The story of Mese Tea – how a creative herbal tea idea was born

"My mother carried on Ilonka Mama’s knowledge and later, when she was already one of HERBÁRIA’s senior executives, she successfully took part in the development of many products, several of which are still on the market today." [...] "After several detours, my father also found work at HERBÁRIA as a sales representative." (Ádám)

We asked Fejes Ádám about the story of Mese Tea. His parents contributed their professional knowledge of herbs to the tea range, his wife created the graphics, and he wrote the stories. 

Tell us a little about yourselves, Ádám. Who are you, and where did the idea for Mese Tea come from?

I am Fejes Ádám. My wife and I dreamed up and created Mesetea together. The following words were written by Ferenc Móra, but they also perfectly express the love we feel for our teas:

‘... I have got somewhat further than seeing only beauty in a rose, only unpleasantness in spinach, and only good firewood in the turkey oak. I came to love grass, trees and flowers sooner than people, and I shall surely keep their friendship until I have nothing else left to do but send messages from beneath the earth through blue-eyed wild flax and red-laughing poppies. When no one is watching, even today I stroke the skin of the Lombardy poplar with a loving, gentle hand, and I sense the character of the majestic, black-trunked oak, which even drops its acorns as quietly as a born aristocrat drops a word. 

Yes, since childhood I have known that trees and flowers, the living reeds and the gosling-coloured moss living on dead thatched roofs have souls. I will say something else, too: plants also have intelligence, older than that of humans, for they have several million years more experience and wisdom behind them than we do.

The wonders of love among plants, in which matchmaking moths, bees and all kinds of insects play a major role, are well known. The human imagination cannot compete. The imagination of plants is far richer. They have invented everything – except morality. Whether the love of sages, jasmines and lilacs is more beautiful than human love is difficult to decide, but biologically there is no difference between them!’

Mese Tea image gallery

The story of Mesetea is a family story. It all began when my mother and father married in 1972. They both graduated from the University of Horticulture in Kecskemét, so their commitment to plants set the direction of the rest of their lives from an early age. In the 1990s, they both ended up at Herbária: my mother, Momó, as a senior executive, and my father, Péter, as a sales representative. 

Where did your parents acquire such extensive knowledge of herbs?  

The herbal tea business is built on knowledge and trust. You need both for people to turn to herbal teas with confidence. My parents made tried-and-tested herbal tea blends that had long been known and used in traditional folk medicine and because of their reliability, integrity and unquestionable professional expertise, their partners quickly developed a kind of long-term loyalty toward them. Growing, caring for and processing plants were present throughout my parents’ lives and work.

My mother carried on Ilonka Mama’s knowledge and later, when she was already one of HERBÁRIA’s senior executives, she successfully took part in the development of many products, several of which are still on the market today.

My father spent his entire childhood in nature, surrounded by storks, frogs and the wild flora and fauna of the floodplains of the Southern Great Plain. This is where his love of nature came from, leading him straight to the University of Horticulture in Kecskemét, where, like my mother, he later earned a degree in horticultural engineering. After several detours, my father also found work at HERBÁRIA as a sales representative.

How did you and your wife become involved in the world of herbal teas?

How did we, as dance artists, end up in the world of herbal teas?

We also have two small children, who are no longer quite so small, and of course, like all children attending school and kindergarten, they too were struck by all kinds of coughs, runny noses and similar ailments. We had it easy in one respect, because thanks to my parents we always had ready access to all sorts of herbal tea blends. But the easy part ended once my wife had brewed the teas. The next step often proved difficult even for us, because the teas can only have their intended effect if the children actually drink them. And that was exactly where we ran into obstacles. Most children simply do not like drinking teas that taste unfamiliar to them, especially when even their names sound strange. What child wants to drink a tea called Szárazköhögés, right?  That gave us the idea to give the tea blends fairy-tale-style names, hoping that little girls might be happier to drink Hercegnő tea and little boys Királyfi tea. Once we were giving our children fairy-tale teas, it seemed only fitting to tell stories to go with them. That is how we realised that having tea while listening to a story is much more enjoyable and easier than simply ordering a child to drink the tea.

And so we wrote stories for our teas, because we hope that if children can identify with a fairy-tale character, and if herbs become more personal to them, they will be more likely to drink the tea. At the same time, the stories allow them to learn about herbs in a playful and entertaining way.

Adrienn and Ádám – the creative minds behind Mese Tea

Where did the ideas for the characters come from?

We created the story characters from the ingredients of the tea blends, and we hope that in this entertaining way we can appeal a little to children’s sense of pride, encouraging them to show, like the heroes in the stories, that they can do it too – and that they really can drink that tea! The storybooks also contain drawings that can be coloured in, allowing children to make the story characters unique in their own style.

I wrote the stories, and my wife drew the illustrations. So, with my parents creating the tea blends and my wife and me creating the stories and drawings together, Mesetea truly is a family product built on the knowledge of several generations.

 

To bring our story to a close, Ferenc Móra once again seems fitting:

I could not name its source, but one of the explorers of Asia recorded that the nomadic tribes of the Turanian steppes gather for a celebration once in a generation around a giant tamarisk tree, when the warm spring rains coax anemones to life even from the dead sand, and crowds of people swarm around the magical tree. The people of the steppe celebrate, and they call this celebration the Feast of the Living Tree... ‘Look, the living tree!’ the elders say to the young, just as they themselves were told when they were young, and they water its roots with drink offerings, and the shamans sing songs in its honour, and before they pack up their yurts to set off once more across the treeless deserts, they cut branches from the living tree to carry with them on their wanderings, as a reminder of nature’s creative power. Yet I almost believe that humanity can never make up the difference that separates it from plants – and not to humanity’s advantage. Human beings have intelligence, of course they do, but what use is it if they have no sense when it comes to themselves? For what humanity is doing to itself today was truly not worth becoming human for.