The Menopause Show With Sue Moxley – Bethan Thomas, Tea For Menopause

Hi, this is Women's Radio Station. This is The Menopause Show and I'm Sue Moxley. So today our guest is from Hot Tea Mama and her name is Bethan Thomas. Hi Bethan. Hi Sue, thanks for having me. Oh, that's a pleasure. Can you tell us a bit about your brand? And I know this is a menopause show, but I know that your teas are for lots of different things including menopause. So tell us about all of them. That would be amazing. Of course, yes, essentially Hot Tea Mama, we make teas to support women's wellness, um, so kind of throughout their whole life. So we have a range for menopause, also range for pregnancy, um, for breastfeeding, and then kind of all the lost sleep, um, in between, uh, with blends for kind of uplifting and helping you, you sleep. Um, and it was all very much inspired, um, by personal life experience but also my tea background. So I'm a little bit unusual that I've got a degree in tea science. I didn't know there was such a thing. Well, it's only— you can only do them in China or India, but I spent a lot of my life in China working as a tea buyer. Wow. Yeah, so yeah, originally I studied Chinese at university and I really got into tea. I wrote my thesis about the Chinese tea trade, actually about women's kind of role within it in Sichuan province in China. And I ended up working for a company based kind of out of Hong Kong and London, and I was really lucky. I travelled the world drinking tea, basically, which is probably, in my opinion, the best job in the world, other than maybe like a wine, you know, taster. Really? But yeah. First of all, tell me why you went to China in the first place and why you studied Chinese. Well, I think I was just really interested. I did history as my kind of undergrad, degree, and I didn't want to move to London. I'm not from London, I grew up in the Midlands, and all my friends were kind of— that was sort of what they were all doing after university, and I thought I'd quite like to go and see the world, but I didn't have any money. So, I managed to convince a company I worked for in all the university holidays, a big engineering firm, they had offices in China and they ran kind of internship programs. So it was a bit of a whim-ish, just that I thought it would be really interesting, and it was a place I could go and get a job and afford to kind of live there. And I just fell in love with China when I was there, and I fell in love with Chinese tea because literally the bus drivers all have, you know, hot water flasks with tea leaves in. There's no tea bags. People were filling up from hot water taps in the street, you know, this gorgeous kind of green tea, jasmine tea. So I started spending a lot of time going to tea houses at the weekends, traveling down the coast, kind of different tea-producing regions, because I was in Shanghai, which, yeah, the whole of the east coast of China kind of makes a lot of tea. And after I'd been there for a year, I kind of thought, you know what, I'd really like to be a tea buyer, but I'd love to do it in China. And I couldn't— I could speak a little bit of Chinese, sort of friendly, you know, chatty Chinese. But because I worked in an English-speaking office, I couldn't read or write because of all the Chinese characters. So I ended up doing a master's in Chinese split between the UK and China. And that's, yeah, when I started kind of looking into tea more. And it wasn't until then— I then went and got a job at a Chinese tea company, and it wasn't for another kind of 10 years that I actually went back and then studied my tea science degree while working over there, which I just— it was the best thing other than having kids. They're lovely, but it was the best thing I did outside of that because I got to learn about the biochemistry of tea, why certain teas have benefits for us, and also, you know, how you can really make very delicious teas as well through blending and understanding the production and the kind of origin of the teas. So yeah, I'm essentially an absolutely massive tea nerd. But that's very brave of you that you did that, you know, you went out to China. So you was by yourself when you did that originally? I was, yeah. I mean, I think it's like the ignorance of youth, like being a bit braver than I realised I was being, to be honest. I remember like as I went through the gates at the airport, I turned around and my mum, who has always been very supportive of anything me or— I have one brother— we've ever wanted to do. But she was in floods of tears, and I sort of had a little moment where I was like, oh yeah, I don't know anybody there, and I can't speak— I couldn't speak Chinese at that point. You know, what am I doing? But sometimes you have to do slightly scary things. Yeah, but many— I used to be— I don't ever talk about this, God's honest truth, and I'm only telling you this, it's a story— but I was a model when I was very young. Okay. To Japan on my own, um, to work. And do you know what? I cried for 2 weeks. Oh no. I was like, I could come here on my own, I don't speak the language. Yeah. The agency that I was with, they all spoke English, but I felt so alone and scared and everything. And so I don't know how you did that. I mean, eventually I made loads of friends and then it became fantastic, but that first initial 2 weeks, oh, so you're very hard to go and do that. Yeah, I mean, I think the funniest thing for me was when I went back, and when I went back I was kind of in my 30s. And when you went back to China? Well, so I worked back and forth a lot, but when I went back to study my T science degree, I was there for a long period again, and then I kind of left my partner who I'd been with for 10 years. And, um, uh, basically we, we knew that we wanted to have kids, and I kind of said, look, you know, I know what that means. I didn't really fully know what it meant, but I knew enough that I knew I wouldn't be traveling as much, and it had been a really big part of my life. You know, I'd be in India as well, and China, anywhere that there was really good tea, I was always traveling to whenever the season kind of required it. And I just knew I'd have to twist things, and I said to him, I saw this degree was available, and I hadn't— you're not the only person who doesn't know it exists. It's quite unusual. Normally the only training you can get is kind of short courses in the UK, you know, run by British people, and I didn't, you know, for someone who works in tea, they're a little bit less useful because you already know anything that they tell you. This was like a genuine opportunity to learn something new, and I just said to him, "If I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it, am I? What do you think?" And he did say that he didn't necessarily think I was actually going to do it. I think from the point I spoke to him to the time I went out, it was— because the course started in September and I probably found out about it in February— it was pretty quick. I just got everything sorted. The tea company I worked for, I sold them on the idea because it would be good for my, you know, my career, and I'd work for them part-time while I was out there because we were setting up a Chinese office. And yeah, Jake did say it was a bit of a shock that within pretty much 2 months I was like, yeah, so this is when I'm leaving. And I'll be back in 18 months, but yeah. How long were you away that time then? So, 18 months, yeah, so it's kind of— Oh, well, did he stay there? Yes, yes, he came over and I came back, and yeah, we made it work, and then, yeah, when I came home, we then settled, and I think 2 years after, we had our first child, so it all worked out, nobody, everybody's happy. But yeah, I think I'm very lucky that he supported me in it, but it really has led me, you know, everywhere that I've been because, yeah, the knowledge that I got then meant when I started to face— and originally I was inspired to set up Hot Tea Mama because of my experience of having a baby and looking for natural support with things like morning sickness and breastfeeding and kind of birth preparation, all these things. Tea can help with, and it then kind of flowed. I started to use a lot of my Chinese medicinal kind of knowledge when we were then looking at teas that could help with periods and PMS and perimenopause and hot flushes, knowing, yeah, what was out there. So it felt— it wasn't fated. We all— everybody works hard, don't they, for where they get to, but it did almost feel like it was a little bit fated that it would lead me to then— I think everyone would reckon, but to go and do a degree in tea in Chinese is like— it's a bit random. Well, I mean, so, I mean, I couldn't— it's just like not even similar to anything, is it? Like French or Italian? We don't— they don't— is it like signs and symbols and things? Yeah, so everything. When I did my master's in Chinese, you essentially had to learn at least 2,000 characters characters to be able to read a newspaper. So that, yeah, that was good. 1,500 characters? Yes, yeah, I mean, I would say that over the last— because of COVID and having the kids, I've been back a lot less than I would like. But yes, I can read a newspaper, and it's all tonal, so you have to— every single word can have kind of 4 meanings. Yeah, depending how you pronounce it. But the one thing, the grammar is very easy, which I always liked because I remember hating German at school because the grammar was so complicated. It's super, super simple in Chinese, but I suppose something has to be a bit easier because the rest of it is, is quite hard. But yeah, I have a really weird vocabulary now because I can probably talk more about tea in Chinese than I can about anything else. I must say, I'm really impressed. I've had some unusual guests on this show, but you are pretty unusual. I am. I always say it's quite hard, I think, for when people ask what I do, I think my father-in-law just tends to say, "Oh, she's a tea lady." And I'm like, it makes me sound like I sort of, you know, walk up and down the train offering people tea, but I'd happily do that as well. Is there that much to learn about tea that you can do a degree? I mean, is it— Oh yeah, yeah. So I think it's the thing that we don't necessarily understand in the UK because we're such a big nation of tea drinkers, but primarily we drink really low quality sort of, you know, black tea that's blended from all over the world, and but so we can put milk and sugar in it. But actually, tea in the kind of countries where it originates is treated much more like wine than it is, you know, a builder's kind of cup of tea. So from any tea bush, you can make 6 different types of tea depending how you process it. And yeah, you can make white tea, green tea, yellow tea, oolong tea, pu-erh tea, black tea. And then obviously you've got fruit and herbals as well, which many different countries have, you know, specialisms. So in terms of just those production methods and then understanding, you know, much like with wine, the altitude of where it's growing, the soil type, how you treat it if you're growing it organically or, you know, non-organically, there's just a massive depth of knowledge. And in China and India, there's a big enough economy that people want to specialize within it because there's such a huge kind of tea trade out of those countries. And I think in the UK, always upsets me that everybody just thinks of tea as kind of, you know, a cheap, a really cheap product that you just, yeah, buy. Upper brands, by the way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But no, you know, but there's still difference. I always say even if you're buying like a builder's cup of tea, there's still a huge variety of flavour kind of within that. There is. But when you start looking, yeah, further out of that, it's enormous and there is so much. And again, I studied kind of the tea ceremony, not like the Japanese ceremony, which is a very specific thing, but in China they have tea art where, you know, you can go and people will make you tea and pour it in certain ways, and even that is something that people study hugely to get right. So yeah, I think we just don't have enough insight into it here. Tell me about pouring tea in different ways. Well, so you get in China— It coming out of a teapot or even worse, putting the water in the cup and squeezing the bag? Well, those are two ways, but not necessarily. In China it's called gongfu cha, so it's kung fu is how it's kind of been translated in the past, but gong fu basically is like becoming a specialist in something. So there are teapots in China and some people do use teapots. You can get very special in Zhejiang province. There's these incredible kind of metal teapots with huge spouts that you don't brew the tea in, you just boil the water in, but then they'll pour the water into a gaiwan, and a gaiwan is like a bowl with a little little lid that you put loose leaf tea in, and that's actually how people make tea in China rather than with a teapot. And they'll pour from metres and metres away the water from the kettle into this tiny little gaiwan, get really, you know, get lots of movement to kind of infuse the tea properly. And then it's always poured from a gaiwan into a jug, and then the jug is shared between lots and lots of people. So in China, it's a really sociable thing having tea. You have a big kind water tray which will catch water, made from bamboo normally. Everybody has tiny little cups that you'll just sit and re-infuse because again the tea is such good quality, it's not like the tea we drink. You just constantly re-brew the leaves and share the teapot and it is how people used to do business and still do do business quite a lot across the kind of tea tea table. Do you think, Bethan, that actually makes a difference, or, you know, pouring the tea from a distance, or is it just theatre, a bit of theatre? It's a bit of both. It's a bit of both. So particularly if you go as a tourist, it's mainly theatre, but there are things, you know, the way you— yeah, how much tea you add to how much water, the temperature of the water. Again, you'd never use boiling water in China for any good quality tea, because if you think about the chemistry, boiling water pulls out a lot of really bitter compounds in tea. So the caffeine, a lot of the antioxidants that we all want to drink, but they actually have a really bitter flavor. They come out at a very high temperature and they completely dominate the taste profile that you get versus if you use sort of 80-degree water. And at that point you'll get lots of the amino acids that are naturally found, particularly in green tea, that make it sweet and sappy and lovely. So those things are probably more important than the theatrical elements of it. But yeah, you can definitely make— you can take the best tea in the world and make it taste disgusting if you make it in the wrong way. And then, yeah, and then you layer on kind of, yeah, the art and the presentation and the experience, and that is something that a lot of people train in. To, you know, not to the level in Japan where you had sort of a geisha tradition, but it's similar, similar level. Well, that's absolutely fascinating. I never knew I could talk that much about tea, to be honest. I know. You're caught there. Well, I always think— Do you have a favourite tea? Yes, so I absolutely love— I used to live where I did my degree is in a province of China called Fujian, which is just opposite Taiwan on the east coast, and they make oolong tea, which is kind of— it sits in between green tea and black tea, and it's just— yeah, there's a specific one because again, it's a bit like saying it's a rosé wine, and then you've got, you know, your different gardens or countries producing rosé. And my favourite type of oolong is called Tieguanyin, which means Goddess of the Iron Buddha. But it is really, really delicious. Very hard to get in the UK. I get friends to send it over because the stuff you get here isn't good enough, mainly to be honest because it has to pass pesticide tests that often it can't. But also China and India, they keep the best teas for themselves and they export the less good stuff. Yeah. So that's my favourite type of Chinese tea. But then again, since having kids and being in my 40s, I'm actually quite caffeine conscious now in a way that I wasn't before. And I really love herbal teas, which we do a lot of in Hot Tea Mama. And yeah, I just absolutely adore— we have a blend called Over the Moon, which has whole chamomile, rose petals, spearmint and ginkgo biloba, and it's just very, very delicious. I'm drinking it now, and I love that. I need to try some of these, you know. I'm gonna be honest, like, I'm not, I'm not very adventurous where it comes to tea, and I wish I was. My husband really, really loves green tea, and I know how good it is for you. And I actually had a hormone test the other day, from my own hormone test, if that makes sense, from our new, from our new company. And one of the things that is slightly skew with, with me was this, like, it's something in the brain. Okay. That could eventually lead to Alzheimer's. Nowhere near that. But yeah, so, but what, but they say the best thing to do is just start drinking green tea. But I just can't get used to— help me, how can I get used to it? So I would say don't use boiling water. So often our Menopause Blend has green tea in it, and if you make it with like very freshly boiled water, it will be quite bitter. So I would just lift, you know, the lid of your kettle and let it sit for kind of 5-10 minutes before you pour any water on the tea. I'd always do that for any green tea. And I'd also only get a whole leaf green tea rather than kind of a traditional tea bag like we get here. Yeah. The dust, the dust that you get inside those tea bags is essentially like a byproduct of making whole leaf tea. So it gets kind of swept off the floor or caught in big kind of like troughs that they place under the machinery when they're making whole leaf tea, and that just gets shoved into sacks and then sent off to be blended. It sounds kind of disgusting, but that is what happens with that kind of really tiny leaf grade, because nobody in China or Japan or India really wants to drink that. So I would say buy a whole leaf tea. Does that come over here and go in our teas over here, would you think? Yeah, 100%. Yeah, no, it gets sent into kind of the tea auctions, and that's what we get in paper kind of tea bags. So I would always look for a Regent's, basically. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it is literally— I mean, a lot of factories now, there's a big enough market, they set up kind of, yeah, the troughs under it. But it used to, when I first started working, they were just be sweeping it up and shoving it. I mean, you add boiling water, so it's, it's not going to be bad for you, but it's not that nice when you think about it. No. So I would say buy a whole leaf one as well because you'll get more benefit from it. You'll contain— well, yes. So yeah, we use a whole leaf tea. We put it into tea bags because I think a lot of our blends are so functional and they're supporting people with issues that they have. You want to make it easy for them to drink it, but not reduce the quality. So yeah, we use a type of tea bag that's called Soilon. It's derived from cornstarch, so it's biodegradable, but you can fit whole leaf tea into it. We couldn't put our teas into paper, it would break the paper. But essentially, when you have the whole leaf, it's a lower surface area, so it's going to be a less bitter tea to drink, but you're also going to get more of the natural goodness that's in the tea because it doesn't it's not as exposed to the air as dust is, so it won't lose as much of its benefits and goodness. So yeah, particularly green tea, it will be the EGCG, I imagine. Sorry, um, but EGCG is an antioxidant that's only found in green and white teas, and it's been shown in a lot of mainly lab trials rather than kind of long-term human trials, but to be really beneficial against against the aging of cells. And yeah, it can be really, really good to have that. And again, it really links to bone health as well. The research is still relatively small, but it's very positive that drinking green tea long-term can hopefully help with things like osteoporosis and long-term bone health. So yeah. So tell me about your, your menopause tea, and I know you've got quite a few different different ones, but tell me about the menopause one and why it's good. Yeah, so our very targeted menopause tea is called Take a Pause, and it is a blend. We use green tea as the base, and then we've picked key ingredients for the most common kind of symptoms that a lot of people suffer from. So for hot flushes, there's sage and licorice root, which both have really good links to reducing the kind of severity and frequency of hot flushes. It's a great thing to get into your diet. We've also got raspberry leaf in there, which is a natural uterine tonic. So it's been used for millennia to help women kind of regulate periods with heavy bleeding, and it basically strengthens your uterine muscles. So it's really good if you're suffering from kind of any flooding or just irregular periods as you, as you're going through perimenopause Okay, we also have ginkgo biloba in there, which is shown to help with brain fog, so particularly memory. There are lots of small-scale studies showing it's very beneficial, increasing the blood flow to the brain can hopefully help with that. And we also put valerian root in there, which is incredible anxiolytic herb, so it's fantastic for reducing anxiety, helping with sleep. One study actually showed it was more effective than a sedative. Aiding sleep. So those kind of key common symptoms that a lot of us face during perimenopause and postmenopause, they can hopefully be really beneficial for— to take a pause. Yeah, take a pause. Exactly, literally. Yeah, I can't remember what you were asking me now though. Oh no, we were talking about the menopause tea, your particular one, and what it for, you know, that was beneficial. The benefits. Oh yeah, so that's what I wanted to say. Um, we've also designed it to work really well iced because again, if you're suffering from hot flushes, um, a hot drink isn't necessarily going to help you. Um, so we made sure when blending it that it works really well, um, cold brewed. So we kind of recommend making a jug of it almost, um, having that in your fridge, and then whenever you, um, get hit by a hot flush or if you, um, just want to drink it regularly kind of during the day, it's there for you and you can sip it whenever you kind of need a bit of soothing from it. Okay, that's right. Is it got— has it got a sweet taste or is it kind of— No, it's more herbal than sweet. We do have— because again caffeine worsens menopause symptoms quite a lot, so reducing your caffeine is quite an important thing to do. Obviously this has green tea, so it's low caffeine, but it's very— yeah, it's more herbal. It's that green tea kind of on the flavour spectrum. The licorice root does give it a little bit of sweetness as well, but it's almost— because we do use quite a few Chinese medicinal herbs in there, it's the most herbal of our range. But alongside it, we have a tea, wonderful tea called Get Up and Glow. Which we use grapes as the base, which is a bit unusual, but that one's got some real natural sweetness to it. And yeah, it's grapes, hibiscus, and rosehip, 100% natural, absolutely no added flavorings or anything like that. But essentially you can kid your brain on that you've had a little bit of a caffeine lift if you're trying to reduce your caffeine to help with your symptoms and just— yeah, have that kind of slight sweetness to uplift you too. So if you've got any kind of sweet cravings but you're struggling with weight kind of as you go through the menopause, it's a great one to have as an alternative to that. And I think for me, it's the nice things with tea. You can kind of pick and choose what's affecting you and how also your flavor preferences. To get something to support you through the day. But I always think variety is the spice of life, but I am obviously quite biased, but I always have like 2 cups of tea at any one time because I like to mix it up. Do you have like a proper cup and saucer? So, well, I do have like the Chinese tea set that I mentioned to you. I have a full set of that, so particularly at the weekend if we have friends around or anything like that, I do enjoy a bit of a tea ceremony. And then I have a— I just have a lot of options too. Like, one thing is not enough for me. We have cups and saucers, really beautiful, very thin china, because tea always tastes best out of that. But I do also just love a big mug as well. I think small mugs are often annoying because I can't get enough tea. So at the moment I've got like a— it's a clay— sorry, a stone, you know, stoneware kind of mug, but it's my favourite because it's really big and I can get two hands around it, like a bucket. So Beth, I'm very uneducated about tea and I'm gonna put my hands up and say I do like, you know, just kind of basic English breakfast tea, but I do drink out of a cup and saucer with thin china like you said. Oh, it makes a huge difference, yeah, it does. I don't like the big mugs. I like the tea. I think I got the cup and saucer thing from my mum. I think I got it from her because she used to always get some saucers out. Oh, that's nice. Well, no, and I think it does make a huge difference. Like, china, thin fine bone china, is just the best thing to drink anything out of, I think, really. But I used to, in my past, I've worked with a lot of like 5-star hotels, and I did the tea menu for the Fat Duck and Michelin-starred restaurants. And it would always annoy me, particularly in an afternoon tea service. They often have metal teapots, and it's just the worst thing ever because if you make peppermint in a metal teapot, it's going to taste of mint for about, you know, 20-odd washes. So then somebody asks, you know, for an Earl Grey in a teapot, and then someone asks for a really delicate green tea. It's going to absorb all the flavours and the tannins and you just get horrible tasting tea. So I think, yeah, china also for teapots is really important because it doesn't absorb the flavours. You get, yeah, a really clean fresh pot every time. I didn't know that. So there you go, everyone that's listening, don't put your tea in a metal unless you're drinking the same thing all the time. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, if it's your breakfast teapot, like my family's Welsh, so my nain had like a whole series of metal teapots that we all now have, but I will only let anyone in my family make one type of tea in it. That's all. I bet they love you in your house. Oh yeah, they think I'm great. People do get nervous making me tea. We always get friends, they're like, what do you want? And I don't I like an espresso if I have a coffee, if I'm out, because it's such a wonderful kind of flavour and hit, but I don't, like I said, I don't drink a lot of caffeine. It's really bad for your pelvic floor health as well, caffeine, which as I've got older, something I'm more concerned about. So yeah, really cut back, but when friends offer coffee, I'm always like, can I have a tea? And then they don't want to make me one because they're nervous. Why it's bad for your pelvic floor? I'm just interested. So yeah, so caffeine aggravates the bladder, number one. So yeah, too much can be bad, and particularly if you're having any issues with, you know, really urgently needing to go to the loo, having caffeine is just going to make that a lot worse. But it also just weakens the whole of the pelvic floor kind of area. So in terms of strengthening your pelvic floor, you're going to— if you're doing Kegels or, you know, squats or different kind of physical exercise to try and support that as you get older, you're just going to be making it worse if you drink a lot of caffeine during the day. So we always recommend sticking to almost what are pregnancy guidelines. That's the only time in your life that the sort of NHS will give you guidance. And at that point they say 200mg of caffeine a day. I think that's a really, a really good level for everyone throughout the entirety of their life. If it was a tea bag or something, how many cups would that be? So if it's a sort of black cup of tea, that's around 45 milligrams of caffeine. So you could definitely have a couple of those, but a coffee is about 120. Um, if you drink instant coffee, it's a bit less. It'll be around 90 milligrams per cup. Um, but particularly if you have kind of filter coffee or, you know, the pods— pod system, yeah, you should presume you're having 120mg. So it's really one coffee a day and then a cup of tea. And you agree that's your limit? Yeah, and green tea tends to have less than a black tea, so between 20-30mg of caffeine per cup. So you can have more green tea during the day, which is why it's a really good option if you want, you know, you don't want to deprive yourself completely unnecessarily. Caffeine is allowed and is very helpful if you're struggling to sleep and then you are working during the day, um, or just wanting to get on with things. But that's why green tea would be my go-to. And then really seeking out kind of alternative options that can still give you, um, a real boost, like our Get Up and Glow. Which is great just to kid yourself on. Okay, that sounds great. Well, tell me, how did you start? Obviously, you know a lot about tea and you have a degree, but how did you start the company? And, you know, was that always in the plan? No, so it was very much— I set it up with my best friend Kate, and it was her idea really. So she had had two children in the space of a year, and she would always ask me, because when you're pregnant you're so restricted on the amount of caffeine you can have, and then you're worried about what you're putting into your body. And so yeah, she asked me a lot of questions, and after she sort of had the children, she said, well, why is nobody making tea specifically for women at this stage of life? And I didn't know. I was working for a big tea company at the time, and I thought it was a really good idea, so I got my boss's permission to kind of start working on it on the side, and it was very much for the first 2 years a total side hustle. And my business partner Kate is Australian, and she actually moved back to Australia before we'd actually produced the first round of tea, so we did all the development, it took about a year, to develop our initial 6 blends that we did. And yeah, I was pregnant at the time with my youngest son, and it was all a bit of a nightmare, to be honest. We set it up, and had I known what it would involve, I'm not sure I'd do it again. But it's good that I did. But it was very much packing orders between 8 PM and midnight. Trying to just post on Instagram once a day, and we grew really organically from there. And COVID really was where we were quite lucky, I suppose. We were one of the beneficiaries of COVID that we had a product that a lot of women who were having to shield more than anybody else were looking for kind of our kind of product. It was affordable within, you know, not being able to do lots of other things. It was a little treat, something for yourself that could support your kind of wellness. And we just grew from there. So we also introduced our menopause products at that point because we found a lot of women who maybe knew us because of pregnancy were actually buying, or their mum was going through menopause, or their sister. So they started asking us, and we started doing that development work at that point. And our other blend, which kind of focuses on PMS and helping with problems like PCOS and endometriosis, again, that was a lot of women who'd drunk our tea for years, and then they got their periods back when they finished breastfeeding. We're looking for something to support that. And we really have just grown, I think, with anything that you do, just one little step at a time. It's kind of how I've always described it. And so how long have you actually— did you say they've been drinking your tea for years? So how long have you actually been around people then? 6 years. 6 years. Yeah. So Yeah, I think we've kind of gone through different people's like pregnancies and then they're starting to feel a bit perimenopausal or, you know, yeah, have a different— I missed that bit, you know, tell me that bit again if you don't mind. Sure. You were talking to me about which, because what I said to you that it's been around for 6 years and Yes. When you first started, was it just online with you? Yes, initially we just had our own website, absolutely nothing else, and that was about all we could manage, or I could manage, sort of working with that. And then we slowly expanded, so we went on to Amazon and started to get into more independent retailers. We're based in Oxford, so kind of around that area, area. And yeah, then started approaching bigger retailers. And I think it took— I pitched to Holland Barrett in, I want to say it was 2019, like originally. And it took almost 3 years, but we launched nationwide with them in absolutely every single one of their stores. They have a really big focus on women's wellness and menopause in particular. So They've been a really great kind of champion of our product, and we've now been with them for— You must have been so excited when that happened. Oh yeah, like really, really excited, but also terrified. So there's a lot of— A bit of disruption. Yeah, well, exactly. And even just team size. So, you know, we're— Kate's still in Australia, and she actually runs the business in Australia for us now, but we're only just starting that. And then it's me and two other women basically who are absolutely brilliant, but we're a really small team. So when you're on shelf against somebody like, you know, Pukka, who are now owned by what used to be Unilever, but they're now owned by a huge VC firm. And yeah, all these kind of big names, we're such a little fish, but but we have a really different product because we're whole leaf and we're very targeted on these kind of, you know, supporting women through their life. It works, it works well. So yeah, they're our biggest sort of wholesale customer to date, but we are just about to launch into Selfridges. They've just placed an order with us, which is really exciting as well. And we're actually going to do, for our menopause products, QVC are going to do a kind of show about us. Yeah, yeah, so we'll be doing a kind of a bundle of products for them with our Take a Pause menopause tea and also our Night Owl, which is our kind of anxiety-focused and sleep-focused tea, which has whole chamomile and lavender flowers, valerian, which I mentioned earlier, that's fantastic for supporting sleep, cornflowers and rooibos. So they're a really good combination for menopause. But yeah, it's, it's all really exciting. But I do tend to feel equally terrified most days, to be honest. Do you actually have to go on QVC, or will they get like a presenter to do it for you? I'm gonna do it, so I've got a screen test on Friday. Yeah, which, which to be fair, it's not just me, you know, like I think I'm interviewed by somebody rather than, yeah, it being like that. But no, it's really exciting. I have done a few different kind of filming things in the past, but never anything quite like that. So yeah, it'll be a good life experience no matter what. Hopefully it will go smoothly. Well, I did a live— I used to be beaut editor of a national newspaper, and I went— it was a shopping channel that I went along to, and the other lady who was a friend of mine, she was also the the beauty editor of the magazine of the newspaper. She was demonstrating a, you know, like a round brush that you curl your hair with or blow dry with. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally live, this show, and she got it stuck in the lady's hair. Oh no. Oh, that's awful. Isn't it awful? Oh no. Just like cut to commercial. About 10 years, to be honest, because they're dreadful, those brushes, to, you know, especially in long hair. But, um, God, that going on there, um, that's probably pre-recorded anyway, isn't it? Um, yes, I think so. Um, and yeah, I will have to make a bit of tea, but I'm hoping, you know, I won't burn anybody or myself. Um, yeah, that's the only thing that could go wrong, but I have made a lot of tea in my life now, so touch wood. It'll be okay. How many stores has Holland Barrett got? Just interested. 748. Oh my God. Yeah, so it's a lot. Are you keeping up with all that? Yes, so it's good. You kind of— we're just doing a big change. So our teas weren't organic historically, but now that we've got kind of volumes behind us us, I've just changed everything to be organic and it's actually great. I had to change the entire supply chain, always been produced in the UK because the majority of our ingredients are European and there's only a certain number kind of from China, so it makes sense to kind of pack everything here, but I've changed my producer in the UK and the new one's brilliant, they run everything on solar energy, they have a big kind of Tesla battery, I can't remember what they're called, but a bank or whatever. So yeah, the tea is now organic and produced with solar energy, so sort of as good for the environment as it can be. And no, we are keeping up, but it's more about, you know, even though you're in all of those stores, there's the 80/20 rule in general with retail, which I'm starting to learn about, where you get 80% of your sales from 20% of the stores, stores, and that's just true of sort of all products everywhere. So it's interesting for us starting to learn that and then trying to think how can we support some of the stores where, you know, they don't have as much footfall and yeah, what can we kind of do. Are those stores in big places like London and Manchester or is it just random? Well, it's mainly big cities definitely do the best, but yeah, not necessarily like like, you know, some of the London ones are in great locations, but it's a really touristy location. So we are such a, like, purpose-driven product that people do tend to kind of be looking for us. But Holland Barrett are doing so much around menopause. We've done quite a few kind of marketing sort of initiatives with them to make sure that we're put next to the vitamins and stuff, because actually, you know, people, you know, with all wellness issues in life, you should really look at your entire kind of lifestyle and diet alongside, you know, medical help as well. And Holland Barrett are really passionate about that. And yeah, having a kind of collection of products, whether it be, you know, vitamins or, you know, collagen, plus our kind of teas, It's, yeah, it's starting to try and work with them in all of these different ways to promote our products but also really help people as they go through, you know, these life experiences that are so hard on us. I think menopause being the hardest, but at least we're now kind of got retailers like Holland Barrett who want to talk about it and signpost it, which I don't think happened, you know, for my mum when she went through. I know, it's definitely changing so much more now, and people, you know, being open about it and not scared to talk about it. And so it's a good thing, and shows like this, and there's magazines, and there's your products. It's really good that It's, you know, I think women used to feel a bit ashamed to admit that they, they had the menopause, you know, or, or they was, you know, finished. It was the end of their life. Yeah, yeah, I think like, why should it be like— I love, yeah, the terms in, in China, sort of second spring. I think I've heard that before. Before. No, which is just someone wrote a book called— Oh, possibly. Yes, I'm sure there is. Yeah. Oh, okay. Well, I haven't read the book, but it's just kind of a general description, and it's so much better than, like, you know, we don't have a term for it here, do we? But I think you very much have been— In the dead of night. In the dead of night. Exactly. Oh, God. But yeah, it's a— I think that's how we should try and see it. Like, yeah, to imagine that your life is over, it's a bit, it's a bit much, isn't it? Certainly doesn't happen for men in the same way. No, it doesn't. I always say God was a man, so whoever he may be, he was definitely a man out there. Then just tell me about— so you've— how many children have you got Just one or two? Yes, just two, and yeah, they are lovely, but they're now, yeah, 9 and 7, almost. So yeah, their life is getting easier in many ways, but yeah, more challenging in other ways with them. But I think, yeah, the— when I meet people who have more than 2 children, I'm always in awe, to be honest. Honest, I think Hot Tea Mama is like my third child. I couldn't have, um, anymore. It would kill me. I've just, I've just literally started— I've just kind of built a website for a brand new business. I'm in beauty and aesthetics, but yeah, the menopause thing, and you know, it's been exhausting just like holding it and learning new things and learning how to order from different websites and everything. I can't tell you how exhausting it's been. So I don't know how— Yeah, well, I think anything where you're doing something new is always just so challenging, isn't it? But yeah, I think since, since the kids sleep, it's all better. It's all been all right for a couple of years, but I could never— my business partner Kate has 3 kids now. And she just got a dog as well, and whilst I'm very happy for her, I'm like, are you mad? What are you doing? She does love dogs, so— yeah, complete dog lover. Oh, they're wonderful, but it's just that, yeah, there's only so many things I can keep alive, I think, and I'm at my max. They're hard work, dogs. You have to take them out and look after them, and they can be, you know— Oh, and they deserve that. They deserve that as well. So yeah, one day I will get a dog, but I think my kids will have left home by then. That's when I'll do it. So are there any plans to expand the business anymore? Well, yes, yeah, hopefully. I think we had, we kind of had to stop selling into Europe after Brexit because There's a lot of legislation post-Brexit, particularly for food and drink companies, where you have to have a legal representative in Europe in order to sell your product, which was very difficult for us, but Holland and Barrett are putting us into all of their Irish stores, so part of our move to be organic, we've also been able to update our packaging and get a European office office or a company to kind of represent us legally in Europe. So we are now going to be expanding into, into Europe, which is really exciting. And because we do have quite a big presence on Amazon, we're going to also put the products onto Amazon in the USA as well. So yeah, and then we're talking to quite a few different retailers that hopefully we'll be able to work with in the future, but it's— those ones are always a bit of a longer burn, whereas we can hopefully start selling internationally a bit quicker. Big supermarkets in Strafford, you mean? Yeah, yeah, so I've had a couple of conversations recently with a few of them, which, yeah, again, having had my experience with Holland and Barrett, I'm kind of less not optimistic, that's the wrong word, but I think I'm very realistic in how long some of those things will take to come off. But hopefully we can— we'll be found in the wellness aisle of a supermarket in the next couple of years. Too soon. That would be— yeah, that's my, that's my goal. That's my dream. So we'll see. Well, good luck. I mean, yeah, I know I've myself had products in some of the biggest stores. I was going to say to you earlier, but the product I had a makeup range. Okay. At the big stores, it was a chemist, but you know, and yeah, the problems we used to have was it's different with, with like a makeup range because you've got so many products within that, within that range, and we'd get things that sold like crazy and then things that just sat there, but it was hard to kind of replenish the things that sold like crazy and wasn't getting money from. It was just really hard and complicated, if you know what I mean. Yeah, no, it is, it is. And I think a lot of people don't realize that when, um, it sounds sort of really brilliant when you say, oh, we're listed in these different places, but a lot of people don't understand how the retailers work. That it's actually the— they're really hard work. And it's, as a brand, if something's on promotion the retailer isn't paying for that promotion, it's the brands who are paying for it. So we have to fund all of that. Yeah, and if anything gets stolen, like it does a lot with cosmetics, that's you, you have to pay for that. Yeah, and again, you know, I think all products, I can't remember the name of what that is, the 80/20 kind of law has a mathematical name, but even with the products you sell, you'll sell 80% of your sales will tend to come from 20% of your products. So then you're trying to work out, well, I don't want to get delisted on the ones that aren't selling as well. So how can you, you know, what can you do? How can you prove what's going on? And yeah, as a small brand, it is really hard because these other brands have a huge amount of money behind them. So I was talking to a reusable period product— well, it's not just periods, but, you know, for incontinence and periods, like reusable products for that. Yeah. And they'd had a listing in a big supermarket, and basically a company, a very large company that is in that space, just said, no, you can't have that product, but we'll invest X amount more if you get rid of that product and give us the space. So they got rid of them. Yeah. I get that. And that, yeah, that can happen quite easily because these bigger companies have the budgets to do it. So I think that's why I was saying I live kind of in constant excitement and happiness, but also fear and trepidation. Why should we stress ourselves? We shouldn't, you know, be in business, should we? We should just go off and have a cup of tea somewhere. Well, exactly. By the way, what is your bestseller? Um, so at the moment our bestseller is called The Final Push, which is a pregnancy tea. It's raspberry leaf. Um, so we use raspberry leaf in our, in our period and menopause products as well, but in pregnancy, at the end of pregnancy, it's shown to help reduce the amount of time that you're pushing in labor. But there's also, there's also quite a lot of misinformation kind of online that some people will say, oh, I drank a cup and then my baby came. So obviously that might happen, but that's probably just— no research shows that that should happen, so it's probably just kind of coincidence. But it's a very popular tea as a result, and we're quite lucky. Well, I guess it's our branding, but you know, we've got kind of tongue-in-cheek names and really lovely packaging, so it's very giftable as well. And we get a lot of coverage on TikTok. TikTok and different places on that one. Um, you do, which is great. Well, we have an account. I don't know if I'd say I do it. I feel like I'm, I'm too old for TikTok. I'm not, I'm not super old, but it's definitely like a younger demographic. So yes, we are on there and we do post, but I mainly answer people's questions, which is something I'm quite happy about. Like if somebody says, oh, 'How do I make this tea iced?' Then I'll do a little kind of demo and chat, but I don't dance or anything like that, or mouth things. I can't bring myself to do that. I'll find somewhere to put our clinic on there, but I just thought, no, I think it's definitely for the youngsters, and I think probably— I think you've got to try it. We do definitely get a lot of sales from it. And I think there is a growing kind of menopause community on there, but we find Instagram is a really great place. We work with a lot of kind of different menopause nutritionists and experts on there, and we actually do a lot with HR departments as well. So we have a partnership with Royal Mail and a couple of other big kind of corporations who have like teams to support menopause. I was kind of explaining to them, you know, menopause cafes shouldn't really serve coffee because it's probably not going to help a lot of people if they're suffering with really bad symptoms. So yeah, sort of getting our tea into workplaces, yeah, is something that we've been doing. But yes, you've got to just try anything and everything. Well, Bethan, I'm actually amazed, and this has gone really quickly, this interview. It has. So interesting. I'm now going to go in and tell my husband that I had a lady on today that did a degree in tea science. Yeah. And he'll be very fascinated by that, as I'm sure loads of people are. Oh yeah, like I say, best thing I've ever done. And if you have ever had any other tea questions, or your husband does, just send him my way. Always happy to answer them. I will, and yeah, thank you for coming on. It's been so interesting, and good luck. You're so welcome. Good luck in the future, so that if anything, if you do progress or get into more places, then it will be wonderful to keep in touch with you. Oh yes, I would love that, and yeah, thanks for having me and for your time. I really appreciate it. Thank you, Bethan. Thank you. Goodbye. See you. So that was Beth and Thomas, and what an interesting lady. Wow, how random is that, that you can— well, to do a degree in tea is quite unusual anyway, but to do it in the Chinese language is just mind-blowing, and hats off to her. So yeah, if you're interested in any of Bethan's products. It's called Hot Tea Mama. They are on Amazon in Holland and Barrett and on their own website. I'm not quite sure, I think I've got it here. www— here we go, give me 2 seconds. Yes, it's www.hotteamama.com. So thank you for listening, and this is Sue Moxley. This is The Menopause Show on Women's Radio Station, and follow us on Instagram and Facebook and on YouTube. And it's been lovely today to talk to Bethan, and I'll speak to you all in 2 weeks' time. Bye-bye.