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The kitchen is more than a place to whip up good meals for Titilé “Tee” Niamke. It’s a sacred space where she combines the medicinal properties of tea and honey to help her community.
One of two Black women beekeepers in Memphis, Tee’s business, the Tea Bar 901, sells health-boosting teas and local raw honey infused with herbs, fruits and spices. Since starting the business in 2016, Tee’s products have received praise for their results. One woman who suffered from neuropathy recently told Tee how her Relief tea, made with pain-relieving turmeric and ginger, helped ease her aching joints. Another customer bragged on social media about how Tee’s turmeric honey facial soap zapped away her acne.
“I make these items thoughtfully in the kitchen and it makes me happy to know that what I’m making for society is helping people,” Tee said. “I hope my teas and honey bring lifelong health, wellness and harmony to many generations to come on a physical and mental level.”
The kitchen is Tee’s sanctuary of happiness for a reason. It’s where the women in her life found joy through cooking. Her grandmother’s popular tea cakes is made with a recipe that’s multiple generations old. The mixture of warm and sweet spices made the tea cakes taste like Christmas. Tee’s mother, Thelma, has been cooking since she was nine and her meals were always the talk of the town. The popularity inspired Tee’s mother to start a catering business called Thelma’s Cookin’.
Tee may not be serving up pies and tea cakes, but she still follows the tips she learned from her grandmother and mother as she makes her own products for the Tea Bar. One of those lessons taught her the importance of taking care of your village. According to her grandmother and mother, you don’t just cook for your family. You fed the neighborhood, too.
“You never just make a little bit for yourself. You make enough for everybody just in case somebody else comes over,” Tee said.
So when Tee learned about the health properties of herbs, she knew she had to share that knowledge with others.
As a Middle Tennessee State University student in the throes of post-breakup anxiety, she started ordering tea. Unable to recognize any of the ingredients on the packaging, she conducted her own research that unlocked a life-saving treasure trove of information. One tea helped calm nervousness before she attended career fairs. Another tea helped a friend with ADHD focus on completing an important job application they had languished for a week to finish.
After a year’s worth of reading up on herbs, Tee launched the Tea Bar 901. In all, she has studied the healing properties of about 200 herbs.
Tee realizes how her family’s cooking taught her about the supportive power of Black love. If a neighbor needed food, her family had it handled. If a parent had to work late, they are watching your kids.
“So often people portray Black people as crabs in a bucket. If you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket and one tries to climb out, the other crabs will climb on that crab’s back and push him down to try to get out,” she said. “But from what I’ve seen in my family and other Black families I know, Black people are some of the most giving people in the world.”
Tea Bar was a few years underway before Tee got into the beekeeping business. She wanted her teas to be sweetened, but she didn’t want to dilute the health benefits with processed sugar. She started studying the benefits of honey, which has wound-healing, cough-soothing, seasonal allergy eliminating abilities.
One problem: continuing to buy jars of honey as a college student on a budget was becoming pricey. She thought, why not get it from the source? So she tapped a local beekeeper who agreed to mentor her and teach her the importance of bee care. Tee learned what to put on the honey frame to protect the bees from diseases and pests. She stayed calm around her buzzing new friends because if she got too aggressive, the bees may start knuckin’ and buckin’, too.
The first time Tee worked with a frame of honeycomb was in 2018. But she didn’t get to taste raw honey until about two years later. Golden joy oozed from the honeycomb as she picked it apart.
“It was way too sweet, but I didn’t stop eating. It was like nothing I ever tasted,” Tee said.
Of course, Tee had to add her own kick to the honey. She began infusing it with the same herbs she uses in her teas. Her first combination eucalyptus and honey as an immunity boost for the winter.
Tee now works with 40 hives and has infused her honey with multiple flavors, like strawberries, lemon and cinnamon. Tee believes honey can be like an elixir for the Black community, especially in a city where the air quality isn’t the best, according to the American Lung Association’s 2021 “State of the Air” report.
“In Memphis, everybody has terrible allergies because of the toxins in the air,” she said. “Honey helps people with their allergies, asthma and sinuses. The diabetes rate is also high in the Black community. Raw honey doesn’t spike blood sugar like processed sugar does and it has antioxidants in it.”
As Tee’s business grew, so did her customers’ acceptance of using natural ingredients to take charge of their health. Back when she was just handing out tea samples at the local mall in 2016, she said people were mostly drinking sodas and some of onlookers weren’t interested in her spiel about how herbs can heal. Her products have now been shipped to customers in all 50 states and two countries. More people come to seek some medicinal support through her teas and honey. As more Black Americans lean into veganism and holistic health practices. Tee, who is 25, credits her generation’s access to knowledge through technology for the switch.
“We learn about things our parents didn’t have time to do research for. If you’re working 40 hours a week, you are trying to provide for your kids. You’re not too concerned about finding natural remedies,” Tee said. “We have a lot more free time and a lot more accessibility with our cell phones. Our generation is one of the biggest leaders to the change, because we brought it up and our parents followed suit.”
Some folks may still need some convincing. Tee’s father seemed reluctant to try something new. But Tee found a way to slip her dad a taste of her ginger lemon tea a couple months back. Her dad and uncle looked mighty thirsty after cutting down a tree. So she poured some of her tea in a tall glass of ice and said it was ginger lemonade. Her dad now has his own stash of lemon ginger tea at his house.
“I got him when he was the most vulnerable. He drank the whole thing,” Tee laughed.
Tee knows that the love and knowledge she shares with her community is appreciated. During our conversation, a woman called Tee to tell her how she has spent the past couple of days looking for the Tea Bar 901 because she was determined to buy Black-owned honey. Tee apologized for the trouble the woman went through to find Tee Bar 901, but the woman kindly said, “There’s no problem. We in this together.”