During a hiking trip on the Inca Trail back in 2012, Parma native Ryan Florio and his two friends came upon a local drink he knew he wanted to bring back to Northeast Ohio.
“Our Sherpa guide made us this ancient Incan tea,” says Florio. “I fell in love with it.”
Once back in Cleveland, Florio scoured the web for the recipe and quickly found one little secret to the delicious nectar was a single unique ingredient — purple corn, which Peruvians consider a super food recommended to fight against a host of medical maladies. He stumbled on an expert on purple corn, an associate professor at Ohio State and, in his words “decided to cash in my 401k, quit my job, and begin the journey of starting a tea company.”
Combining cinnamon, cloves, apples, pineapples, hibiscus, elderberries and currants, Florio recreated the tea he drank daily on his hike and called it, Peruvian Spice Berry. He’s since added other flavors and is aiming for 12 in total.
“I am pro Cleveland and purchase as many ingredients as I can from the West Side Market,” says Florio.
Florio’s production facility is just off East 25th Street and Superior Ave. in Cleveland, and all his packaging is designed and produced here in Cleveland.
Unlike so many start-up food and beverage concepts that dream of an eventual store front, Florio’s vision for Inca Tea is strictly retail and wholesale. “I want to focus on getting my tea into as many places nationwide as possible.” So far that includes six states and 100 stores in just a few months. Locally, you can find it at Heinens, Miles Market, Giant Eagle, Mustard Seed, Nature’s Bin and Constantino’s.
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2014.
This guy is a fraud with everything he does. He had local tea maker, T by Sarah blend all his flavors.
If it was true Incan tea, I would assume its origins came from the Incas.
Jcam is correct- this guy is a total fraud. T by Sarah is responsible for all of his “original” blends. This guy’s got no room in my teapot.
Anybody try the tea? Can’t seem to find it locally . No Heinens or Giant Eagles ever heard of this tea. Fox 8 had him on one of their shows and he said “you can buy this tea at your local Heines and Giant Eagle stores” well that ain’t so,maybe he wants everyone to go and ask for this tea ,thus creating a new store product
Wow, the comments are so mean! Chill out and have some tea. I love the black tea. Heinen’s carries all four flavors.
This tea is not unique. It is average at best
We love it in our house !