You’d be hard-pressed to search out a link between tea drinking and hip-hop. But for Shanae Jones, the connection is obvious. It’s all about community.

Because the first-born US American to British-Jamaican parents, tea was one other member of her family, Jones shared.

“A few of our most significant moments happened over tea,” she said. “I didn’t even realize that individuals weren’t accustomed to waking up or going to bed with a cup of tea on this country until I used to be much older.”

Although the drink was a staple in her household by the use of her parents’ British roots, Jones said she found her connection to American culture through music.

“Hip hop taught me how one can be American,” said Jones. “It’s not something that’s at all times discussed, but I look Black American, and I talk like an American, but growing up, my cultural experiences were different than my friends’. The best way I used to be really capable of bond with peers was through our mutual love of hip hop. After hearing my first Nas verse, I used to be hooked.”

Over time, her love of each tea and hip hop culture merged right into a hobby, then eventually, a business.

“I launched my tea line, Flyest, in 2016 and didn’t take it seriously initially,” Jones said concerning the brand, who was named after Nas’s 2001 song. She also shared that she was unsure of how a hip-hop themed tea brand can be received.

“I just wasn’t promoting it,” she shared. “I used to be still very scared to inform anybody I used to be doing this because I believed the thought of a hip hop-inspired tea company…I didn’t want people to laugh at me or think it was silly. I wasn’t really that confident within the business or in myself at the moment. And so it was probably around January of 2017 after I really began. I used to be posting and folks said it was a cool idea. Then they began buying.”

From there, Jones said she began to rethink the viability of her business idea, and commenced high-quality tuning it to incorporate stronger hip-hop influences through out the branding. Now, nearly five years into business the corporate has greater than 12 products including brews like Nip’s Tea, inspired by Nipsey Hussle, C.R.E.A.M., which is a tackle Wu-Tang’s hit and The Blueprint in recognition of Jay Z classic album.

Jones acknowledges the unique space she occupies as a Black woman herbalist that founded a tea brand that celebrates hip hop culture.

As of last yr, greater than 93% of brewery owners and types are white and greater than 58% of breweries are male-founded, with just 2.9 percent being woman-owned.

“I’m in a novel position obviously, but fortunately I actually have received an outpouring of support, particularly from Black women, that never made me query whether I made the suitable decision moving forward in such a white-dominated space. It’s the merging of two worlds I like a lot.”