Scullery Made Tea
Barossa Valley is our next stop, jump on board to meet Cherie Hausler- plant eater, tea blender, cake baker, farmhouse renovator, animal hugger. And creator of new vegan range, All The Things. Initially Cherie’s ‘in’ to the food world was through tea; drinking copious amounts of it, which led to sourcing and growing her own ingredients, and then to hand blending. The Scullery was where that all happened and Scullery Made Tea was born.
Dividing her time between freelance food writing and styling in Sydney and the restaurant she co-owns in Bangkok, Cherie made a ‘tea change’ to include the Barossa Valley when she decided the only way to balance her food-filled life was to add an organic veggie patch and some rescued animals into the mix. Juggling the renovation of a 175 year old bluestone farm house in the Barossa, has given Cherie the perfect country base to grow and collect seasonal fruits and herbs to hand blend for her tea range. Dedicated to the experience of good food in its entirety, Cherie believes there are very few things in life that can’t be helped by a proper cup of tea…
Tell us a little about yourself.
I grew up in the Barossa, went to school here, rode my first horse here, fell in love here and then when I was 17, moved to Adelaide to start university. My commitment to a Law degree didn’t last long and so I moved to Melbourne because my boyfriend’s band were wanting to take their chances in the ‘big smoke’. Needless to say, my parent’s didn’t chalk that particular decision up as their all time favourite example of my teenage wisdom! London followed Melbourne, then Sydney, and a decent amount of time in Bangkok too (where my brother and I have a restaurant), but when the decision to buy a house started to form, the idea of working non-stop to feed a mortgage in Surry Hills lost out to my Mother-in-Law’s suggestion to ‘just have a look’ at a 150 year old bluestone farmhouse back in the Barossa. 20 years after leaving when we were both 17, we came home. We also have a lot of animals who have found their way into our family; a Standard bred pony called Bruno, 2 steers; Helmut and Wilhelm, a lovely little cat, Hildegard, a giant footballer of a border collie, Wolfgang, and a more ladylike version in Gretchen, and numerous runner ducks. Most of the animals are rescued, and all will live out their lives here until nature decides otherwise - we love them.
Who (or what services/support networks etc) best helped you establish yourself/your business?
It was really only a matter of months after moving back to the Barossa before Scullery Made happened. It wasn't in the slightest bit planned that way. In fact it wasn't planned at all! At the time I was working with Maggie Beer and we chatted about how high the benchmark was for everything at her Farm Shop, but for someone who loves tea it perhaps wasn't on a par with the calibre of experience a coffee drinker would have. I was telling Maggie about the teas I was blending for the restaurant my brother and I have and she asked if I could bring some samples in for her to try. At that stage I had no idea of starting a tea business but Maggie was such a great (and instant) supporter of the whole idea and after trying them, put them on as the Farm Shop house teas, as well as on shelf. I remember her asking me how they would be packaged and I honestly had no idea! It all came together pretty quickly at that point and Scullery Made was all of a sudden what so many experiences from the past joined together to be.
What are some of the challenges you have faced along the way?
Starting up our tea business highlighted very quickly the good and the bad when it came to running things from a rural area. Being in the Barossa can be a geographical challenge on one hand, because it makes reaching the rest of Australia, or having people find out about you, all that trickier based on distance. On the other hand, the bespoke nature of what we do sits perfectly with things not getting too big, the last thing we’d want to do is risk losing the handmade aspect that people love about our teas, so perhaps the distance thing isn’t that bad? From a personal point of view one of the biggest challenges in living where we do has been in dealing with the uncontrollable aspects of nature - not enough water, searing heat, an onslaught of earwigs that razors your garden overnight, bushfires, brown snakes - that kind of thing. And each season brings its own collection of tricky things, but at least it keeps changing! The aspect of non-stop change and never being able to kid yourself you’re in control of things, is the perhaps the biggest challenge of choosing to live where we do, but when all you can do is surrender to it, everything shifts. Our challenges here have taught us so much about what’s important and what we will always make time for, but also what not to our waste time worrying about. Things seem to have a different worth when you’re immersed in your natural surroundings - a bunch of handpicked, homegrown jonquils can bring the same kind of happiness a new pair of fancy shoes used to - which is lucky, because I have nowhere to wear fancy shoes now, and everywhere to put vases of jonquils!
To shop Cherie’s full collection of divine tea go to www.scullerymade.org or via the Wattle I Gift hampers available online.
