Community Highlights: Meet Leandra Collier and Jo-Lynn Bhagwandin of Elle & Jo Tea

Today we’d like to introduce you to Leandra Collier and Jo-Lynn Bhagwandin.

Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
We’ve both always had a love of craft, fine goods, and handmade local items. Jo-Lynn and I met through mutual friends and hit it off right away. We had day jobs and I was new to Nashville from Brooklyn NYC. She was working on music and did an amazing job in the salon industry helping people start and grow their small businesses. I had been working as an operations manager for a Canadian tea company and loved tea, running a small shop in the Meatpacking District.

Over time, we both realized we had the skills and drive to start our own company, after all, we’d been doing it for other people for years. Tired of our day jobs, we were sitting around drinking tea and hanging out, and we thought, why not offer Nashville high-quality, delicious, hand-blended teas? It seemed like the south was obsessed with sweet tea in a jug, but many people want a healthier alternative. We decided to team up and use our skills to launch Elle & Jo Tea Co.

Elle & Jo is a combination of our names, Elle is short for Leandra and Jo is short for Jo-Lynn and we were working with a tiny, nonexistent budget, so everything had to be done in-house. We collaborated on the design, and taste-tested tea blends, and had a lot of fun in the process. We do all of our own packaging, using materials that are as eco-friendly as possible. We also share a love of philanthropy so we are working on being able to give back to the community as much as we can. That side of the business is still being developed.

We started out doing a few farmer’s markets and holiday markets locally while opening up the website for national orders. We love finding a balance between being local with a strong tie to the community and being able to offer nationwide shipping for anyone out of state to enjoy. Nashville is a great tourist destination, so while we meet a lot of travelers in person, they go home and have the ability to reorder whenever they want to.

Our eventual goal is a brick-and-mortar tea shop that invites a wide range of ages and cultures. We love how many amazing people we’ve met through the farmer’s markets and the local food scene is amazing here in Nashville. We’re attracting so many talented chefs and the local maker’s scene is growing each year- we’re thrilled to be a big part of that.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
While Nashville has embraced us warmly, being a small business takes a lot of work. We worked on our business remotely for some of the planning stages, as Jo-Lynn was living in NYC at the time. Eventually, she and her wife moved back to Nashville, and we were able to hit the ground running.

Let’s not forget that we had a giant pandemic! Luckily for us, tea lends very well to everyone who needed to stay home during that time. However, making sure our goods arrived on time, that our money flow was steady, and that we could invest in growing the business was stressful while dealing with global issues that affected us locally.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about Elle & Jo Tea Co.?
We’re a women-owned, LGBTQ+ business located in Nashville TN with a focus on eco-friendly packaging, fair trade products, and supporting other organizations that focus on equality. We sell loose-leaf tea, handmade organic candles, bath teas, and essential oil fragrances. We source our teas from the top 10% of gardens around the world, and once we have those ingredients, we customize each blend for flavor and health benefits. Our candles are made in small batches using organic wax, high-quality essential oils, wooden wicks that are certified forestry safe, and no chemicals or additives.

We strive to create products that speak to health, self-care, and leaving a very small carbon footprint. We also want to support the vibrant and creative Nashville LGBTQ community as well as those who are not given as many opportunities and need extra love and support to thrive. That may look like a focus on people experiencing homelessness, or helping formerly incarcerated kids find job opportunities. We want our business model to give back to the community that is showing us so much love and welcome.

Besides our mission statement, our teas taste delicious! They are whole leaf, real fruit, and popped rice, and the flavor difference between what we sell and the grocery store is garnering us a cult following. We strive to bring loose-leaf tea to everyday homes and make it feel accessible for all. Our teas don’t have artificial oils and flavorings like so many in the grocery stores.

We also use very high-quality tea leaves, unlike big brand pre-bagged teas who take the cutting room floor leftovers and package them cheaply, using flavoring to help with the taste. We take pride in our flavors and spend hours or days honing them with just the right combination of ingredients to make a perfect cup of tea.

Do you have recommendations for books, apps, blogs, etc?
We love listening to podcasts and watching shows while we work! Sometimes pouring hundreds of candles or stickering tea bags can get boring, so aside from talking and laughing or processing life with each other, we also love some studio entertainment.

We both share a love of sci-fi and fantasy or a good comedy show. We also are huge fans of the podcast We Can Do Hard Things, This American Life, or news shows like The Daily.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.elleandjoteaco.com
• Instagram: @ElleJoTeaCo
• Facebook: Elle and Jo Tea Co.

Image Credits
Leandra Collier