During Covid, many people weren’t able to visit friends and family which inspired Inspirational Tea Co founder, Tanya Boots, to introduce Hug in a Mug gift boxes.
Exhibiting at Reed Gift Fairs Sydney last month, she told Giftguide the initiative was born during lockdown.
“The gift boxes were born over Covid,” she explains. “I was playing around with some words and then it struck me that a cup of tea was a hug in a mug. Everyone was going into lockdown and so Hug in a Mug was born.
“The whole message here is when you can’t be with someone to have a cuppa and give them a hug, you give them a hug in a mug.”
Inspirational Tea Co was originally launched as Monji Tea back in 2017. “Monji Tea was very personal, it had a lot of meaning for me personally as Monji was the name of a road a grew up on in country WA.”
However, the actual concept of her business was inspired by her daughter, who came home one day from school with beautiful little messages stapled onto a teabag with I love you mum and other lovely quotes as a Mother’s Day gift, she says.
“I just thought, coming from a long line of tea drinkers in the family, where connecting is all about sitting down with a cup of tea, a quote on a tea bag was a lovely way to send a message when you’re not there, or stop for a moment and just reflect on the message.
“I wanted it to be something you buy for somebody else as a gift, wrapped up in a giftbox. It makes you smile every time you go into the cupboard and it makes you smile when you think of the person that gave it to you.
“Something that has happened that I didn’t expect is that people send each other these gifts and then it’s not just the moment when they get the gift but it’s every time they have a cup of tea, they think of the person and they send each other a photo of the quotes, so it’s a way of connecting even though they are not in the same room. And that is definitely what I think we will need more of.
“These days, particularly women, we do a lot, we forget sometimes to take a moment to ourselves and if a little quote can help us do that, then there’s something in that, we can go back to our day with a new sense of calm and purpose.”
The rebrand came about in October of last year. “We wanted a name that would indicate what we do and what the appeal was of tea and what makes it different, hence Inspirational Tea Co.
“People would figure out there was something a bit inspiring about us and our tea. And I’ve always had a bit of an Alice in Wonderland thing, so I wanted something that could be beautiful as well as delicious,” she laughs.
With the new branding came the vision to take this further and introduce more and more inspirational products to the range.
“Not sure exactly what it will look like yet. We have a range of tea towels already, but there could be clothing, candles, anything where you can have an everyday product that enables an everyday routine and you can just take a little inspiration from it.”
