Jeffrey Champeau | The Amazing Benefits of Rishi Tea & Botanicals
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Tea is not only a beverage that wakes you up in the morning or calms you down during a busy day, but also a ritual of connection. Listen to this episode with Jeffrey Champeau and learn how to incorporate tea as a mindfulness practice and the digestive benefits of a particular kind of tea. Rishi Tea and Sparkling Botanicals is a sponsor for the Live Greatly podcast.
Key Takeaways From This Episode
Tea in the culture of China
Health benefits of tea
Properties of matcha
What's great about Sparkling Botanicals’ tea
How to incorporate Pu-erh tea into your diet
Disclaimer: All information and views shared on the Live Greatly podcast are purely the opinions of the authors, and are not intended to provide medical advice or treatment recommendations. The contents of this podcast are intended for informational and educational purposes only. Always seek the guidance of your physician or other qualified health professional when you have any questions regarding your specific health, changes to diet and exercise, or any medical conditions. Recording this episode was part of Rishi tea & Sparkling Botanical’s paid sponsorship package with the Live Greatly podcast.
Rishi tea and sparkling botanicals did send me free products to try which I loved!
Resources Mentioned In This Episode
The Hero with a Thousand Faces
About Jeffrey Champeau
Jeffrey Champeau is the VP of Business Development at Rishi Tea & Botanicals. He fell in love with tea at an early age through his studies of Chinese language and culture. He was 15 when he first traveled to China and was blown away by Chinese cuisine and the daily ritual of tea. Jeffrey joined Rishi right out of college and has spent the last 10 years working closely with founder Joshua Kaiser in all areas of the business, from quality control tea tasting and procurement to marketing and sales strategy.
About Rishi Tea & Sparkling Botanicals
Milwaukee-based Rishi Tea was founded nearly 25 years ago on the commitment to set the standard for quality tea and expand the awareness of its rich history. Rishi offers premium tea and botanicals imported directly from gardens across the world from Chile to Japan and Taiwan—drawing inspiration from ancient artisanal practices that use organic cultivation techniques as well as modern culinary innovation. In addition, Rishi recently launched Sparkling Botanicals—a line of light and refreshing functional beverages crafted with imported fruits, spices and herbs from partners around the globe with innovative flavors like Schisandra Berry, Turmeric Saffron and Black Lemon.
Connect with Rishi Tea & Sparkling Botanicals
Instagram: @rishitea; @sparklingbotanicals
To obtain 25% off from Rishi Tea and Sparkling Botanicals, visit their website at www.sparkling-botanicals.com and www.rishi-tea.com and use promo code LiveGreatly.
This promo code is valid until 12/31/2021.
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Kristel Bauer, the Founder of Live Greatly, is on a mission to help people awaken to their ultimate potential. She is a wellness expert, Integrative Medicine Fellow, Keynote Speaker, Physician Assistant, & Reiki Master with the goal of empowering others to live their best lives!
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Episode Transcript
Jeffrey (Teaser)
We get this slow and steady sense of wakeful alertness, coupled with the level of concentration we get from TNE, and that's going to be true for all types of tea, green and black and white and long. It's just such an amazing plant with such a story to history.
Kristel (Guest Inroduction)
Whether you're an avid coffee drinker or a tea drinker, you're going to gain a ton of value from today's episode with Jeffrey Champeau.
Jeffrey is the VP of business at Rishi tea and botanicals. I've been drinking Rishi's teas for such a long time, and they have so many amazing flavors with a ton of different benefits. I'm really excited to chat with Jeffrey about the specific health benefits of tea and also their new functional beverages. Their sparkling botanicals.
We're also going to be talking about using tea as a ritual and how this can be incorporated into a mindfulness practice. You're going to learn a specific kind of tea that can be helpful for digestion, and also how Jeffery and Rishi tea and botanicals have navigated the COVID-19 pandemic.
I was so excited to partner up with Rishi, their sponsor for this Live Greatly podcast. And I'm so pumped to share this with you. So let's jump right into it and welcome Jeffrey Champeau onto the show.
Jeffrey:
Thank you so much, Kristel. It's great to be here and share a little bit about tea. My name's Jeffrey Champeau and I'm the VP business development at Rishi team botanicals.
I've been in love with tea since the first time I traveled to China in high school when I was about 15 years old and really discovered tea for the first time on those travels and have been pursuing tea and all its lower and mystery and everything is so amazing about it.. Since I've been with Rishi for 10 years, and I'm just so proud of the team that we're building and the different kinds of teas that we bring to the different markets from coffee to restaurant, to grocery and direct to consumer. And I just love so much about tea.
Kristel:
So Rishi has a special place in my heart because you're a Rishi actually helped me get into tea because I, gosh, maybe 12 years ago now I can't even remember exactly when, but it was when I was living in Chicago and one of the grocery stores, they were doing a tasting of one of your teas and my then boyfriend now, husband.
We tried it and we both loved it. And I think it was the tumeric ginger tea. And, uh, you know, and we bought the tea that wasn't in the tea bags, which was a big thing for us at that point. And ever since that point, I've been more fascinated with tea and throughout my integrative medicine fellowship as well.
With Dr. Weil learning about all the different benefits of tea. And it's so fascinating. So with you going to China, you said you were 15, is that right?
Jeffrey:
Yeah, that's right.
Kristel:
Did you do any like tea ceremonies or anything that stands out that really sparked interest to get you intrigued with the path of tea?
Jeffrey:
I just recall as a kid traveling to China, it was my first time traveling out of the country, out of the U.S. And just being amazed at how immersive tea is into the culture of China. And I mean, it was such a mind blowing trip. I spent a month in my summer after freshman year of high school, I was pursuing the language at the time and got this opportunity to travel and just experience.
You know, the, the culture and learn a bit more. I was hooked. I mean, the food is amazing. And just to see how tea is infused into the daily life was just incredible. I had never really had loose leaf tea before, so yeah, I experienced. Some of the gong Fu or Kung Fu tea ceremony. And I was entranced by the ritual, by the physicality, all of the accoutrement and the wares of tea.
It was just like this whole world opened up to me. And I was traveling with friends who I had just met on this trip from around the world, from Japan, from Indonesia, from Europe. And so here I am, first time out of the country. I'm in China, I'm working on my rusty Chinese that I've been learning for a few years, experiencing all of this amazing culture.
And we would drink tea at night and stay up late into the night, talking about our cultures, where we came from. And I remember coming back home off of that trip and the aroma of brewing tea just instantly brought me back to those moments of just being abroad and sharing those insights with people from around the world.
So I still feel a little flavor of that romance, you know, when I'm brewing tea today. It's something that really infuses my life.
Kristel:
That's amazing. And having tea and preparing tea is an incredible way to create a ritual that can really empower, empower people. And I think it's also a great mindfulness practice, or it can be a great mindfulness practice.
So what have you found as far as using tea as a ritual?
Jeffrey:
Tea is the global beverage of hospitality. And so it has a place in the ritual of connection. In so many parts of the world, cup of tea is used to welcome a guest into the home or the office. And so I think ti allows us to set this platform for connection around something that's natural that requires some action of a host to provide something for a guest.
And I think that's just a really humbling and just really, really cool moment. And then there's also the personal ritual of tea, which, you know, so many of us have in our own lives, whether it's coffee or tea, caffeinated drinks, or, you know, some kinds of herbal and botanical teas that don't have caffeine, there's all kinds of ways to infuse these rituals into our daily practice.
Um, the world of tea is immense and broad, and I think it can be everything from that morning cup that wakes you up and gets you set and ready for the day, or it can be that cup of tea that gives you a sense of calm and repose in the middle of a busy day and allows you to collect your thoughts, maybe empty the mind a little bit and just let the kind of day wash over you, tea can, can infuse us with so many aspects of ritual.
Kristel:
Right. And there's also great health benefits to certain kinds of tea. One of the things that I learned was about no specific to green tea, but you know, the and all the antioxidants and LTD, and I used to practice and integrative psychiatry. And that actually was something we would give as a supplement to help kind of Sue anxiety.
And for that like calm attentiveness, but that's in green tea now and, um, you know, anti-cancer properties and so many wonderful things. So I would love to hear some, um, insights you have about health benefits of tea. And there are so many kinds of teas. If you have any interesting tidbits about some that maybe the Listener isn't as familiar with, that would be amazing.
Jeffrey:
Absolutely. So I'll start with tea and then we can talk about botanicals and herbs as well, because there's really two, two things. So tea, Camellia sinensis. That's the tea plant. That's the species name of the tea plant. And we can think of tea, kind of like wine. Vitis Vinifera is the grapes for wine. And we know all of the varietals that there are for wine.
Well, tea has the same thing. Camellia sinensis has hundreds upon hundreds of cultivars of the plant. And from those various cultivars, we can produce green tea, white tea, black tea, fermented tea and oolong tea. All of these styles of tea originate from the same species of plant and those cultivar expressions that are planted and grown by by tea growers around the world.
And so all tea has the same kind of phytochemistry and nutrient base that we can, that we can look to for those sources of health benefits. Tea is ancient medicine. The tannins inti are the antioxidants, the polyphenols. And so when we talk about the antioxidant benefits of tea, that's the tannins that are in tea.
So when you taste, you know, a full bodied or dry, maybe slightly dry tea, that's going to be riched with antioxidants. Every kind of tea has its own unique phytochemistry balance. And that all comes down to the where it's grown, how it's grown and that cultivar genetics inside the plant. But tea has caffeine naturally.
So we get that sense of wakefulness, but the tannins in tea have this unique ability to form a chemical bond with the caffeine. So when we drink tea, we actually have a slow release of the caffeine into our body and we don't get hit with it all at once. And then a crash later. So we get this kind of slow release of the caffeine.
And then if you couple that with theanine, the amino acid that's uniquely found only in tea that amino acid stimulates our alpha brainwaves, which allow us to focus and have concentration. So we get this slow and steady sense of wakeful alertness. Coupled with the level of concentration we get from theanine and that's going to be true for all types of tea, green and black and white and oolong.
It's just such an amazing plant with such a storied history.
Kristel:
I love it. So a couple of things there, one, I think I just realized, I've been saying theanine wrong. Cause I heard you say LT, you need, is it T or.
Jeffrey:
And you think it's tomato, tomato kind of a thing.
Kristel:
I've been saying it wrong this whole time. It was the first thing. The second thing is that the tannins that's interesting because I didn't realize that all the antioxidants were going to be part of those tannins. And another thing I have read, and I'd love your input on this is, are the tannins what potentially could cause like an upset stomach with certainties if you drink tea on an empty stomach, if it's really tannic, should you be having food with it or I would love your input on that a little bt.
Jeffrey:
That's a great point. Yes. And I always recommend, especially for people who are preparing matcha, the powdered green tea of Japan, um, preparing a bowl of matcha or other strong teas for the first time, have some snacks or have the tea on a little bit of food? Um, because the tannins and tea can basically kind of strip away some of the stomach acids and interfere with, with the digestion. So with a full stomach, with a little food that kick-starts the whole process of metabolism again, and you're good to go.
But definitely a tea with food, tea with snacks is totally a welcome tradition around the world.
Krsitel:
Curious how often you drink tea throughout the day. And do you have a routine of like only caffeinated tea to a certain point? And obviously this is going to be a very unique thing, everybody's going to be impacted by caffeine differently.
But seeing that you're in the tea business, I would love to hear your personal routine with tea.
Jeffrey:
I love tea, I drink tea morning, noon, and night, and no matter morning or night, I can handle the tea with caffeine. I think something about that, that chemistry balance with the tannins and the L theanine, it doesn't really affect my body or keep me up.
I can crash out at night. No problem with tea. I drink tea all day long. I'm always brewing tea. And one thing I love so much about loose leaf tea is that you can take a serving of the loose leaf tea. And if you're brewing it in a traditional tea pot, or a gaiwan, or some other brewing vessel, you can reinfuse the same tea leaves several times, some teas, even 10, 15 or more times.
And so you can get your tea set up going. I can take my zoom calls with my teammates and customers throughout the day, and just keep rolling on the same set of tea leaves. And it is really something you can, you can make work throughout the day. But I always wake up and have at least two cups of tea.
Before I get the kids out to the daycare comeback, you know, reset, probably hit a bowl of matcha before I start my Workday. I always love to start the day with matcha then throughout the day, I'm drinking more aromatic and stimulating teas that kind of stimulate my palette and oolong tea, fermented white tea come to mind that some of my favorites that have the most interesting like aromatic range.
And I do tend to go into the more botanical world in the evening. Elderberry, valerian root, or some herbs I might be drinking in the evening that have some kind of relaxing properties.
Kristel:
Wonderful. Yeah. I love that. For me, Um, I found things like, uh, camel teas and lemon balms, and those types of things are nice in the evening. And right now actually I'm having some matcha. I don't have the traditional matcha bowl right now. I do have it. I should have just done that to make myself look cool, but no, I did. And I have my traditional coffee mug with my matcha, which is probably against the rules.
Jeffrey:
It's all good. No, we celebrate matcha in our coffee world as like the espresso of tea. And really you can, you can think of matcha as, as a matcha. Matcha as an espresso shot, analog for tea. It's really, it's really versatile for lattes and all kinds of cafe drinks.
Kristel:
And it's a big hit now because it's ending up in smoothies and you're seeing matcha all over the place, you know, and chocolates, and it's been labeled as this like, I don't know if you'd call it a super food, but what are your thoughts about matcha compared to other teas? I, I, my understanding it's higher ed caffeine. And it's potentially higher. And is it ECGC or what is that? Is that, am I saying that right? Okay.
Jeffrey:
Yeah, that is one of the antioxidant compounds in tea. E C G C.
And really the thing that's so special about matcha is that it's the shade grown. And stone ground green tea powder of Japan. And so it's a powder. And when we prepare matcha, we're creating an infusion of that powder and a suspension and emulsion of it into a frothy beverage. And when we drink matcha, we actually consume the tea leaf.
We consume that powdered format of the tea leaf. And so that's where we're actually ingesting all of those nutrient. And get that much more yielded into our cup than we do from the typical method of just infusing the leaf and straining it out into the infusion. And so Matcha is definitely elevated in caffeine.
It's elevated in the antioxidants of tea and super elevated in the L theanine and amino acid, which gives it that, that sense of focus and alertness. For centuries, the Zen Buddhist monks of Japan have taken Matcha as part of their meditation ritual because you get such a concentration of the L theanine and amino acid.
And it's just got this immense history of supporting meditation, being part of a mindfulness practice. It really, I think gives, gives a mental edge. And people are catching that feeling. We've seen that trend in grocery and cafes on, or, you know, through our website. It's really fun to see Mactcha taking on.
It's a, I think a cleaner form of energy.
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Kristel:
Yeah. I definitely feel more energized and I feel a mood boost from it. Um, I tend to have it like early afternoon. That's when I like to have it. It's like after lunch. Cause I, we had talked before about having it with some food, but I really can feel it. It's one of my favorite teas for sure. Um, I would love to talk a little bit about the sparkling botanicals cause we've talked about the teas and now Rishi has this new line of sparklig botanicals, which I've tried. And I was super excited when Rishi sent me some because all of the ingredients, I shouldn't say all, but a lot of them, I recognized and through my fellowship, you know, we learned about different adaptogens and things to support stress response. And, and I felt like you did a really incredible job of incorporating some really valuable ingredients in there. So I would love for you to share a little bit about that.
Jeffrey:
Oh, thank you. Yeah, our sparkling botanicals, we are so excited about them. It's really our first chance to be able to deliver to the consumers. You know, our intention, our herbal tea blends, as we've conceived them in a simple format, you just crack open the cans.
Maybe pour it into a glass and you're good to go. They're made with real plants to deliver real virtue. So it's the same, loose-leaf direct trade teas and botanicals that we use in our blends. And we infuse them through a proprietary, in a brewing process to extract their essence in the right balance.
And we sparkled them up with carbonated water and they're really just designed for, you know, refreshment anytime of day. Um, so we've got everything from the Schisandra berry profile, which is literally just shows Shisandra berry infused and sparkling water. Schisandra Berry is this amazing herbs from Northeast Asia.
Um, that's been used in Chinese and Korean medicine for centuries. It's called wǔ wèi zi”“ in Chinese, which means the five flavor fruit. And so the outside is salty. The flesh is sweet and tart and the pit is bitter and kind of spicy. And it's used in Chinese medicine to open up the five meridians and really energized medicines as an adaptogen.
So that single ingredient is dynamic enough on the palette that we thought let's just keep it really simple and just Brew Schisandra Berry and add the sparkling water. So in all of the profiles we aimed for a really clean ingredients list. It's just real, real teas and herbs brewed up and sparkled to deliver a really refreshing palette.
Kristel:
So do you have a favorite? I don't know if you're willing to share, but I'm curious. Do you have one that you just gravitate to?
Jeffrey:
You know, what I've found is like go to different ones at different times of the day. Dandelion ginger. If I had to pick one is my favorite. We really designed that as a zero sugar, uh, ginger beer, and none of these profiles have added sugar.
Some of them have one or two grams from the berries and fruits that we're infusing in the process. So if there's one or two grams of sugar, five or 10 calories, it's from the real fruits that we're infusing into the drink. But dandelion ginger is my favorite it has rosemary, some chili plus a really strong ginger profile and roasted dandelion root, which is really good for detox.
The lemon is amazing for a little caffeine. Pick me up with lunch, tumeric saffron, I turn to after workout or for recovery. It's really refreshing. And I think it's pretty amazing. We put saffron the world's most expensive spice into a canned beverage. That was pretty fun, but it's a really amazing aroma. So they're all super fun and I love them all.
Kristel:
Yeah. I enjoyed, I enjoyed all of them too. And we actually had had some people over, um, and someone had been on like a, I dunno guys, getaway or something that weekend and was not feeling so hot. And I was like, why don't you try the dandelion ginger wine? It was perfect.
Yes. So one thing that stood out to me before that I didn't get a chance to mention was when you were talking about teas, And I'm going to say this wrong. So bear with me, but is that like Perey puree?
Jeffrey:
Pu-erh
Kristel:
I have heard that I've tried it. And isn't that a tea that is supposed to be helpful for like weight stability?
I don't know. Am I remembering this correctly? Or is there any other health benefits to that specific type of tea?
Jeffrey:
Yeah, absolutely. Pu-erh tea is one of the most ancient styles of tea and it takes two forms, but I'll kind of speak to it more at a high level. It originates from the Southwestern region of China and the bordering lands, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar Burma.
And this is really the birthplace of the tea plant in history. So there are old groves of tea gardens set on the mountain sides in that part of Southeast Asia. With tea trees that are 800, 1200, even older, 1200 years old tea trees. And so we can think of tea, kind of like wine. If you have old vine wine, there's secondary plant metabolites that those vines can put into the grapes and yield a more complex flavor.
Well, the same thing with these tea tree resources for Pu-erh tea . And so Pu-erh tea is made from these kinds of ancient tea tree resources. There's so much going on in terms of the nutrients and the phytochemistry, the different kinds of bitter compounds. And so some of that potential is part of what makes pu- ehr teas so good for digestion.
It is in Chinese said to cut the grease. So this kind of tea is really favored in Hong Kong and Taiwan and Canton these kinds of places where dumplings and dim sum culture is really strong. And typically that kind of tea is consumed at the dim sum table or after entering the nighttime because the phytochemistry and the tanine density is so rich.
That it can neutralize the kind of lipids and fats in the bloodstream once you consume that kind of food. So it's part of a healthy diet and part of managing yeah that kind of the kind of diet.
Kristel:
So interesting. And then another quick tea question is, What about what you put in your tea or have with your tea?
Because I've read about, if you have citrus with your tea. I can't remember the exact science behind it, but it either could increase the antioxidant impact. I think that's what my memory is saying is it could increase, but it could be wrong. And then also what impact would milk or non-dairy milk have on the tea?
Jeffrey:
Yeah, that's a great question. I think what's most important is find a way of drinking tea that you find delicious and do it. Like these kinds of things might have a minute effect on the total antioxidant register and the brewed cup, but you're still going to be consuming a wealth of antioxidants. No matter how you style up your tea.
You know, I would caution the listener about added sugar as, as you would in any kind of food product. You know, I add a little honey to some teas and I mean, I think honey is an awesome thing to work into a diet. So I think what's most important is find a way to make it delicious for you, you know, except for maybe a ton, a ton of added sugar. Right.
Kristel:
Right. And I remember growing up, I would always have tea with honey and that was like, so soothing and comforting.
So this is a kind of a good segue. We can talk a little bit about the business aspect of things and the past year and a half it has been challenging for businesses, for people, for everybody with the COVID pandemic. And I'm curious, how have you fared? How has Rishi fared and how have you navigated it from the business perspective?
Jeffrey:
Yeah, the pandemic, you know, is challenging to, to all of us. Right. And we're so lucky that we have different market channels that we serve. So we have our online business, both on our website and Amazon, we supply our teas packaged. Natural and specialty grocery stores and co-ops throughout the country and coffee shops, cafes, restaurants, and hospitality is another whole segment that we touch.
Well, cafes and restaurants were pretty severely impacted over the course of this last year, but we saw the grocery and online business really surge. So, you know, I think people were looking for tea and especially given that everybody's, you know, I think more focused on their health than ever during the course of this pandemic, they're looking for ways to infuse tea into their life.
And we just found them shift their behavior for where they were, where they were buying it. And we've been so happy, you know, we expect to wait until about October of this year to see the cafe and restaurant business comeback. But we are blown away starting in February and March of this year. We saw a lot of it coming back already way earlier than we saw it.
And we're really feeling that pent up demand. Um, so it's been encouraging to see. Um, well, we'll see what happens with the Delta variant of course, and how that's all playing out. But we're cautiously optimistic that people are just desiring to go out and have those simple pleasures of having a meal out or go to a cafe.
Right. And so all things considered, we were lucky that we had those different channels open. As we entered the pandemic, we were able to kind of mitigate, mitigate the impact.
Kristel:
For the sparkling botanicals in the works before pandemic or is that something?
Jeffrey:
Yeah. Yeah. We had actually been and working on them for a couple of years.
We piloted some in kegs a couple of years ago and got some interesting insights there and we've launched them in March of 2020. And that was it. We had them brewed up all six profiles, ready to go. Our plan was to start on the west coast and move. And really leveraged the thousands of coffee shops that are serving our sachets or loose leaf teas.
And then those all shut down, but we accelerated the launch online. We were able to sign up distributors coast to coast. Last year, we got into Erewhon stores out in California and a bunch of other natural stores over the course of the first year or so. And interestingly with the coffee shops, they were looking for a to go option.
And so this is a way for us to offer them flavor of Rishi in a, to go format that kept them going. So, yeah, it's been dynamic for sure, but I think, I think we did okay.
Kristel:
And so you, it sounds like you were able to adapt and I mean your tea and everything has such high quality. And I always get so excited when I see it, because I tend to see it in like the specialty cafes and I messaged you because then we just went away from my husband's business trip. I was like, yay. See Rishi tea. So it's fun because you have so many amazing flavors. And what I had when we were away was I had never seen them as a peppermint Sage, and it was so good and unique cause that's like a little different than just the traditional peppermint.So I really enjoyed that.
Jeffrey:
That's one of my favorite blends, the lavender and there's lavender essential oil in there too. It just, it's such a relaxing and soothing blend. Yeah, totally. One of my favorite.
Kristel:
Awesome. Well, at this point we are coming towards the end. I'm going to do a quick wellness lightning round, but before we do that, I want to make sure that I share the discount code. So it's Live Greatly. If you want to try these sparkling botanicals or Rishi’s teas, you can go on their websites, which they're going to be in the episode details, and you can get 25% off by putting in the code Live Greatly. So we'll have all of your tabs and social media stuff and the episode details so that people will know how to learn more.
Anything else you'd like to share about yourself or Rishi? Before we jump into the wellness lightning round?
Jeffrey:
I just think that tea is something that people can find to infuse infuse their life with both caffeinated teas, but also that wealth of botanicals. It is something that is really a really fun lifelong journey.
And yeah, I just think it's such a fun thing to explore. So I guess with that, I'm all set ready for the lightning round.
Kristel:
All right. Boom. Let's do it. Okay. First question. What is a book that you've read recently that you would recommend.
Jeffrey:
I'm a huge fan of Joseph Campbell. So the hero with a thousand faces, which tells, you know, this archetype of the heroic journey, getting out there facing a challenge, that's external also having something internally, that's a challenge and setback holding you back, having a guide that helps work you through the challenge.
And ultimately prevail and then have to bring that victory back, back home to your community. That hero's journey is something that I really think about all the time. And characterizes the human conditions. That's one that I found really fun to read and see how it comes out in literature across the world.
Kristel:
Awesome. Second question. What is a self-care practice that is a non-negotiable for you?
Jeffrey:
Well, tea of course, but it really starts with diet. I cook a lot at home and we like to cook from real and whole foods. So. Being in the kitchen, working with food and serving my family and my kids and me just really wholesome, good foods.
Kristel:
Yeah. Nutrition is so important. And I feel like you could have a lot of fun, like pairing teas with your meals.
Jeffrey:
Oh, absolutely.
Kristel:
Okay. Last question, knowing what you know now, what advice would you give to yourself from 10 years ago?
Jeffrey:
Oh, wow. That's really great. One. I think, you know, there's and someone taught me this, you know, about, about that many years ago and it took some time to really, to really work it in, but being willing to. Uh, surround yourself with people that are just amazing mentors and even better than you at, at the various functions in your, in your work life, like seek to build bridges, seek to build comradery. And learn from others around you. It doesn't all have to be about your own personal achievements, like align your expectations with those of the team and work toward a common goal. And everyone can thrive.
Kristel:
I love that. This has been so fun, Jeffrey. Thank you so much for joining me. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Jeffrey:
Thank you Kristell. It's been a blast.