When they were in their 20s, Reem Hassani and her brother Ahmed Rahim were not the kind of people you'd expect to launch a multi-million dollar business. Reem was a California artist moonlighting as a substitute teacher, and Ahmed had been living the bohemian life of a photojournalist in Europe.
But these two children of immigrants from Iraq had an idea: to introduce the dried lime tea they remembered from their childhood to the U.S. Working out of Reem's 600-square-foot apartment in Oakland, the siblings learned all about the challenges of lining up importers, packagers, and retailers to launch a premium loose-leaf tea brand—meant to be slowly steeped and savored.
More than twenty years after its launch in 1999, Numi Organic Tea is a privately held B Corporation that sells tens of millions of dollars of Fair Trade, organic tea every year.
1:23 - Intro
4:40 - Growing up Iraqi
8:40 - Ahmed goes to NYU
9:30 - Reem gets in a car accident
12:45 - Ahmed goes to Europe
15:36 - Ahmed builds a tea house in Prague
17:43 - Reem gets a business idea
19:56 - Reem and Ahmed team up
24:40 - The first step
27:15 - Creating the product
33:05 - Finding the right flavor
34:20 - Finding the market
36:37 - Financing the business
38:24 - Launching at a trade show
43:15 - The first year
46:40 - Growing towards an acquisition
53:55 - Walking away from an offer
57:18 - Landing an investor
61:54 - Being environmentally friendly
63:11 - The price
64:28 - Seeing profitability
65:41 - The future of Numi
69:16 - Luck vs. hard work
Third Wave Coffee Scene
Ahmed Rahim and Reem Hassani
Nikon F2
Prague Tea Houses
Noomi Basra Tea
Peet’s Coffee
Dean & DeLuca
Rainbow Grocery Cooperative
Starbucks Tazo Tea
Celestial Tea
Hain Celestial Group
