Tea with Intention

Blessed Be Tea and Apothecary puts the magick in your cup

By Kierstin Gunsberg | Aug. 12, 2023

Stroll too quickly past 116 E. Front Street in downtown TC and you might just miss it. There, tucked into the brick walls of the former Wooden Gallery space is Blessed Be Tea and Apothecary, a “magickal” shop that carries original tea blends mixed by Allie Robinson-Ollila.

As a lay herbalist, she uses herbs to create non-medical health and wellness remedies like tinctures, salves, and teas, using the knowledge she’s picked up through self-study and education from others who practice herbalism. “I make my tea with intention, whether that’s physical or metaphysical,” says Robinson-Ollila.

Of the dozens upon dozens of loose teas available in her cozy storefront, with titles like “Witch, Please” and “Doing Swell,” customers will find blends that promote everything from a happy digestive system and a great night’s sleep to success in humanity’s great plights—fortune and love.

A Magickal Mix

With a background that includes work in commercial kitchens and roles in healthcare, Robinson-Ollila feels that opening her own storefront for these unique steeps was less of a leap than it was a next step.

She says the idea for Blessed Be was a meeting of minds between her and former business partner Courtney Wiggins when they met nearly four years ago. “We quickly realized that we both had a passion for herbs, spirituality, and business,” says Robinson-Ollila of the business partnership. “We both had herbal studies, culinary, and retail in our backgrounds.”

The pair began beta testing their teas and tinctures on friends and family, and in June of 2020, they hit the Interlochen Farmers Market. Surrounded by the typical artisan bread and antique vendors, Robinson-Ollila and Wiggins made their first public Blessed Be sale. From there, they continued to make the rounds at markets and festivals, where their products were met with so much enthusiasm that they started talking about opening a brick-and-mortar store in northern Michigan.

In the spring of 2022, the store became a reality, the bouquet of herbs and spices mingling with the fudge shop next door. “People say they can smell my store from the street,” says Robinson-Ollila.

No Devil in the Details

By the time Blessed Be opened its first actual doors, cofounder Wiggins had departed from the company to focus on other roles, but Robinson-Ollila credits Wiggins with building the foundation of the shop and its community.

It’s a community that Robinson-Ollila has felt at home in for years, noting that long before producing her own witchy goods, she’d “been an initiated pagan practitioner for approximately 15 years.” She considers herself a professional witch—meaning her interest in witchcraft, spirituality, and the metaphysical is more than a hobby, it’s her vocation. While the idea of paganism and witchcraft might conjure scary scenes from cult classics on rerun through the spooky season, Robinson-Ollila explains that “there is no devil in the craft.”

Instead, “We believe that what you put forth into the world is what you get back,” she says, “which is why our personal energy output, our words, and our intentions are so important to us.”

As with other ideologies and spiritual philosophies, pagan beliefs are diverse and varying depending on the branch, but there are common threads that bind them—interconnectedness between humans and nature, earth worship, and spiritual empowerment. These are all things which Robinson-Ollila says culminate in a lifestyle centered around mindfulness, intention, and connectedness.

More Than Tea

The idea of connectedness is also an influence on not just pagan culture but on Blessed Be’s business model. “My business is centered around spirituality,” says Robinson-Ollila. “Not religion per se, but spiritual connections to the energy that flows all around us.”

To foster these connections, she says she prioritizes coordinating “in-house community events with teachers, healers, and practitioners,” like tarot readers, psychics, and spiritualists.

She also keeps the space bustling with a book club (or book “coven”) and a “Dead Poets Society” where guests bring in original or favorite poems to read open mic-style. Often, the shop hosts after-hours parties to coincide with the changing phases of the moon, which symbolize the cycles of life, death, and rebirth, serving as a reminder of the tie between humans and nature.

Robinson-Ollila says these get-togethers have “made it possible for us to give back philanthropically.” In 2022, money raised from the Blessed Be community was donated to The Women’s Resource Center. The store has also hosted a coat drive, a voter registration drive, and a fundraiser for the Navajo Water Project, whose mission is to bring safe water to homes without access to water or sewer lines.

It also gives the public a chance to meet other pagan locals and to browse Blessed Be’s merch. While her original recipe teas are the top seller, Robinson-Ollila says crystals—which can be used for energy cleansing, meditation, and chakra balancing—are a close second. She also says that starting out in the vendor circuit helped her create a network of over 60 local makers and artists whose candles, jewelry, and books are now featured in Blessed Be on consignment.

For those looking for a little serenity or even a boost of prosperity, Blessed Be’s spell kits include all of the necessary ingredients along with detailed instructions. Robinson-Ollila is in the store nearly every day to answer questions and provide guidance on how to carry out rituals or even to chat with inquiring minds about her latest studies.

“I’m constantly researching spiritual perspectives from a multitude of regions as if I was an anthropologist,” she tells us.

Once in a while, she finds herself explaining “examples of science overlapping with the world of metaphysics,” to those who challenge her with skepticism (which she calls “healthy”) or a misunderstanding of pagan beliefs.

While some enter her store seeking good fortune, Robinson-Ollila, says she already has it. “My customers’ presence is what brings me wealth. I am abundant because of the energy they share with me. They teach me, they cry with me, they laugh with me, and they for sure keep me on my toes.”

Blessed Be’s next moon celebration will take place Aug. 30 from 5pm-7pm, followed by a Dead Poets Society on Sept. 9 from 6pm-7pm, and their Fall Equinox Party on Sept. 23 starting at 5pm. For more information visit BlessedBeTea.com.