Alchemyze Elixirs: The brain child of a Master of Ceremonies and self-described Kitchen Witch

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Tenney Rosenblum See and Erin share a deep love for botanical alchemy, a practice of using herbal remedies to transform overall well being. See, a master of ceremonies, possesses a deep expertise in tea from identifying the origin, aroma, taste, and mouthfeel. He loves to connect with community through tea and botanicals. Erin is a self described kitchen which with a love of herbal mythology, the duo joined forces to launch Alchemyze Elixirs, bringing Chai concentrate and ready to drink Chai lattes to the DC market. So tell us a little bit more about yourself and how did you get into food?

Erin Beata Well, hello, I'm Erin Beata.

See Ellauri My name is See also known as Cristian Ellauri,

Erin Beata and we are Alchemyze Botanical Elixirs.

See Ellauri That's right We are and we are launching right now with our adaptogenic chai.

Tenney Rosenblum I'm drinking it right now. It's pretty good. It's very good. It's good to drink. It's good to share. It's good to share and drink.

Erin Beata Yes, the ritual of Chai bringing community together.

See Ellauri Yeah, that's the whole that's the whole flow, botanical allies, my friend, you know, we have all these plants in our lives we have all these plants, like how often do we actually go out and harvest things from nature and be part of what is going on in our natural world. So it's like by bringing a lot of these herbs into one concentrated beverage, we have an opportunity to really imbibe on the vibe of the natural.

Erin Beata In terms of how we got into food. I think See and I individually have always been community builders. And when we when we did finally team up and ended up doing tons of catering events together, we really found, I think, a newfound passion for how herbs and drinks and botanicals and our connection to the plant world can actually really create a solid foundation for bringing us together in community. That's right.

Tenney Rosenblum So what inspired you specifically to get into like the business world have you always had a business background in or is it just something that kind of came out of this?

See Ellauri Yeah, well, my flow is that I had an art center after I finished my master's degree at University of Hawaii. So I had an art center there. And then I really loved having my own business. Actually, before that I had a children's theatre business. And then after that, I started a locally grown Tea Company. So it's always been about trying to serve people in ways that I don't see them being served, you know, and fulfilling those desires that are not being met. And with this tea, I feel like it does fulfill a desire gives you that you know, that cafe experience right in your own home. And that's such a gift. And, you know, like when I had the tea cart, I used to go to farmers markets and hustled tea at the farmers market. So that was all about bringing us back to local plants from there. And then after that I had a cafe and now also was about like Erin was saying community bringing people together. And what's the way it doesn't have to just be through alcohol man, we can also get together through other things like even this Chai or cava or other stuff.

Tenney Rosenblum Speaking on the tray you brought in today. Can you tell me a bit more about the products he brought in?

See Ellauri Sure. So what we have here are two glass 32 ounce bottles. And each one of these one of them is a spiced black unsweetened Chai concentrate. Now this is a nice got a nice spice to it. It's not sweet, so it's going to be mixed. It's a concentrate to be mixed. Pretty much half, maybe two to one or equal parts milk depends how you like it. And then this other one is very similar. It's also an unsweetened concentrate. adaptogenic Chai, but this one is caffeine free, so it can be enjoyed at night. You know, like if you don't want to have a big sweet at nighttime and said you want just like an indulgent drink. You can try this one.

Erin Beata Yeah, and it seems mentioned this recipe in this child has been served to 1000s of customers through farmers markets, events and See's old tea house in the San Francisco Bay Area. And now you know really one of the main focuses for us as being able to really bring to market especially when we look at so many of the teas and concentrates that are just really watered down and full of sugar is that this really gives you a really rich deep experience of a beverage that you know has a lot of really amazing properties in it that are actually really good for you.

Tenney Rosenblum Any funny mishaps during the launch process?

See Ellauri When you're doing this process, so many things can go wrong from formulating putting things together from putting your box together and not having the right labels and the right, this and the right that. I mean, there's so many things. I mean, what's something that's actually funny?

Erin Beata Funny, funny, I don't know, I think that funny, sad kind of had me crawling in my own skin was trying to figure out how we took this drink that, you know, used to be served, you know, straight away to customers, and being able to bottle it and preserve it. And doing that in the most natural way possible. So that we were really bringing through. So yeah, no waivers. So the lemon juice chai.

See Ellauri Chai that tasted like lemon juice.

Erin Beata Yeah, so we had quite a few, quite a few funny stories and growing pains around that. And definitely, you know, the bottling experience as well, I definitely have had moments of those 2am experiences where we're like spraying Chai all over the kitchen, and you just get to a point where you have to laugh at yourself and know that you're connected to something deeper that makes it all worthwhile.

Tenney Rosenblum Has anything surprised you about starting your food business?

See Ellauri I always am amazed by the numbers. In this business. It's it's honestly, I for someone who's been an entrepreneur and had my own business, like several my own businesses, when you're doing a packaged food product, it's definitely a lot slimmer margin. And that was really surprising to me. So from the market that takes up, like 25% of the distributor that also takes another 25 that leaves you with like, you know, your starting point is half of what you thought it was, at least for me. So that was really surprising to me. I didn't expect that to be so, so severe. I was hoping that would be more than 25% like the market takes. But you know, so then you learn that it's like, yo, bro, it's all about volume, you got a call and sell 1000s and 1000s of these things if you're gonna make a living, so I'm having fun with it. I mean, what else can you do?

Tenney Rosenblum So what's one brand that you really admire? Is there any ones that you kind of look towards as like a model for while you were making your product?

See Ellauri Hmm. I really love kombucha. We love GTs. Yeah, they're so good. I love kombucha.

Erin Beata Yeah, I love kombucha as well. You know, I also have to say that from a local perspective, Hex Ferments, has been a company that I've really looked up to their standard of quality and the level of care that they put into the way that they source their ingredients. And also just their branding is so onpoint, they've definitely been an inspiration to me of how you can really educate people around the importance of local plants and herbs and being able to present it in a way that's really appealing to the market.

See Ellauri And they have value, you know, that's what I love about it. It's like, same thing with what we're giving here. It's like, we just want to give value to people so that it's worth it, it's worth the money. And I think that they've been a prime example of people who are really willing to invest in their own health, which is a huge piece of really what we want to bring through our products.

Tenney Rosenblum Do you have any advice for someone who's just starting out? Like, what do you want to say to them?

See Ellauri Go and get yourself an Erin, she's amazing. And then it's then everything is possible. You know, it's it's like, right now we put ourselves in a position where we're living with my mom, we are like together, and we have this kind of drop everything to do this business. So we've eliminated a lot of the expenses that I usually have in my life, like paying rent. So it really helps to give yourself a little bit of a launch some time and space to get things moving. And to really try to have it as figured out as possible before you really want to make a living or a business out of this. And that means having it preserved knowing what you're packaging, having connections and and people who you love in the art world who can help you to make a beautiful design and a logo, like all these people that you come in contact with each and every day, whatever you see, that inspires you like bring it in, bring it into your world, connect with it, connect with those people, make them your friends and your family in your community. Because this is about everybody in all of us. And we're not just a bunch of series of emails, we are all individuals and we all deserve like love and respect. So, you know, bringing that

Erin Beata Yeah, I would definitely say to that, for me, it's been you know, we've I feel like we always have like, either we have it or someone in our family has that like one recipe that you're like, ah, you've like everyone has to try this. And I think that it's important in coming into this to sometimes maybe get out of the fantasy of what that could be and really get connected to what your deeper mission is because when you're in the day to day grind of it, and when you're up all night trying to figure out how do you scale this thing to actually hit market, I think it's been so important to remember to stay connected to that deeper thing. So when you're totally boggled down that you remember why you're actually getting involved in this in the first place.

Tenney Rosenblum So what's next for you guys? Where are you planning to go from here?

See Ellauri We are on a coffee house tour of washington dc in the DMV area, every single coffee house we are trying to hit up and offer what we have. And once again connect with people connect with what do they need, what opportunities can we open up for them and facilitate and if that's just like someone else who's knowledgeable in the field, you can connect with, great and someone we're actually going to be able to sell to awesome.

Erin Beata Yeah. And what's next out of the kitchen is definitely a lot of fun late nights experimenting. We have an amazing limited edition sweet rose concentrate is about to hit stores in the next few months. So we're really excited about in addition to we have these amazing golden discs that are going to be hitting the market pretty soon as well. We're definitely excited about the expansion of our product line.

See Ellauri Yeah. And on tap, we're looking to be on tap. cold ice cold chai latte on tap at UK new kitchen should happen to nytro Chai nitro yourself.

Tenney Rosenblum I've tried the product I just have to say before we go this is a really good product you want to give yourself one last shout out with a name and where you can find your product.

See Ellauri Sure. We are Alchemyze and our product that we're talking about is adaptogenic Chai it's full of adaptogens. It's a chai concentrate. We have it as a concentrate at Union kitchen stores and we also have it in a ready to drink 12 ounce perfect amount of sugar. perfect amount of coconut milk. Lovely ready to drink adaptogenic Chai and feel free to follow us on Instagram. You can find us @alchemize_elixirs. Yes, and our website you can order from our website, right? Yes you can. alchemye.net.