Companiesandme

How I fell into tea?

Many people ask me how I got into tea. Actually, the question is not so much how did I get into tea but rather how I got into tea after getting into art after getting into engineering.

I grew up in Cleveland, Ohio after my family immigrated from Baghdad, Iraq when I was five. My father was a doctor who worked around the clock raising his children, putting them through good schools with aspirations for a better life than the foreboding dictatorship that was ensuing in our native country (we left in 1971). While some assimilate quickly and leave their language and traditions behind, other immigrants, like my parents, recoil into their cultural traditions. We were only allowed to speak Arabic at home; I was not allowed to date (although I did secretly); and we were expected to become lawyers, doctors or engineers – the paths to "stability."

Naturally, my siblings and I did assimilate and became pretty Americanized. At the same time, our regular visits to Baghdad and visits from our relatives kept the roots and pride in our heritage alive and well. I also grew up feeling a strong sense of being an outsider. In suburban Ohio, being an Arab in the 70’s meant your father had "an oil field in his backyard" or your cousins "rode on camels" or your food was dirty… and the like. My mother also had a constant yearning to return to Iraq and, for a long time, I clung to that longing as well. My brother and I never quite fit in and I believe that many like me end up inventing themselves: roots and character coming from one place and personality and psyche landing in another. With family dynamics, stories and patterns mixed in to boot. Mine was a special case of intense dichotomies: rich Iraqi culture and traditions at home with two very successful and driven parents, an artistic and intellectual lineage, a strong thread of women renegades, my own simple, sensitive and complex soul, and an oppressive Iraqi dictator that never stopped overshadowing our lives and kitchen table stories even 100’s of thousands of miles away. And then there was America, land of free thinking and being. Girls dated boys before they married. The opportunities were endless.

I was always at home in my art. I drew, sewed, knitted; my hands never stopped moving. When I was twelve I wrote an autobiography describing the killing of my favorite uncle, and decided then that I would be an artist when I grew up. Unfortunately, though I won numerous awards and recognitions in school for my art projects, when it came time to choose a college major, art was not in my cards. Leaving Cleveland wasn’t either. So, I settled for Biomedical Engineering at our local university, an interesting field that won my parents’ approval and that challenged the mathematical and scientific part of my mind. I always took art or liberal arts classes to feed my creativity. Contrary to most stereotypes, my sister and I studied engineering while my brothers studied liberal arts (to the protests of my parents).

To my dismay, in the summer of my junior year I was in a near fatal auto accident. The car crushed both of my legs, dislocating the bones and completely severing the arteries behind my knees. I was nearly an amputee from the knees down, yet, a series of miraculous surgeries managed to save my legs. After one month in the hospital and eight surgeries, I went home in a wheelchair with full leg casts, broken bones, stretched sciatic nerves and a changed life. I learned how to walk again with a walker and endured another seven or so surgeries over the next ten years. While I did finish school and began work in my field, the depression and traumatic effects on my body and psyche took over my self-confidence and ability to focus. Not coming from a background where therapy or self-expression was accepted, I was imploding. Art was my only recourse for healing. Knowing I only had one life to live and with money earned from a lawsuit (another story), I decided to go to art school. From there, I decided to take a semester course in Italy, which led me to study under incredible teachers whose lessons aimed at healing and spiritual transformation – exactly what I needed. I continued to study with them in Florence for two years and still attend their workshops to this day, more than sixteen years later.

I think what I learned from my accident and my life led me to Numi. The accident made me a more humble person. It made me realize that I was not infallible or invincible. That life was fragile and precious. And that any sense of pride or arrogance were chips on my shoulder that could easily be knocked off. While I always appreciated beauty, simplicity and slowness, now more than ever, I lived it. My sense of spirituality and mysticism grew more and more in the comfort that there was something greater than myself, and I started to explore all types of mystical thinking to connect with that source.

A few years after returning from Italy, I started my Masters in Fine Arts at John F Kennedy University in their Department of Arts and Consciousness Studies. At this point, art and life were aligned for me and I continued both inner exploration and outward artistic expression. I began working on social, cultural and political themes in my artwork. The idea of Numi came about a year into my studies as I sat in a critique class and began feeling that mine and other students’ self-absorptions weren’t enough. Art only had relevance and, ultimately, power if it enabled transformation in both the maker and the viewer. After a bad day at work substitute teaching, I felt compelled to listen to an inner voice that reminded me of my ideas and potential and recalled advice my father once told me: Just choose one thing; it doesn’t matter what that thing is, but master that. And so I chose Numi.

"Numi" is a dried lime we drank as children in Iraq. Iraqis drink this tea all day long and is the tea of welcome at people’s homes and shops. We drink it with lots of sugar in small glass stikans. I had always thought: what a great idea if someone would bring this tea to America. On a family trip to the Grand Canyon, I mentioned it to my younger brother, Ahmed and lo and behold he had been thinking the same exact thing. Synchronicity is the ultimate indicator of fate and knowing you are on the right track. Initially, we were going to save $5,000 each of our own moneys, but then with some help from our father, we were able to start Numi (basing the company name on this inspirational Iraqi tea) out of my small apartment in Oakland, CA. Ahmed brought his years running tea houses in Prague to the tea formulations and became the Alchemist; I brought my art to the packaging and painted small, meditative scenes, many of which came from Ahmed’s photos from his world travels.

Numi is both the culmination and stepping stone of my journey.

Its manifestation as a tea product has been the perfect marriage for me. Our company vision is to inspire well-being of mind, body and spirit through the simple art of tea. Tea is liquid meditation, reminding us to enter a time and space to find our own thoughts and visions. My pride in my heritage; the education, smarts and hard work passed down from my family; the trauma I incurred at a young age; and my creative spirit all helped to define who I am and what I hope to pass on in simple ways through what I do every day at work. I truly believe that it just takes an idea, courage, hard work, stepping out of a presumed box and staying true to yourself that you can accomplish whatever you want.