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umusicians · 7 years

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UM Industry Profile : : Sky White (Founder of Wendigo Tea Company)

Sky White, soft spoken keyboardist of Foxy Shazam, found his obsession with tea behind the wheel of Foxy's tour rig. With a distaste for coffee, he began taking interest in the ability to brew fine, high grade tea on the go and with two shakes of a lambs tail (and an incredible amount of work), Wendigo Tea Company was formed. UMusicians caught up with Sky White to talk about his latest endeavor!

UMusicians: Hello! Thank you for speaking with us! Would you mind telling us your name and a little bit about Wendigo Tea Company? SW: Hey. I'm Sky White and Wendigo Tea Co. is a cryptid/beast themed tea business that I own and operate nearly identically as a band. We focus on only extremely high grade teas.

UMusicians: How did Wendigo come about? Was it an overnight idea or was the creation a long time coming? SW: The idea took years to come into focus. Then when Foxy Shazam decided to back off then I finally had time to put in the leg work to get it up and running. UMusicians: When Wendigo first started out, was it difficult? What challenges did you face? SW: Owning a small business is always difficult. It is exceptionally hard for me because Wendigo Tea Co. is growing pretty darn fast and keeps throwing me into new parts of the food industry that I know nothing about. Money management is always extra hard when a business is growing faster than expected. UMusicians: If you had the opportunity to start over, would you do anything differently? SW: Not really. I really like that the 1st bunch of orders that I sent out looked pretty stupid and over time developed into these cool as hell beasts. My customers appreciate the ability to watch my company grow and get better and nearly all them are still constantly ordering from Wendigo now. UMusicians: What makes Wendigo different from other tea companies? SW: Other tea companies are boring and sell garbage low grade tea because most American's don't know any better. Wendigo Tea Co. thinks that is bullshit and you deserve better. UMusicians: In any way, had performing in a Foxy Shazam helped prepare you for running your own company? SW: I found most of my catalog of teas by traveling around the world with Foxy. 200-300 shows a year for ten years means a lot of times I could wander away from the venue and find the greatest tea that the city had to offer. I had to have tasted 2000+ different teas while traveling. I unknowingly was doing research for Wendigo all along. Foxy Shazam was always very conscious about being as wildly different from other bands as possible. We always stood out. And we always put in the time to make sure every show was fluid yet horrifying. Standing out in the tea industry is a little easier because the competition is all doing the exact same thing. UMusicians: Any advice to someone who wants to start their own company? SW: Just start it and make mistakes. Learn as much as you can along the way. Ask for advice from people that may know more than you. Only take the advice that matches your personal core beliefs. I would assume a large number of your readers are musicians given your title. Bands are small businesses too. If you can't manage to work together in order to regularly put out quality content then your business will fail. If you are relying on someone outside of the band to make it happen for you then you are not doing everything you can to succeed. Delegate responsibilities to members based on their skills and interest. Everyone should not be worrying about every single problem that comes up. Nobody will ever care about the success of the band as much as you so work as hard/smart as you can. Or email me at [email protected] if you have any specific question. UMusicians: I noted many of teas have interesting designs, who does the artwork? SW: Mat Franklin did merch and teched for Foxy for years. He helped with many of our designs and toured with us playing with Cadaver Dogs. I had seen a lot of his freelance design work and also saw his personal style tended to involve monsters and beasts and also did haunted house design. So when I needed an artist for Wendigo it was like a 3 second long conversation. Me: So I'm starting a cryptid themed tea company... so you're my artist...? Mat: Oh yeah... I'm obviously your artist. UMusicians: Tell us a little bit about the product, do you grow your own tea leaves? Or do you have a supplier? SW: I work with a lot of different growers, blenders, and exporters around the world. I wish I could grow locally here but I focus on traditional teas which involve the Camellia sinensis plant. It is the base of all black tea, green tea, oolong tea, white tea.... pretty much all tea except herbal tea. It does not grow well anywhere within the US. I would love for someone to prove me wrong with this. There are a handful of places that try but are nowhere near as good at it than the places I'm getting it from. UMusicians: Do you foresee expanding into more types of tea in the future? If so, will you continue with the supernatural theme you have going on? SW: Yeah I plan to add a few more but never want to be one of those companies with 100+ different teas. Everything will have at least some element of the supernatural branding involved. UMusicians: Do you have a personal favorite tea? SW: Wendigo Green Tea is my personal favorite. It is not for beginners though. It is a super fresh yet potent rare organic Japenese Sencha from Uji. It tastes like you are licking a big green part of the planet in spring. I have to mention Siren though. Siren Herbal Throat Health Tea is one of my newest additions. It was created for vocalists and people that depend on their voice for a living. Siren is my only herbal tea that I developed with an herbal expert specifically to help combat the lifestyle of constant performing and traveling. I honestly never planned on having an herbal tea in my catalog but knew that people needed this one. There are tons of throat sprays and teas out there. It has a lot of the same ingredients as those except just much higher grade versions of the herbs and tastes a hell of a lot better, as long as you are okay with spicy ginger. We are getting great feedback so far from famous vocalists, voice over actors, world record holding vocal coaches, performers, and other people that just want something to help soothe their worn out throat. I'm pretty proud of this one. UMusicians: Are you working on any upcoming projects? SW: Well I'm always working on new stuff. Wendigo always has irons in the fire, but the public will only hear of the best ones when they are ready. I have a few music projects in the works and have been playing some heavy delta blues in dark corners of the city for fun.

Connect with Wendigo Tea on the following websites: https://wendigotea.com/ https://www.facebook.com/wendigotea https://twitter.com/wendigotea https://www.instagram.com/wendigotea/

#Industry Profile #Interviews #Sky White #Foxy Shazam #Wendigo Tea Company #Xochitil Hansen

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