Meet Leah Larabell | CoOwner, High Garden Tea

We had the good fortune of connecting with Leah Larabell and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Leah, is your business focused on helping the community? If so, how?
High Garden Tea isn’t just a business; it’s a way of life we are hoping to share with as many others as possible. A life connected to our truest home, to our largest and most whole self, the wild, natural world.
I, Leah (co owner with my husband Joel), have found over the years that one of the easiest paths back to our most connected self is through herbalism. The moment people realize that the plants growing right outside of their door can offer incredible food and natural medicine, walls of separation begin to crumble. The scary “wild” we have been led to fear suddenly transforms into an unexpected nurturing healer.

And for us, in return, each person that begins to walk on the plant path is another that will begin to protect our shared home, the Earth. We offer not only true herbalism in tea form- an almost lost art if you ask me. The tiny little flavored, sprayed and marketed teabags on the grocery store shelves are just shells of what tea is supposed to be. It’s an honor to be allowed to craft and offer tea that hits in a different way the moment you take your first sip. You can tell something is different. It’s authentic and comes from a time honored tradition.

It’s funny that environmentalism and conservation work are considered radical by some. I mean- it’s my home. Who doesn’t want to protect their home? I live here and take great exception to actions that damage and harm my home and neighbors in nature. There’s nothing woo woo or out-there about that. If our ecosystem crumbles, so do we. We’re not separate. We are all connected. And after all, isnt that a good thing? We all just crave belonging. And we have it if we just take a moment to slow down, tear down some imaginary walls of separation and soak in the fact that we naturally belong. It’s in our nature. We are a part of the ecosystem with every action having a reaction through the web in which we live. Our relationships are not restricted to just humans or a favorite pet. No, it’s much larger than that- so many more possibilities for connection.
That is what High Garden Tea is about. Through tea, we are able to connect with community, teach about our plant kin, and share this way of life with anyone seeking.

Another way that we work to help our community and world is through purchasing and preserving regional forested land for today and future generations to come. Our beautiful forests, our lungs, are being constantly destroyed. This isnt like cutting the grass. When trees are cut, it takes hundreds of years to once return, if ever allowed at all. The forest isnt just an oxygen factory either. The forests in our region are home to some of the most diverse plant and animal life across the world. We are blessed in our region with basically a little deciduous rainforest that is incredibly rare. It’s definitely worth protecting. When Joel and I asked one another, “When I am 80, what do I want my legacy to be?” both of our resounding answers were- “We saved 1000s of acres of forested land.” And that is what we are trying to do- one cup of tea at a time.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
We are a tea company, High Garden Tea, but it doesnt stop there. High Garden Tea has several goals. One is to offer true herbalism in tea form to help bring natural wellness to those seeking. No marketing ploys, no greenwashing. Just authentic and well studied plant wellness which is surpisingly harder to find than one might think.
I, Leah, am a 2 decade trained and teaching herbalist and still am heavily involved in all aspects of our business and tea. We offer true herbalism in tea form and I am so incredibly proud to say that.
This tea is from some of the healthiest plants possible that have been grown and harvested for their health and health of their ecosystem so they can then offer that forward.
We never get lazy and are constantly working to make sure we’re doing the best dang job we can for you and the land. One thing that’s important is constant research.
We dig in and do the research so our customers dont have to. There are so many issues with almost any business these days.
For example, herbalism is compromised in several ways. It’s considered a multibillion dollar industry and many many many companies get into it not to help heal but rather to make their part of that billion. They greenwash in efforts to appear environmentally friendly and market extremely well to convince customers that they are the best.
All the while, supplements are being chemically altered into concentrates that are no longer the herb they say they are (think “standardized extracts”) and these are the “herbs” that can create side effects since they are no longer the herb at all. They do this to make them “faster, stronger, and more powerful”. this is no longer herbs or herbalism, they are phytopharmaceuticals that do have much higher probability of causing reactions and interactions. This isnt herbalism.
Regarding tea, it isnt free from its own issues as well. Tea farms are purchasing vast forests to clear-cut and turn into tea plantations. Not only destroying the forests, but also trapping and killing any wildlife who return looking for their home. As demand for cheap tea grows, proper growing and harvesting practices go down and competition to create cheap tea rises. Working conditions are poor and the cheap tea on grocery store shelves claim to be so environmentally friendly are far from it. They carry many eco friendly labels and certifications, yes- but all of which are simply bought.
Chemicals and perfumes are used to cover up the fact that the tea no longer is healthy enough to create a wonderful aroma and flavor on its own. Thats where your “peach green’ and “blackberry black” with sprayed “natural flavors” comes in. Covering up the fact that the tea plant wasn’t healthy enough to have the aroma and flavor it was meant to. Another thing it’s not able to offer is the health benefits you are seeking. If the plant is not healthy, it doesn’t have high levels of the vitamins, minerals and constituents you are seeking. The tea plants needs to be grown in proper conditions, gathered in a proper manner, and processed in a time tested way to offer the benefits we associate with the nourishing tea plant.
Needless to say, we see these issues and do not purchase from any tea farm practicing in this manner. We do the research and ask the hard questions so as to only support those that support truly ethical, community caring, and eco friendly practices.
Im honestly shocked that our company has done as well as it has because we’ve gone against the grain since day 1. We never used those fancy tea sachets or tea pyramids because we knew they were riddled with microplastics. Thats why we’ve used microplastic free, hand stapled tea bags since day one back in 2011 long before the awareness of why we made this choice. Some folks complained about our tea bags looking too “hand made” when others looked so fancy. We never side stepped our path and kept the cleanest option of our basic non bleached, paper teabags. Years later, the awareness has built and folk think our bags look pretty great now 😉
Fancy packaging is a trend and has been since we began. Packaging helps sell the product. Folks often dont even realize they are doing it, but we can often associate the quality of contents in a package with how fancy and elaborate the outside of the package looks. We know this, yet since day one, our mission has been minimal packaging with maximum eco conscious compostability. Our packaging has lost us accounts and we still didn’t change it. We pride ourselves on minimal packaging with maximum quality product inside.
An important lesson I’ve learned along with way is how important it is to support other small businesses, and especially those with a mission behind their work. Small businesses care and honestly lead the way directing larger businesses what is “trending”. We tend to be the creatives and the ones who care. Larger businesses tend to only do what is demanded of them when in regards of anything besides making a larger profit.
Example, High Garden spends almost 3x more in packaging and supplies than non environmentally friendly business by choosing all eco conscious products possible. The “demand” isnt currently there for eco forward packaging and supplies so much of it has to be custom ordered or is just more expensive because there is less available. Small businesses also tend to take much better care of their community. We as a small business donate to our community because it is that… our community. Small businesses invest in their community and in their customers experience because we care. Small businesses tend to care about many things and are much more comfortable just “getting by” because they are doing what they love and doing it in a place they care about. Small businesses, local non profits, community… that’s where it is. Thats where we can create the change we want to see.
We’ve got to pull our spending from the large businesses and find more conscious options for all the reasons. I have yet to meet a small business owner that’s only in it for the money. It’s oftentimes one of the last motivators.
Example, our tea can’t be wholesaled to larger retailers because its is almost wholesaled to the public. Our markup is pretty minimal for the purpose of being as accessible as possible to anyone seeking. This does cause challenges for us to wholesale to larger retailers since we can’t reduce the price much more than we offer it to the public. We have a couple choices here if we want to have a product that can ever make it to larger retailers- 1) raise our prices dramatically to the public. 2) lower our cost of the product by making smaller bags, using lower quality ingredients, paying our employees less and sacrificing quality (like the tea on grocery store shelves).
What did we choose? Neither. We just won’t ever be going to major retailers. We will not make our teas less accessible for the public to sell more to large retailers and we sure as heck aren’t going to compromise our product that we are incredibly proud of.
Thats what you tend to get with small businesses. We care, and we care deeply.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
We are nature folks so of course we’d go to Shelby Bottoms for a hike and maybe take in one of their amazing classes. I can’t choose between restaurants or coffee shops because so many support us and we want to support them allllll.
We love the nashville Zoo and enjoy Percy Warner park as well. If they wanted to take home a souvenir, I’d probably take them to Gift Horse and if they wanted to see an awesome refill market, Id swing by the Good Fill. We’d hit up thrift and vintage shops because I rarely by new and Nashville has some incredible thrifting and vintage clothes shops. Anaconda vintage is so great!

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
So many! First, the indigenous peoples of this land who spoke to the land and learned its secrets of healing. They carried it forward with love and respect. Right relations, in a good way.
My herbal teachers and elders that took the time to learn herbalism and carry it forward so that people like me could learn it one day. Lisa Bedner, Phyllis Light, David Winston, Matthew Wood, Rosemary Gladstar, and so many more.
For the conservationists that put in the work to protect this land that we all depend on so desperately yet take for granted. These people recognize the need and act with conviction and grace. Douglas Tallamy and Margaret Renkl, both incredible authors and inspiration. Wildlife rehabilitators who have taught me so much about our animal kin such as Debbie Sykes of Nashville Wildlife Conservation Center. Groups like Appalachian Voices who use their voice to speak for those that are not able to defend themselves on our human language.
Books I have found incredibly inspiring over the years would be “Nature’s Best Hope” by Douglas Tallamy, “We are the Ark” by Mary Reynolds, “The Hidden Life of Trees” by Peter Wohlleben, and “The Forest Unseen” by David G. Haskell are just a few of the books that helped shape the herbalist that I am today. Not through facts in herbalism, but by welcoming me to be a part of this world in which I live.

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Image Credits
Forrest photography, Ava Rymer