Tea thyme for new enterprise | Photos

The coordinator of Heathcote Community House’s new Thyme for Tea social enterprise lives and breathes the popular drink.

Mrs Sapsed helped launch the community enterprise last Wednesday.

“I raised my girls on the farm and we used to drink tea. You’d come home and they’d have a pot of tea,” Mrs Sapsed said.

“I’ve got two granddaughters and when they come and stay we have make-believe tea parties.”

Late last year Community House coordinator Vicki Forde sat down with Mrs Sapsed over a pot of lemon tea and asked whether it was possible for the group to start packaging blends.

Ms Forde was searching for a new way to give volunteers employment skills.

“We were looking to provide skills and training, but in a different way than starting a business, employing people and training them in that way,” she said.

“Obviously a community house can’t start a business, as such. So this was our way to have a business and give people the opportunity to train.”

Already Thyme for Tea had two volunteers who dropped by each Friday to package and label tea for the weekend’s markets.

Learning marketing and other skills would empower them should they decide to start their own businesses, Ms Forde said.

Should Thyme for Tea become viable, Ms Forde flagged the possibility of the Community House bowing out so the business could run at a profit.

Ms Forde said many community houses were leaving the door open for budding entrepreneurs to build future businesses.

"Here (in Heathcote) we have economic problems. We have problems with employment,” she said.

“So if thee's a dreamer out there who wants to start a small business, if it fits with us and its feasible, it's possible community houses can assist."

For Mrs Sapsed the focus was firmly on providing a service to the community.

She said the humble cuppa had uncanny ways of bringing people closer together.

“Have you ever heard how cuppas are strong enough even to mend broken hearts? If someone has a broken heart the first thing people say is ‘I’ll put the kettle on’,” she said.