Numi Organic Tea: Reem Hassani and Ahmed Rahim
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 it's 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.
This episode of How I Built This was produced by Casey Herman and edited by Neva Grant. Research help from Daryth Gayles. Additional support from Jeff Rogers, Rachel Faulkner, James Delahoussaye, J.C. Howard, Julia Carney, Farrah Safari, Liz Metzger, Janet W. Lee, Analise Ober, and Harrison Vijay Tsui. You can follow us on Twitter @HowIBuiltThis, on Instagram @HowIBuiltThisNPR and email us at hibt@npr.org.