Growing up, Huddah Nassali Tamale was health conscious about everything she consumed in her body and the tea she took was no exception, she wanted to know what she was taking and most importantly why she was taking it. This consciousness piqued her curiosity into finding ways she could add healthy values to her tea. “I am very health conscious and I was taking tea on a daily basis so I was like what is the use of taking tea on a daily basis if it is not going to add any value into my life. So I decided to add all these spices so I can add some value to the tea so it can maximize my health.”
Huddah started her entrepreneurship journey in 2015 while at campus by opening up a confectionary.
Being the tea lover at heart that she is, with a natural penchant for healthy teas, it was no surprise that she incorporated healthy spices to the tea she served her clients as an accompaniment for their snacks. But little did she know that much as the cookies were delicious, it was the tea warming up their hearts and kept them coming back to her confectionary.
It was not long before, a lady approached her and asked if she could get her what she puts in her tea so she can enjoy it at home too. Getting her the homemade spices meant she would have to be paid for it and as more people followed suit with similar requests, she got an idea that she could actually make money from the tea.
“I was like why don’t I make this into a business. I realized this was giving me more money than the confectionary I was doing. So I decided to refocus my energy. I left the confectionary and I focused on the tea business.”
Venturing into this new journey meant doing extensive research to learn as much as she could about the other tea that she wasn’t consuming but were also meant to maximize health naturally and she did her homework well. Armed with this knowledge and capital from her confectionary savings, Huddah was able to successfully launch Nash Royal Tea in 2016, producing healthy tea with different natural spices and herbs like lavender, rosemary, among others. The company currently employs 6 people full-time.
“I have a herbal garden in Mpata, Mukono where I grow the herbal teas like rosemary, lavender, peppermint. For the tea I have out growers in Kabale and Fortportal because of their weather. The aroma of the tea is affected by weather. I offer incentives to the out growers to grow for me the tea, I then take it to the factory where it is refined. I spice the tea myself and then seal it.”
Sitting down with her clients and taking them through the healthy benefits they would derive from taking her tea and having a unique product on the market is among the things that have won her a large clientele base.
“When I started selling it out I realized that people don’t look at what tea does, like the health benefits. All they care about is its aroma but when I go deeper and explain to them what the tea can do for them health wise, they even buy more. I realized I had a unique product that wasn’t on the market, it has helped me scale up.”
She also markets her products through taking advantage of entrepreneurship organizations, attending exhibitions and supplying her products to different supermarkets in and outside Kampala.
“I do have over 30 supermarkets in Kampala that I supply to and others outside Kampala. I also do attend exhibitions and I am in over 6 organizations for entrepreneurships like UWEAL, UMA, BMI, I am part of very many marketing forums where I can use these platforms as my marketing tools.”
However, just like any other entrepreneur, Huddah has met a few challenges along the way, like long distance between the places she gets her raw materials to where the tea is processed, differences in goals between her and the out growers who prioritize making sales over quality which requires tedious supervision and stringent formalities with URA, UNBS, among others.
Quality and quantity are among the two most important things she does not compromise when it comes to her business and have helped earn it a great reputation and contribute to its success.
“I don’t compromise on quality and the quantity, if it is 100 grams it has to be 100 grams. I also don’t compromise when it comes to standard for example the tea has a moisture content it has to be sold at. When I go to my out growers they know the standards of tea that I want, they know the size of leaf and what level of leaf I want. I won’t buy an old leaf from you because it’s going to affect the aroma of my tea.”
Thanks to having numerous mentors and guidance from the onset, Huddah has been able to dodge a lot of mistakes in her entrepreneurship journey.
“I’ve had guidance from the time I started out, I do a lot of research so I avoid a lot of mistakes. I have very many mentors and I am also under American Embassy US Mission, they bring different entrepreneurs from America to mentor us.”
However, there are a few things she wishes she could do different right now.
“There are things right now that I wish I could do differently. I do a lot of manual work doing the teabags because I don’t have the means. If there’s a way I can automate that, I would do it.”
Her advice to aspiring entrepreneurs is to learn from the people who are experts in the field they are trying to venture in. “Get the right people to partner with. If you know someone who is doing what you want to do, find a way of meeting them and find out how they did it so you don’t make a lot of mistakes. Get a mentor.”
She also mentions that the habits that have turned her into a success story are passion and persistence, and the book that has made the most impact in her life is ‘How Exceptional Black Women Lead’ by Alice Deweever.
