Becci Fowler still can't quite believe it.
Her business, The Tea Collective, has just opened a store in Sydney's Queen Victoria Building, of all places, where she is selling her own unique tea blends.
It's the very definition of a "pinch me" moment.
It's also a world apart from her Mayfield West warehouse where she has set aside a corner for retail and wholesale transactions - and a just reward for all the hard work she has put into The Tea Collective since the COVID-19 lockdowns.
The warehouse has been the epicentre of Fowler's boutique tea business for the past three years. It's not only where tea leaves are experimented with and blended, it's where they are bottled, lovingly labelled, packaged with care, and shipped to customers all over the world.
And it's not just tea. Fowler also hand-blends her own bath soaks and candles there ... and negotiates big wholesale orders with Australian and overseas stockists.
EARLY DAYS
The Tea Collective started out as The Tea Project on Darby Street, Cooks Hill, in 2015. A year later it moved to King Street, Newcastle, and became known as The Tea Collective Tea Room.
In 2017 Fowler experimented with a mobile tea house, Tea Collective Roam, before settling in upstairs at The Autumn Rooms on Darby Street as The Tea Collective in 2018.
She occupied the Mayfield West warehouse in 2021 and began working, in earnest, on the wholesale side of The Tea Collective and its online shop.
And just this month she opened The Tea Collective's flagship retail store at Queen Victoria Building (QVB).
"When it all slowed down and went crazy during COVID, everything was so unknown and I took the time to really work on my systems, then I got the warehouse," Fowler explains.
"I started picking up lots of different cafes and homewares and hairdressers as clients, as well as selling direct to customers online.
"I also picked up quite a few big accounts in Hong Kong, Los Angeles, New York, Miami, New Orleans ... some through doing trade shows and others just through word of mouth.
"But in this business you use your nose, and as a customer you have to smell the product to be able to truly appreciate its quality. My heart just kept calling me to retail, to open another space."
QUEEN VICTORIA BUILDING
The QVB opportunity "kind of just manifested itself".
"It's really hard to get a space in the QVB, as you can imagine, but the perfect location came up at the perfect time so we just decided to go for it. And the QVB were really on board with bringing in a new style of retail," she says.
"We've got 110 different blends there, including some incredibly rare tea that we've been sourcing, stuff that is sold in microlots ... so we've only got less than a kilogram of some but it's worth thousands of dollars.
"Each of my businesses have been a little different as I've learned along the way, so by the time I hit the QVB I knew exactly what I wanted."
The store also stocks some of the most popular Tea Collective blends, "some of the oldies but goodies from back in the King Street days".
"We've also got some really cool new blends like Rocky Road, and teas from lots of different countries, and teas that use new and interesting styles of production as well," Fowler says.
"And the space itself, oh, it is absolutely beautiful. I am so thrilled, and we are getting the most amazing feedback from our QVB customers.
"I believe the fit-out is probably the first thing that draws people in. It's like a little luxury apothecary or old-world chemist. All the walls are lined with beautiful glossy black jars and canisters.
"And once people start smelling all the teas and discovering the amazing varieties and the stories behind them, the overall consensus is fantastic."
Knowing the story behind each tea she stocks, from farm to cup, is important to Fowler. So, too, is the story behind The Tea Collective. She made sure she added some Newcastle and Hunter Valley touches to her store in the historic - and iconic - Sydney building.
"Newcastle is my stomping ground. I wanted to celebrate it and share it with others; to sell it to others. If it hadn't been for Newcastle I wouldn't be where I am now," she says.
"We sourced the most incredible timber counter top made from recycled timber from around the Hunter. I've kept it completely raw because it's just so naturally beautiful. A little touch of home.
"We've also launched a blend similar to the old Novocastrian Breakfast blend, but with a few tweaks, now called Hunter Valley Breakfast. It still has the same vanilla and currant notes in a beautiful, soft black Orange Pekoe tea."
LABOUR OF LOVE
Fowler says she always gets confused when people ask her where she comes up with the ideas for her blends. I was no exception. But come on, Rocky Road, in tea form?
"Of the 110 blends, that's probably 10,000 different trials that we've gone through to get those blends," she explains.
"So I come up with an idea, break it down and then mix it up, basically. A lot of it has to do with the smell. The Rocky Road blend has cranberries, chocolate chunks, marshmallows, coconut and then a black tea base.
"If you're working in a kitchen and hospitality, especially high-end fine dining, which is my background, there's a lot of flavours that you can identify. I can be somewhere and see or smell something and I'm like 'Oh yum, that'd be nice as a blend'.
"It's a matter of chatting to the right people, looking at the ingredients and giving it a go.
"It's funny you even ask how I do it, because it seems so easy to me. But some of my ideas absolutely don't work, believe me," she says, laughing.
Fowler used to be a chief stewardess in charge of interiors on mega yachts. Yes, like on popular reality television series Below Deck.
"I remember a whole bunch of us were asked if we'd like to be on that show years ago," she says.
"I've never actually watched Below Deck to this day but some of my friends from the yachts have and they tell me our yachts were much nicer.
"The stories I could tell you ... but it was good money and an amazing way to see the world."
Fowler is always researching and talking to people in her industry, experimenting with samples and creating new flavours and blends. At the end of the day, though, her chosen blend is a single origin black tea with a dash of milk.
"Personally I'm not really into the fruity teas and the flavoured teas but people love them and they're my best seller across the board," she says.
And what are Sydney and overseas customers buying at The Tea Collective, QVB?
"Funnily enough, the blends selling best are from our Latte Collection. They're flying off the shelves, and we can hardly keep up," Fowler says.
"Our matchas from Japan and Korea are also quite special and popular.
"We have something for everyone, from traditional black teas and herbal blends for health, to rare teas from Sri Lanka, Japan, China and Taiwan.
"We've also launched a new Australiana Collection, featuring traditional Australian botanicals and teas, that seems to interest international tourists."
Fowler is commuting to Sydney from Newcastle via train for now. It's not so bad, she says. The travel time gives her time to get paperwork done, make phone calls, do her research.
"It's such a unique field to be in. It's my passion, it's my love, it's my industry," she says.
"I've got an amazing team but I stilI probably work as three people at the moment, like all small business owners.
"But I'm so proud of The Tea Collective. It's like a wonderland of teas. There's nothing else like it in Sydney."
So, I ask, where to from here?
"New York!," she replies, laughing.
"I get at least a message a week asking me where my store is in New York, or when I'm opening in New York."
