Michigan-Made Tea Pours Local Ingredients Into Every Cup
In partnership with: Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development
Each time Angela Macke brews a cup of Be Still tea, she knows where all the ingredients are grown. The white tea, chamomile, spearmint and raspberry leaves that give the herbal teas their flavor were sown, cultivated, harvested, processed, blended and packaged at Light of Day Organics, the Demeter Biodynamic and U.S. Department of Agriculture-certified organic farm that Macke owns and operates in Traverse City.
“Tea terroir is a real thing,” she says. “Michigan-grown teas are unique in every possible way.”
Macke left her job as a critical care nurse to start a tea farm in 2004. Although it’s exceptionally rare to grow Camellia sinensis – the evergreen plant native to Southeast Asia used to make black, green, white and oolong teas – Macke reasoned that Nepalese and Japanese farmers also grow tea in snowy climates.
“The science girl in me wanted to give the experiment a try,” she says.
In addition to growing tea plants, Macke also grows a huge selection of herbs like echinacea, chamomile, lavender, mints, calendula and fruits of all kinds that she uses to make farm-to-teacup brews on her 65-acre organic and biodynamic farm.
Brewing the Perfect Cup
John Fraser doesn’t grow the ingredients used to make Fraser Tea brews, but ethical sourcing and supporting Michigan farms are important to the Livonia tea company.
“We’re a family-owned business, and we want to support local,” Fraser says.
In 2015, the Fraser family started selling their teas at a farmers market in Ann Arbor and quickly expanded into coffee shops in supermarkets like Kroger and Meijer.
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In addition to staple flavors like Turmeric Ginger Organic Green Tea and Morning Blend Organic Black Tea, Fraser, a trained tea sommelier, spends significant amounts of time experimenting with new teas. In 2022, Fraser Tea introduced several new teas, including Strawberry Hibiscus Organic Herbal Tea and Peach Mango Organic White Tea, made with ingredients grown on Michigan Farms.
“There are subtle variations between crops every year,” Fraser says. “We do a lot of tasting to make sure each tea tastes just right.”
“We’re a family-owned business, and we want to support local.”
– John Fraser, Fraser Tea
Macke also takes a hands-on approach to making teas for Light of Day Organics, hand-harvesting the tea leaves and herbs used in teas like Sun in the Winter, Right as Rain, and their award-winning Creamy Earl Grey sold in their online store.
“It takes me four days to pick and process 1 pound of finished tea,” Macke says. “We hope people are radiating more love by visiting this place and by drinking nourishing, energizing products produced right here in Michigan.”
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