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[img_assist|fid=2864|thumb=1|alt=Reem Rahim of Numi Tea|caption=Reem Rahim is the Co-founder and Vice President of Marketing of the Oakland-based green business Numi Tea.]
Reem Rahim is the Co-founder and Vice President of Marketing of the Oakland-based green business Numi Tea. She is also the creator of the beautiful cover art on the tea's boxes. In the Fall of 1999, brother and sister Ahmed and Reem had a vision to revive the "serenity, creativity, and comfort that is inspired by the simple art of tea." Now they are the #9 brand in the natural food industry out of about 225 tea companies. Reem talks about how the company balances the triple bottom line of profits, people and planet.
If you haven't tasted Numi tea, it's delish. My favorite is Ruby Chai--Spiced Rooibos. If you click here you can watch a little movie that shows how their amazing flower teas open up when you steep them. Obviously, I'm a big fan (:
Below is a transcript from my interview with Reem from the Big Vision Podcast.
Reem Rahim: My name is Reem Rahim. I am the VP of Marketing and co-Founder here at Numi. My brother and I started Numi about seven years ago, from here in Oakland, California, and we started in my small apartment up the street, near Piedmont Avenue. It was about 750 square feet. A year later we moved to his house, which was about double the size, and then we moved to a warehouse, which was about 5,000 square feet, and we are currently in this space.
We have been in this space for about three years, it is about 25,000 square feet, and we are actually moving part of the offices to a location around the corner, which is also going to act as a sort of retail/event space, so we're really excited about that. We started just the two of us, and we are about 40 employees currently, from all over the Bay Area.
We started Numi for a number of reasons. My brother had teahouses in Europe, so he was really the tea, sort of, aficionado. He still is. For a long time, in my family, we had discussed importing a dry desert line called "Numi", in Arabic, that we drank as kids in our native Iraq. We had talked about that a lot in our family, so we just, my brother and I, sort of serendipitously decided to do that, separately, and then we talked about it, and so we decided to do it together.
So, we joined forces, he with his tea knowledge and myself. I am an artist and I was getting my Masters of Fine Arts at the time from John F. Kennedy University. We decided to bring both of our strengths together, myself in art and him in tea, and create Numi. If anybody has seen the packaging, all of the artwork on the packaging is my original artwork.
We really wanted to not only import this line, which is called Numi, but really dig into the authentic nature of tea and what it is about. We had noticed, in the market, that there were a lot of sort of, I guess you want to say sort of gimmicky brands, but there wasn't really quality in a teabag; and then this sort of space in tea, in terms of a space to relax, what we call "liquid meditation," wasn't really there, and we wanted to sort of portray a package or portray an essence in our brand that was about a self-reflective space, and what better way than tea and art, and create sort of depth and feeling, in the package as well as in the quality that is inside the bag.
What we introduced, which was very unique at the time, was a full-leaf quality tea in a bag, which didn't really exist. Then, what we did, which is still unique in the market, is we use real fruits. Everything was pure, real ingredients. So we use fresh, pure herbs, real fruits--which is unheard of in the market. So we don't add any oils or flavorings. It is very clean, very natural taste. If you have ever tasted it, which I hope you have and others will, you can really get that authentic taste in the bag. So we wanted to infuse that quality from the inside out, and from the outside in.
The other thing we did is we pioneered unique flavors. My brother, at the time, he was
