Katie Brannock wears many hats – herbalist, business owner, influencer, feminist, anti-fascist, and fierce advocate for the matriarchal revolution – light work for the modern woman, truly. But Brannock carries it all with an exceptional amount of grace and a healthy dose of style. She is the founder, CEO, and face of the Tea Lady (www.tealadybk.com | @tealadyshop) brand, selling an array of homemade adaptogenic supplements in the form of teas, powdered blends, cocoa mixes, and soaking salts. Internal bias may make you quick to dismiss Tea Lady as just your run-of-the-mill, “pink” wellness brand that seems to be crowding the internet right now, but Brannock doesn’t know the meaning of run-of-the-mill. In fact, she is nothing short of a certified trendsetter. Just a quick scroll through her Instagram page (@tealadykatie) is a feast for the eyes of fun colors, fashion, bright airy spaces, and New York City adventures that scream “coolest girl you know” more than “textbook CEO and business owner.” And, while her recipes and herbal blends all stem from ancient roots laid by generations of women before her, she’s delivering it to the masses with a fresh new energy and laying out a modern guidebook for resistance through self care.
When shopping the Tea Lady site, you’ll browse through a rotating lineup of adaptogenic blends curated to make you feel and function at your best. Many of her products are categorized by Brannock as “pussy self care,” with teas and powder blends formulated specifically for each different phase of the menstrual cycle, as well as sexual vitality and wellness. But Katie is clear that her products are not designed to make women more sexually appealing or attractive to anyone other than themselves. In fact, she blatantly said so in one of her recent social media videos. “I want to make women worse,” she declared in a reel shared to Instagram on January 30th, “Because we have no shortage of wellness telling us how to be wetter, tighter, younger, sexier…What we do need are herbs that make us louder, larger, and less convenient, more able to set boundaries and more equipped to say ‘no,’ more regulated so we can speak loudly and more clearly in rooms that do not want to hear our voice, and more loving of ourselves exactly as we are.” Music to our ears, Katie.
This set of ideals is an overarching theme throughout all of her content and business practices. Katie’s products are purely about making whoever uses them feel good and break away from the rigid molds of what “health” is meant to be, especially for women. So much of the patriarchy and capitalism are upheld by convincing women they need to look, feel, and even smell a certain way to be deemed valuable, with no regard for the actual wellbeing of women’s bodies or their sexual autonomy.
Brannock has used her own self care journey as a guide for much of her work, sharing with BUST that, “I’ve had to learn to be incredibly kind to myself in the process of my own healing and also develop a hearty sense of humor–if you’re not funny before you start healing, you better get funny, because it’s the only way you’re gonna survive. So as much as I am snarky in my delivery, my takes do come from a place of warmth and deep, deep excavation of shame in my own self. We give the care that we want to receive, ultimately, and I think I wish someone had been there to teach me how to take care of my body and brain without punishment or guilt.”
Brannock carries the torch of generations of herbalists and midwives before her, passing along wellness rituals and literal potions of health that have ancient roots. Herbalism and midwifery are both time-honored practices that were primarily developed and performed by women across cultures and societies. It’s a history that Brannock educates her followers on eloquently. The herbalism that she wields teaches us lessons that are especially poignant as fascism is currently wrapping its slimy, bloodstained hands around our country. She explained, “Much of what ‘modern science’ has proven in a lab is exactly what Indigenous practitioners have been saying for centuries–the more we learn, the more we confirm just how right they were. And it’s impossible to examine any part of our current medical system, whether it’s through a lens of misogyny or racism or economic policy, that doesn’t lead you to the same conclusion. This knowledge that the healers who came before us put so much love and dedication into cultivating has been stolen, repackaged, and sold back to us to their detriment. It is wildly irresponsible and disrespectful to take part in any conversations around becoming well without acknowledging that out of the gate.”
And beyond educating her followers on herbs, their uses, and their potential to support a matriarchal revolution, Brannock walks the walk, too. She’s been transparent about her business practices, namely paying her hardworking team of three employees a livable wage and even centering her business operations around her own menstrual cycle. She broke down how she makes this work, explaining, “I truly decided one day that I was going to build this company with the rest and regulation at the center of it–that wasn’t just gonna be a fantasy or a bit that we sold to people as a marketing tactic, it was really going to be the foundation of how the business was run. I made it my business to really study my cycle and figure out what my needs were during each phase, how to optimize it, tailor it and fine-tune it as I needed. It’s really not about being just out of commission for half the month, but figuring out what my strengths were at each phase of my cycle. I find my best inspiration really does come from those moody, progesterone-heavy days leading up to my period, and when I allow myself the slower, more mindful pace I need to draw inspiration during my bleed days I am left with such a deeper well of energy to action on that inspiration during my follicular and ovulation phases. All of my best work has come from that cycle, and I protect it fiercely. That’s the work I’m truly proud of.”
As far as what’s next for Tea Lady, Brannock said, “I talk a lot about safe spaces to do dangerous work, and I really think that’s what we’re about to get into. So on top of getting our whole roster of products manufactured and on shelves, we’re dropping post-abortion/post-partum support blends that are a bit of a spicy brainchild – so those safe spaces are going to be more important than ever.”
Ideas like this only seem radical in the context of our patriarchal and capitalistic society, but Brannock and Tea Lady are a living, breathing blueprint for what women-centered business practices can be while debunking the toxic, masculine, grind culture that has our society in a chokehold. She exists not just as a leader in her field but as an example of what our future could look like. And with Katie Brannock, baby, that future is bright.
Images courtesy of Katie Brannock
