Tea Is a Good Friend of Mine - Sharon Smallwood
Sharon Smallwood, owner of Serendipity Sue's, is a fellow alum of World Tea Academy. I enjoyed her responses to my questions and I hope you will as well!
My name is Sharon Smallwood. I am 58 years old, married, with 8 grown children, and 21 grandchildren between my husband and me. I retired two years ago from a brief career as a Hospice chaplain. Not intending in the beginning of my adult life to seek a specific career, I chose to raise my family. I did, however, have many different jobs in order to supplement the family income, from food service to retail, medical and dental to education, providing personal care to chaplaincy, along with various home-based businesses, which were reasonably successful. I’ve always had the drive, but not always the support, in my ventures. In 2013, after only 27 years of off and on college attendance, I received my BS in Psychology.
So, how did I arrive at tea? During the months prior to retiring, the woman whom I called my Mom, died. Her name was Sue. One could not be in her home for a minute before she’d offer a cup of tea. She had owned several tea shops, as well as businesses in bridal and floral. God had given her a gift of ministry to women, and so created many lovely affairs, each painstakingly and lovingly prepared with such beauty as to leave each guest in awe.
After Mom’s death, Dad told me she left something for me she thought I would like. Oh boy! Sue was a lover of beautiful things, from furnishings to jewelry, and I could only imagine what that might be! To my surprise and dismay, the “gift” was a cardboard box full of magazines! Ugh, what? That box found a home in my truck for many weeks, until I put it in the garage. Weeks forward, my husband urged me to do something with the box. Sitting in the parking lot of hospice, where I would donate the magazines, I felt compelled to go through the box. It contained the expected titles Mom loved, such as Victoria Bliss and Beautiful Homes. There was one title that I had never known Mom to read: Tea Time Magazine. Several copies of Tea Time and Victoria came home with me that day.
Those magazines sat on a shelf for several more weeks, until the holiday time when I finally took a few moments for myself. Victoria being Moms’ favorite, I browsed through their lovely pages. Opening the first page of a Tea Time Magazine, there was a beautiful tablescape that looked just like something Mom would have created for her ladies gatherings. Then, the AHA moment: “I can do this!” I said to myself. “I can continue on with Mom’s love of tea. I’m going to open a teahouse!” Such a serendipitous moment quickly revealed the name of the business: Serendipity Sue’s-Come for Tea! Strangely, it was as if passion for all things tea just dropped inside my soul. With plans to retire only a couple of months away, everyone who was close to me learned that my new retirement venture was to open Serendipity Sue’s.
My tea education began by devouring every magazine in Moms’ cache, as well as reading works such as The New Tea Companion, by Jane Pettigrew and Bruce Richardson, and The Story of Tea, by Heiss and Heiss. Being absolutely blown away by the enormity of the tea world, I developed an insatiable thirst to learn everything possible about tea. Little did I realize at the time, that is truly an impossible feat! Pressing on, however, I have attended the last three Expos in Las Vegas, received my Certified Tea Specialist certification from World Tea Academy, with the goal of having my Certified Tea Professional status by the end of the year, and then finishing with a Tea Sommelier certification.
Please use the social media links below to find out more about her and her love of all things TEA!
Serendipity Sue’s, LLC
970-260-1302
Instagram@serendipitysues24
Facebook/serendipitysues24
Pinterest@serendipitysues24
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