Main Menu x
  • Home
  • Shop
  • Gift Ideas
  • Buy With Us
  • Be Inspired
  • Sell with us
  • ADVENTURES

    • Fun and games

    HOME

    • Bedroom
    • Cleaning products
    • Furnishings
    • Kitchenware
    • Lighting
    • Tableware

    OUTDOORS

    • Garden and outdoors

    ANIMALS

    • Pet products

    FAMILY & YOU

    • Baby products
    • Clothing
    • Food and drink
    • Health and beauty
    • Jewellery
    • Shoes and bags

    WORK

    • Work and office
  • Our Brands
  • Experiences
  • The Charities We Support
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • Parabens are preservatives used in consumer products
    • Natural ingredients
    • Be inspired

    Parabens – the no 1 unnecessary evil in consumer products?

    inspirational entrepreneur from Detroit
    • #BlackLivesMatter
    • Natural ingredients

    Inspirational Jamaican tea entrepreneur

    Namibian recycling entrepreneur - blacklivesmatter
    • Waste
    • #BlackLivesMatter

    Paulina Alfeus – #blacklivesmatter – Solution 1

    baltimores finest waste collector
    • Waste

    Mr Trash Wheel

  • Language: ENGLISH
    • ENGLISH
  • Currency: GBP
    • GBP
  • Instagram
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Pinterest
EcoHonesty
  • Home
  • Shop

    ADVENTURES

    • Fun and games

    HOME

    • Bedroom
    • Cleaning products
    • Furnishings
    • Kitchenware
    • Lighting
    • Tableware

    OUTDOORS

    • Garden and outdoors

    ANIMALS

    • Pet products

    FAMILY & YOU

    • Baby products
    • Clothing
    • Food and drink
    • Health and beauty
    • Jewellery
    • Shoes and bags

    WORK

    • Work and office
  • Gift Ideas
  • Buy With Us
    • Our Brands
    • Experiences
    • The Charities We Support
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
  • Be Inspired
    Parabens are preservatives used in consumer products
    • Natural ingredients
    • Be inspired

    Parabens – the no 1 unnecessary evil in consumer products?

    inspirational entrepreneur from Detroit
    • #BlackLivesMatter
    • Natural ingredients

    Inspirational Jamaican tea entrepreneur

    Namibian recycling entrepreneur - blacklivesmatter
    • Waste
    • #BlackLivesMatter

    Paulina Alfeus – #blacklivesmatter – Solution 1

    baltimores finest waste collector
    • Waste

    Mr Trash Wheel

  • Sell with us
Account
Your Cart 0 item(s)
Parabens are preservatives used in consumer products

Jun 19, 2020

Parabens – the no 1 unnecessary evil in consumer products?

By Chris
baltimores finest waste collector

Apr 06, 2020

Mr Trash Wheel

By Chris
inspirational entrepreneur from Detroit

Jun 05, 2020

Inspirational Jamaican tea entrepreneur

By Chris
Namibian recycling entrepreneur - blacklivesmatter

Jun 03, 2020

Paulina Alfeus – #blacklivesmatter – Solution 1

By Chris
based at Somerset house in London this restaurant has eradicated plastic

Apr 21, 2020

Spring Restaurant

By Chris
Eco Guest House in Snowdonia

Apr 21, 2020

Bryn Elltyd Eco Guest House

By Chris
birdgirl-breaking-down-culture-divide-in-conservation

Apr 05, 2020

‘Birdgirl’ breaking down the culture divide in conservation

By Chris

 

1 2

In the second of our features on incredible entrepreneurs, we feature a young lady who took on the challenge of breaking into one of the toughest sectors imaginable to succeed in. Armed with a receipt for Jamaican tea.

It seems crazy that we’ve needed  to write this series of features to support a campaign around skin colour. Nailah is remarkable in many ways, but the fact she is black should not be one of them. #blacklivesmatter

Introducing Nailah Ellis-Brown

It must be pretty cool to have a secret family recipe passed down to you, right? – “this must be sold, but never told”

That recipe was for hibiscus Jamaican tea that Nailah’s great-grandfather Cyril Byron passed on to her father. Mr Byron was a Garevyite-Jamaican immigrant who came to America in the early 1900s. He worked his way up to Chief Chef within a hotel chain before founding his own catering company in 1940. For 20 years Byron Caterers was one of the leading black-owned businesses in the Bronx.

Fast-forward to 2008 and Nailah followed in her great grandfather’s footsteps by launching her own business. And her business brought that age-old recipe for Jamaican tea to life!

a successful catering company form the Bronx

Ellis Island Tea

Jamaican sweet tea

Nailah’s story is just so inspiring from an entrepreneur’s perspective. A business makeover revealed that her branding to date had focused so heavily on her own energetic and warm personality, that the brand itself was taking a back seat. So, they looked at ways of re-inventing the Jamaican tea brand to make it really stand out on the shelves.

Within the rebranding project, the marketing guru proposed a name change to Black Star Line. Most entrepreneurs face a situation like this at some point – I certainly have! It would have been easy for Nailah to just accept the recommendation of an expert. They know best right? What did she do? Nailah stood by her own vision and decided to continue with Ellis Island Tea. Personally, we think she totally made the right choice!

What We Love About This Company

There’s so much to love about Ellis Island Tea. For one thing, the driving force behind the company is just so likeable and down to earth. Then, just imagining drinking Jamaican Tea conjures up so many nice thoughts – particularly at this time when travel is definitely off the menu.

Personally, I’ve always had a desire to visit Detroit for all its history and music connections – which is the base the Ellis Island Tea.

But perhaps most importantly, it’s a real David vs Goliath story. Can there be a more difficult market to break into than the soft drinks market? It takes a very special business with a unique product huge and amount of determination to survive and win in that one.

Way to go Nailah and Mr Byron!

inspirational entrepreneur from Detroit

Credits

This blog post has been written around the content on the Ellis Island Tea website.

We’d also like to credit the MSNBC video available on YouTube.  

Finally, we’d like to give a shout out to the Ellis Island Tea Instagram page.

Natural Ingredient Products on EcoHonesty

Sadly, Ellis Island Jamaican Tea is not currently available outside of the U.S.

However, we are delighted to support a UK based maker of the most scrumptious chocolate made using the finest natural ingredients – Cocoa Loco.

X