Well Told with Cup of Té Founder Taylor Lindsay-Noel

The journey to launching Cup of Té began when founder Taylor Lindsay-Noel, an aspiring Olympic gymnast, suffered a devastating accident while in training that left her paralyzed and in a wheelchair. Driven to overcome her challenges and transform her situation into something meaningful, she launched Cup of Té in 2018 with the goal of providing the world’s finest loose-leaf organic teas and tea ware.  

We must also mention, because how could we not, this past year, the company created a set of six organic and ethically sourced teas which were included in Oprah’s Favorite Things List.  

For a limited time, receive 2 full size packages of Cup of Té’s Peppermint Devotion and Cream of Earl Grey teas as a gift with purchase.

 

For fellow tea lovers out there, we know tea can offer everything from health benefits to comfort and daily rituals; what is it that makes tea so special for you?

Tea has always been a sense of home and a great catalyst for good conversation. I would always drink tea around the table. I had one of those houses where everyone comes for 20 minutes and stays for a few hours, so for me tea is a sense of home and a sense of comfort.

Your teas are all hand selected, organic and ethically sourced, can you talk a bit more about your brand’s core values and how they set you apart from other companies?

Initially when I started the business I waned to make sure that we were very careful with our selection. What I realized from drinking tea from other brands before starting my own was that they have a lot of fillers and no organic ingredients. I knew that if I was able to not have a million teas like some of our competitors, but really honed in, that we could create a selection that would really have people coming back for more. It didn’t necessarily have to be overly fancy or complicated, I knew that if the product was organic and really fresh, people would fall in love with it.

You donate $1 from each Starter Kit to mental health awareness, why was this cause so important to you?

It was important to me from the very beginning to have some sort of charitable component ingrained in the brand, and I wanted to give back to a cause that I believe in. The conversation around mental health has obviously been in the public eye more lately, but I think it’s something that continues to need to be talked about and to bring down stigmas around it. For me I have really good conversations around a up of tea, going back to my childhood, so to continue the conversation around mental health awareness over a cup of tea just seemed like the perfect.

Do you have a personal “tea routine”, for example certain teas that you begin and end your day with?

Well obviously I’m a fan of all of our teas but I love to start my day with a caffeinated blend, whether that’s a chai tea latte, a London Calling which I make into a London Fog, or one of our other black teas is typically something that I start my day with. Then throughout the day I kind of just go with whatever is available. But I definitely end my nights with a peppermint tea or a decaffeinated blend so that I’m all juiced up for the night.

What’s one thing that’s been keeping you “well” these days?

The support of my family and friends. The last year has obviously been quite tumultuous for everybody, but it’s also been a very busy period for me with everything with the brand and Oprah, and preparing for that and keeping secrets and all these things that go along with being a part of something like this. So my family and friends have definitely been keeping me sane and keeping me well. And of course I could not be doing this without reaching for a cup of tea pretty much every hour or two.