Business2 min
Renee Rubens turns tea gifts into $30,000-a-month business after three layoffs
After watching her corporate media career wobble three times, Rubens built Symphony of Leaves with her own money and a 'grow slow' rule.
Renee Rubens lost her job three times in corporate media sales. Now she runs Symphony of Leaves Tea Company, a premium loose-leaf tea business that reportedly brings in between $15,000 and $30,000 a month, depending on the season.
The idea started small. Rubens first gave tea to friends and clients as gifts. Her interest took hold on a visit to a specialty tea shop in San Francisco's Chinatown, where she tasted Chinese teas that bore little resemblance to the fruity supermarket tea bags she knew. She began ordering them regularly, then read books, studied tea grades and took classes on how tea is produced.
The layoffs sealed the decision. In an October 2024 interview with Harness Magazine, she said the repeated uncertainty wore her down and that she no longer saw her old career as a route to retirement. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she moved her tea hobby online. She launched a website and a logo designed with help from her cousin, and she sources tea from small farmers around the world.
Her money rule is simple. Rubens skipped loans and funded the company herself, expanding step by step. She told Forbes she lives by the motto "grow slow so I don't owe."
Her first big market was corporate gifting, but it had a limit: some clients did not want to give tea year after year. So she reworked the website to appeal to individual shoppers, stepped up social media and used software to find retail partners across the country. Harness Magazine reported that the company had secured three new retail partners.
Community has driven much of the growth. Rubens belongs to the European Specialty Tea Association and the Japanese Global Tea Association, meets producers regularly and says she gets plenty of referrals. She credits that network with opportunities such as television exposure and branding at events like Usher's tea party.
The story is not all smooth. Higher tariffs have pushed up costs, and supplier challenges continue to weigh on the business, according to the report. For anyone eyeing a side hustle after a layoff, her path shows both the appeal and the pressure: a passion project can pay, but imports, prices and small suppliers can squeeze it.
Read the original report: Economic Times.
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