all may have to wait unless I can find some good watermelon someplace else that is, you know, it's warmer. but yeah, I do try to keep a small batch of the blends together and try to keep everything in stock and try to keep it as fresh as possible. Joe: Now, if someone contacted you and wanted something to be customized to their taste buds, is that something that you can do? Stavros: To a degree, yes. I mean, I'm always open to collaboration about tea blends and flavors. I I I work with a troupe of actors right now as we are shooting our content for TikTok and Instagram. And everybody that's working with with me for the the leaf sweat content, they're all tea drinkers. They they love the idea of what what I'm doing and How I'm doing it and they love being apart it, but they also come with ideas, you know, asking me, you should mix up this. What if this went with this thing? I'm like, Yeah, let's try it. So I I've started to put things down in my journal, on on conversations I'm having, and I I love to have those conversations with anybody, anywhere. I'm not the end all be all of tea, never will be. beauty and flavor resides within everybody. And you never know what's gonna work. I know what I like to drink. I know what I want. And I and I started this on that, but that doesn't mean that I can't get inspired from people around me. one of the because I do like art so much, we put artwork from artists from all over the world on our tea labels, you know, and we have like a little place about the artist on the tin to help bring interested people. So it's like a traveling gallery on our T Tins. So I want to I I want to be able to connect on an artistic level with people I have never met or probably never will meet or can meet because they're out there in the world somewhere. Joe: So what is the life of a teabag? Stavros: Very, very short. We've been shooting these things called compare and contrast, where we compare the tea inside of a teabag to our loose leaf. And there really is no comparison. I mean, there's such a small amount of space inside of a teabag, and you gotta grind everything up almost to a indecipherable powder. what we what I have found out is that when we grind my teas, the leaf sweat teas. That you still see the chunks of fruit. You still see like we had ground up the the green tea version of of green and lemon, just basic lemon lemon tea, and you could still see the yellow, you could still see the chunks. And when we compared it, you could see none of that in any of the other stuff. I used to be a big fan of Bigelow teas and when we cracked that open, me and the actress were both like going, Where's the tea? Which could then kind of made sense to me because it only tastes really good for one infusion. And a tea bag should last longer. At least two infusions. Three if if it has good quality. For me, I'm working on working our way towards bagging. because it's just the it's the future and the it's what people like. They want convenience. I get that. tea's great anywhere. Hiking, going to work. in the office, but you know, having a bag, you don't then you have don't have to clean out the infuser and all that other stuff. So I want people to be able to have three to four steepings from one tea bag. Again, I just want to give people more than what they expect. And so I don't find most tea bags have any life at all. Joe: Now if listeners remember only one thing from today's conversation, what do you hope that message is? Stavros: what I want people to remember is they deserve more. They're worth more. That you don't have to give yourself You don't have to be a super rich person, you don't have to put on airs, you don't have to be anything more than who and what you are now. And you can still have something that tastes great that makes you feel good. And that's what I'm trying to deliver. Joe: where can our audience take a look at some of the blends that you have currently and order some of them? Stavros: Well, you could go to www.leafsweat.com and you could check out my original blends under the heading Monster Blends, because a big flavor, big attitude. it's like a kaiju. Godzilla is a kaiju, King Kong's a kaiju, you know, super huge. And so I I wanted to deliver these awesome monster blends. I still love my gothic vibes, love horror movies. I still want to blend and mix and add that into it. So Leaf Sweat is able to help me keep it going. And I know you're gonna find something you're gonna love. Joe: Stavros thank you so much for joining us, and we appreciate your time and the value you've shared today. Stavros: Thank you, Joe. I'm I'm glad to be on Glovisor. really really have had a good time connecting with you and yeah, you got a wonderful podcast. Joe: thank you. Thanks everyone Stavros: Yeah, thank you. Joe: for listening. 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