About Sei Mee Tea

The company name, Sei Mee Tea®, is pronounced as "Say Me Tea." "Sei" in Chinese character means "pure," and "Mee" in Chinese character means "beauty." Our goal is to bring health and quality to your life.
The following article appeared shortly after we launched our business in the northeast corner of Oregon, where green tea seemed quite "exotic."

To our pleasant surprise, many local people now use Edible Green® tea and have found out the comfort and versatility this deep green fine powder offers. And the circle of those who use Edible Green to bring health and tasty comfort to their lives is growing daily--spreading from state to state across this nation.

Our vision is simple: Edible Green ought to become a staple in the pantry of every household in this great country.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
It’s easy, being green
by Michael Lane of the Wallowa County Chieftain

Enterprise entrepreneur Kiyomi Oliver attractively packages her healthful — and very flavorful — offerings.
Photo by Michael Lane
 
Kiyomi Oliver is passionate about green tea.

Not the bitter, grass-clipping-flavored stuff sold in teabags in the United States, but real green tea.

“I couldn’t believe the green tea that is sold in America,” Oliver said. “I guess they thought people wouldn’t know the difference.” Oliver, born in the Kansai region near Osaka, Japan, does know.

And while quality green tea not only tastes far better than the grade seen by American consumers, Oliver is even more interested in its health benefits.

Sei Mee Tea (pronounced say me tea - sei mee being a play on one possible reading of the characters for Kiyomi in Japanese) began as a vague idea three years ago, when Bill Oliver, Kiyomi’s husband, was diagnosed with cancer. Holding their newborn daughter, with their son still a toddler, Oliver felt she had to do something, she said. Green tea is known for its antioxidants, and she decided to pursue it as a naturopathic remedy.

Oliver’s tea is a far different substance than the tea-bag variety many are familiar with in the states. It’s a powdered tea, with the leaves ground almost to a dust, then steeped in hot, but not boiling, water. There’s nothing thrown away, and that, she said, is what makes it special. “When you throw the leaves away you lose 90 or 95 percent of the antioxidants and vitamins,” Oliver pointed out. With the powdered tea, as easy to use as the instant stuff that comes in a jar at the store, you get all the benefits of nine cups of the mass-market green tea.

And you don’t just have to drink it, as her experiences prove.

“That was a real breakthrough that Kiyomi had,” Bill Oliver remembers. His wife decided to try including the powdered tea in classic American comfort foods and found that it was not only an alternate way to include it in his diet, it was also delicious.

Kiyomi Oliver first found a supplier, an organic farmer in the Miyazaki province of Japan, an area famous for its teas. After friends and family had shown appreciation for the product, she went through the many step necessary to turn her idea into a salable commodity. In its debut at the Handcrafter’s Guild bazaar in Enterprise, and the Joseph Holiday bazaar earlier this month — despite some initial skepticism by customers at the idea of green food — the tea did very well. “We had people coming back the next day to tell us how much they’d liked it,” Bill Oliver remembered. Both praised Wallowa County Business Facilitator Myron Kirkpatrick, whose advice, said Bill Oliver, helped them avoid the many blind alleys that people can go down while trying to put together a small business.

Starting this week, The Common Good Market in Enterprise, Lupine Annie’s in Lostine and To Zion in Joseph have begun carrying Sei Mee Tea, and Oliver has a Web site in the works, as well as hopeful plans to someday franchise sales to individuals. She will be on hand for a demonstration at The Common Good on Dec. 23.