Teri and Bob Calloway, of Hobart, are steeping themselves in their passion for quality tea.
Calloway’s Homegrown, which offers organically grown herbal mint teas, took root in the mid-‘90s.
“We had property for the first time, and I’m a gardener, and we started growing a variety of different things,” Bob said. “It was typical vegetable garden stuff, but then I noticed that, in a ditch, we had some chocolate mint that had started growing and we just let it grow. That was probably ’95 or ’96.
“Teri had always been into medicinal remedies and that kind of stuff, and then, as I started to evolve our landscape, we put in lemon balm and found that that grew really well,” he continued. “Then we did a variety of different mints, and as we did that, it was like, ‘What do we do with all this?’”
“We’ve lived in Hobart for 30 years, and we moved up here from Long Island,” Teri said. “Initially, I was drying the herbs in the house — we live in a log cabin — and I would dry them in bunches from the rafters. We did that, then I just started blending for fun and making these teas.”
Decades later, the Calloways said, they have refined the process and their product line.
“The thing that makes us special, I think, is that we grow everything right here, organically and with no chemicals,” Teri said. “So, it’s a very limited product, plus it’s really not available until the end of July, if we’re lucky, or maybe August. What happens now is, I dry everything in paper bags up in our loft and it’s quicker that way and you can do more bulk. The (herbs) dry in the bags, then have to be stripped with hands after they’ve dried, then crushed and then, because we’ve moved on to making tea bags — and we make them out of wood pulp, which is very good for you — after we crush everything and blend it, we have to pack it by hand with little teaspoons and tie them. That’s the process, and it’s a cottage business, but, little by little, more and more shops are taking our tea — the boxes, the pouches and even serving it.
“We sell boxes of 10 tea bags … and Mellow Mint is one blend, mojito and spearmint is another, and that’s a little tangier, then we have chocolate mint and peppermint, which is yummy and like a peppermint patty,” she continued. “And we do a hemp blend (of) mojito mint, chocolate mint, lemon balm and hemp, and the hemp is grown locally, as well.”
Calloway’s Homegrown is served and stocked, Teri said, at Mountain Dog Cafe in Stamford and First Bloom Corner Store in Bloomville. It can also be purchased from Barber’s Farm in Middleburgh, the Wellness Rx in Tannersville, Hillhaven Farm in Stamford, Roxbury General, Magic Box in Oneonta, New York Books & Ephemera in Hobart and What the Soap in Windham. Calloway’s will also be coming to Catskill Outpost in Stamford, she said. And Teri will be vending loose tea, pouches and boxed sets at the Birdsong Farm Community Garden Holiday Market, Saturday, Dec. 2 in Delhi.
The Calloways said their customer base, as well as cultural interest in tea, has grown along with their gardens.
“Our youngest daughter is 35, and she says it’s really popular with her friends, and the elderly,” Teri said. “And the climate has changed up here — we both worked for BOCES for years and we’re retired from there, so we had friends there that would get (Calloway’s Homegrown) … but there are a lot of younger people that have settled up here. So, there’s different demographics of younger people and tea drinkers, and people seem to be very into herbal tea. And people are getting more into doing tea services and ceremonies, which I think is great.”
The Mellow Mint blend, Teri and Bob said, is a perennial favorite.
“A lot of people have said, with our Mellow Mint — which is lemon balm, spearmint, chocolate mint and peppermint — that, ‘Wow, I feel really great after I have it,’” Teri said. “So that is a hit.”
“I am not a tea drinker, then I had this epiphany after having our Mellow Mint when I was feeling flu-like,” Bob said. “It is very medicinal, so I bought in.”
The Calloways, in their early 70s, said they hope to continue cultivating quality products.
“Every year is different, and we’ve expanded more as far as what we grow,” Bob said. “I’m the grower and Teri’s the brains of the operation and it takes us wherever it leads us. If the demand is more, then we’ve thought of expanding.”
“We kind of have a belief,” Teri said. “I’m a former hippy and we’re children of the ‘60s; we love the land and Bob has created so many beautiful things surrounding our place and done it all on his own. We think it’s great to be able to give back and share nature and the beauty around us, and contribute to society in that way.”
For more information or to request a custom order, find “Calloway’s Homegrown” on Facebook or follow @callowayshomegrown on Instagram.