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Buzz, Generated — Dan Bickel (Hopleaf Tea)

Dan Bickel joins the podcast to discuss his company: Hopleaf Tea. A product made right here in Erie, Pennsylvania, Hopleaf blends fresh hops and natural tea leaves into over 20 current blends. Along with being able to buy these blends on Etsy, locals can also find Hopleaf at places like The Tipsy Bean, Luminary Distilling and Voodoo Brewery. In fact, Dan and Voodoo just unveiled their newest collaboration, an organic ceylon tea blend with lemon grass and citra hops called “Voobrew.”

The Edinboro Beehive helped Hopleaf with its branding, while the Mercyhurst Beehive provided crucial market research.

Sponsored by: Erie Regional Chamber & Growth Partnership

Music: Kevin Macleod’s "pamgaea" available via Creative Commons Attribution-International 4.0. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, No changes were made.

Music by audionautix.com. Audionautix's "Roboskater" by Jason Shaw available via Creative Commons Attribution-International 4.0. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, No changes were made.

Transcript

DAN BICKEL: So, when you think about it, brewers and breweries, they have to have an alternative to alcohol on their sites. They don't have to, but a lot of them offer coffees, teas, sodas, things like that. So, I knew there would be a niche market for a tea to introduce to breweries, and what better than hops in tea, and push it to every brewery I could. Started doing that locally with Erie Brewing, Lavery's, and, most recently, Voodoo.

NARRATOR: That's Dan Bickel, founder of HopLeaf Tea. He's the newest guest on Buzz, Generated, a show that introduces listeners to businesses and community leaders that collaborate with the Northwest Pennsylvania Innovation Beehive Network. HopLeaf Tea blends fresh hops and natural tea leaves into an artisanal, handcrafted product that we'll discuss throughout this episode. Along with being able to buy HopLeaf products online, you can also find it at places like Erie's The Tipsy Bean and Luminary Distilling, Jamestown, Pennsylvania's Mortals Key Brewing Company, and all across the Voodoo Brewery empire.

In fact, HopLeaf and Voodoo just unveiled their newest collaboration, an organic Ceylon tea blend with lemongrass and citra hops, called Voobrew. We'll get to taste test the draft version of Voobrew at the end of this episode, so stick around. Join host Tony Peyronel, the Executive Director of Entrepreneurial Development for Edinboro's Center for Branding and Strategic Communication, as he sits down with our guest. Together, let's discover what the buzz is all about.

TONY PEYRONEL: We're joined on the podcast, today, by Dan Bickel, owner of HopLeaf Tea. Dan, it's a pleasure to have you on the show, and welcome.

DAN BICKEL: Thanks, Tony, appreciate it.

TONY PEYRONEL: I should say welcome back to campus. We were just chatting how you're actually alum, but been this is your first time back in a while, literally.

DAN BICKEL: First time back in sixteen years, Tony. Tony, it feels kind of surreal.

TONY PEYRONEL: Right, well, welcome back. We're delighted to have you. I've been hearing a lot about you and your company for a while now, but HopLeaf Tea isn't exactly a household name just yet. Let's get started by having you tell our listeners what motivated you to start the company and how the HopLeaf story began.

DAN BICKEL: Absolutely, so, the HopLeaf story begins a long time ago, actually about 2015. The original idea happened at a beer fest, believe it or not. It was a Beer on the Bay 2015, and they had a bunch of home brewers there, and they were allowing you to pick up their hops and smell them. I just became fascinated with the hops in my hands, and maybe had a little bit too much to drink, and I put the hops in my lip, and I started goofing around with my friends at that time that I was going to make a company called hop dip.

Well, that didn't go so well. The next morning I woke up, I had cold sores in my mouth, you know, canker sores, just very acidic from the hop itself, but I had extra hops in my pocket. So, I pulled them out, and I have no idea why, but I threw in some Teavana tea that my wife was really big into at that point, and I blended the hops and the tea together. The first blend I did, it was almost too hoppy, little astringent, but over the course of three or four years I just started tinkering with hops and tea, and it just came about.

TONY PEYRONEL: Well, you've perfectly set up my next question because you've answered a big part of it. I was just going to admit to you that I don't have a huge interest in tea, but I do have an interest in beer. So, I've got to admit that that's when I started to take notice, when you began collaborating with local microbreweries. And it doesn't seem like it would be a natural pairing to me, even though you stumbled upon it, but it's obviously been quite successful. Beyond that first experience, how did you know, even after that, that mixing tea leaves and brewers' hops would go together so nicely?

DAN BICKEL: So, when you think about it, brewers and breweries, they have to have an alternative to alcohol on their sites. They don't have to, but a lot of them offer coffees, teas, sodas, things like that. So, I knew there would be a niche market for it to introduce to breweries, and what better than hops in tea and push it to every brewery I could. Started doing that locally with Erie Brewing, Lavery's, and, most recently, Voodoo.

TONY PEYRONEL: Cool. Actually, you also recently went through a re-branding, all the way from your logo, to product packaging, to business cards, to even down to instruction cards for making your beverage, and this was done through our branch here at Edinboro of the Beehive. Why don't you talk a little bit about that process, and what it was like to work with the Edinboro students and faculty.

DAN BICKEL: It's been amazing. I mean, first and foremost, much more than I thought it was going to be. I didn't know what I was getting into when I got approached by the Beehive from Edinboro. I had previously worked with Mercyhurst's Beehive, also a great experience, but when I jumped over to Edinboro, they suggested possibly rebranding the logo. And I wasn't completely sold at that point on rebranding, but I was like, yeah, we can refresh it, And they just took it, and they ran with it, and they blew it out of the park, and it's taken something that a logo in my mind was almost amateurish, and you can see the shirt right now.

I mean, it was a very basic icons, and lettering, and font used, and the Edinboro sector Beehive, they just put their spin on it. We had meetings prior, asked me what I wanted to look like. I said, "I don't want to change it too much," but they're able to incorporate the hop and the tea leaves together, and it's taken from an amateur type logo into something super professional and something that's going to be hitting shelves soon.

TONY PEYRONEL: You know, we said you collaborated with more than the Edinboro hive. You said you did some work with Mercyhurst. Talk about working with them. What happened with their Beehive. And how did they help you?

DAN BICKEL: Absolutely, so, the way they helped that was they did a market analysis research on my company versus other companies to give me some ideas for some best practices going forward. What they look for a target range of consumers that I might have been missing out on in the industry, and a lot of those came back as 21 to 35-year-old males, right in that bear market, as well. So, it was very interesting, very eye opening, and I still have the pack, and I still refer back to it.

TONY PEYRONEL: Good, cool, that's interesting. Well, since you've worked with multiple Beehives, and given that last answer, I'm assuming that you would recommend Beehive services to other startup businesses.

DAN BICKEL: Absolutely, it's great, especially for a sole proprietor like myself. I have no one else. I mean, it's just me, owner operator, manufacturer, distributor. I'm doing everything for HopLeaf right now. So, to have this type of program that you can lean on for marketing purposes, rebranding purposes, it's amazing, and it's top notch. A quick story on it, first process going through the Edinboro Beehive, we're supposed to have a big meeting with, believe it's Cass Reese and the students, and it was two days before the meeting I got an email from Cass. She said, we need to reschedule. It's not up to our standards. I'm just being upfront with you, I'm going to have a talk with the students, and she said we need to reschedule.

I said, that's fine. Come back two weeks later, they had this full scale of, I think there was about 10 logos to go through, and just incredible work. I was completely blown away.

TONY PEYRONEL: And I've just noticed on Instagram that that new Beehive design packaging that you're talking about, it's out there, it's getting around. Where all has that new logo shown up?

DAN BICKEL: The new logo is on my packaging now, so my sample packs, my one ounce bags, my four ounce bags, and, most recently, the Voodoo collaboration I just did. It's used on my four ounce tins, and it's the logo going forward. It's the logo I'm going to have the rest of HopLeaf Tea.

NARRATOR: This episode of Buzz, Generated, is sponsored by the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership, the voice of the business community in the Erie region. The chamber provides advocacy and access to people, education, and information so the businesses have the leadership, resources, and expertise needed for continued prosperity throughout the region. Schedule a time to meet with the business action team and learn more about how the chamber can help, or visit the Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership online at www.eriepa.com. The growth of our vibrant community and Erie, PA depends on a dynamic business environment. The Erie Regional Chamber and Growth Partnership aims to provide just that. Let's get back to the episode.

TONY PEYRONEL: Well, you have obviously have a clear connection to our hive since you are an Edinboro alum. We've already established you haven't been back in a while. I know this is going to require you to think a little bit because it wasn't just yesterday, but talk to our listeners a little bit about your time as an Edinboro student.

DAN BICKEL: Yeah, so my time at Edinboro was great. I was a commuter, so I don't know that I had the full Edinboro experience of on campus, but I came here for journalism, actually print journalism, and I was an English writing major. So, the goal was to be in sports journalism. I feel like I did my internship a little bit too late in the program with sports journalism and realized that it just wasn't for me, but the time at Edinboro, it was amazing.

TONY PEYRONEL: Well, you know journalism. Now, we talk a lot about content creation, you know, the terminology changed. So, obviously you're still using many of those skills in what you're doing with in terms of promoting your company and all of that. So, that's pretty cool. Actually, I'm also kind of excited where sometimes I know the folks we're interviewing for the podcast episode, sometimes the podcast interview is my first meeting. We actually got that out of the way last week. We met at an outreach event that we were having for Crawford County businesses down at the Voodoo Brewing compound in Meadville, and I know that voodoo is one of your more recent collaborators. Exactly what went into the making of the new Voobrew beverage?

DAN BICKEL: Yeah, so, what went into it is I had reached out to Matteo a while back, who's the CEO of Voodoo, and said, hey, I got this product incorporates hops and tea together. I think it'd be really cool to get together and maybe put together a Voodoo-specific blend that we could get out through your brewpubs, through your customers, and he loved it. He ran with the idea. He's like, yeah, let's get on this, let's figure it out.

So, we had a few meetings where I gave him a few different blends that I thought might work, and I let them simply choose one. Said, pick a plan, we're going to make it Voodoo, and he went with this organic Ceylon blend with lemongrass and citra hops, and it is the new Voobrew. It's going to be every Voodoo location, on tap, on nitro draft, and actually, I brought a can for us today if you want to partake in it.

TONY PEYRONEL: Yeah thank you, we'll pass that one on to Chris because I did, after the event Thursday, my wife is a big tea drinker, and so I did bring a can home. I don't know that she's tried it yet, but if she does, I'll probably soon be on your board of directors, or whatever just because of the volume of things that she purchases when she turns on to them.

DAN BICKEL: Absolutely, this is actually already the brewed one. This is from the Erie location that's actually has it on draft that we didn't get to try.

TONY PEYRONEL: That's a good clarification because what the compound had down in Meadville was right just the dry leaves in the can, but what Dan's brought in for Chris and for me to try is the actual brewed beverage, ready to drink. So, that's excellent, excellent, and Voodoo's not your only cool collaboration. Why don't you tell our listeners about some of the other local brewers and shops that you've already worked with?

DAN BICKEL: Absolutely, so, the first shop I've worked with is Tipsy Bean down a downtown Erie. They're a cool little coffee shop down there off a Peach Street.

TONY PEYRONEL: Gisele's another alum who's kind of everywhere.

DAN BICKEL: Absolutely, and Gisele was the first one to take a chance on HopLeaf. She was previously using another, I don't know if it was Coffee Mug, possibly out of Edinboro, for their tea blends, but she had empty out of their tea plans, and said, yeah, I'll try a new supplier. And I came in, offered her about five or six blends, she tried them, she gave my to her customers for free to start off, and they she just got amazing feedback. She's like, yeah, we want this, and now she has over 20 blends of HopLeaf Tea. And then the other real cool one was Erie Brewing last year, we did a Pekko Peach, which is my black peach tea that I have. They infuse that in a ghost beer, which is like a little sour type beer and had stellar results.

TONY PEYRONEL: Cool, cool, other than by drinking or buying from these establishments, tell our listeners how they can get their hands on HopLeaf Tea products.

DAN BICKEL: Yeah, absolutely, currently, I'm working on a website, not quite out yet. But in the meantime, you can go to my Etsy shop HopLeaf Tea. Just search HopLeaf Tea at Etsy and you'll pop up on my shop, and I have 20 active blends right now.

TONY PEYRONEL: OK, and you're also part of the Gone Local, Kristen Santiago's operation, as well,

DAN BICKEL: Yeah, Kristen had reached out to me after she saw the product at Tipsy Bean and said how can we work together, and she's currently carrying several of my blends that she puts in her cool corporate boxes that she does, it's been a great experience.

TONY PEYRONEL: Great, great obviously, you've already had a lot of success, but where would you like to see the company go from here? Maybe next step, and ultimate step.

DAN BICKEL: Absolutely, so, I think the next step is something that you guys are going to sample here, which is the prebottled, prebrewed, iced tea, cold brew version of HopLeaf Tea. So, right now, my licensing is only for loose leaf tea. I can only actually sell loose leaf tea, but I want to get into prebottling, precanning, prekegging, and pushing that off to breweries and retailers nationwide.

TONY PEYRONEL: That's interesting. Now, I already said I'm pretty much a tea beginner. So, for beginners, would you be willing to walk us through, say, what you buy first from HopLeaf, maybe what you'd recommend as a beginning tea blend? And for the beginner, even explain what's the starter pack.

DAN BICKEL: Yeah, absolutely, so, what I would suggest would be the sampler pack that I offer. It's going to be six blends that you get. You can mix and match any of those six blends, but you get about two to three tea per blend, and you also get a tea infuser that comes with it. And actually, loose leaf, a lot of people are nervous when you get into loose leaf. They think it's a difficult process. It's really not. I mean, it's one teaspoon of loose leaf tea per 8 ounces of water, and you heat that water to approximately 180 degrees. And if you're heating your water even just in a microwave, the water just starts to get a little bit of a bubble activity going on the top surface. That's when you know it's up to that 180 degrees, you drop the tea infuser with the tea in it for about five to seven minutes, pull it out, and it's ready to enjoy.

TONY PEYRONEL: OK, and those instructions are on the cans, right?

DAN BICKEL: Yeah, absolutely, so, the four ounce cans come with those instructions. In the boxes that I'm putting out, there's a little pamphlet.

TONY PEYRONEL: OK, cool. If we could go back to the Northwest Innovation Beehive Network for a second, and again, the connection we know you already have with Kristen Santiago. She's been a guest on this program. She actually has the distinction of being our first two-time guest because we've helped her out with multiple projects, Gone Local, and then we actually work with her first on her business consulting business Ivy and Atlas. We've touched on it, but tell us a little more about the collaboration that you've had, and I guess it's ongoing with Kristen.

DAN BICKEL: Yes, so, Kristen is actually the person that I'm going to be leaning on for website design. I actually have a meeting with Kristen coming up on the 17th of this month, and I really liked what her website looks like. It's very functional, very easy to use, and she's going to come on board and help me get the HopLeaf website going.

TONY PEYRONEL: Just as we get ready to start wrapping it up, is there anything else you can think of that you'd like to share with our listeners?

DAN BICKEL: Just to be on the lookout, I mean, I'm always popping up at different venues, always putting out different blends, trying different things, collaborating with as many local companies as I can, as many breweries, and just putting out a unique product that everyone can enjoy.

TONY PEYRONEL: OK, any tidbit of free advice that you'd share with other entrepreneurs who are looking to start a business on their own?

DAN BICKEL: Absolutely, I mean, just you got to take that initial jump. You got to just step in, jump in, and get your feet wet because before I started this I, again, it was something where is four years in the making where I was sitting on this idea kind of tinkering with blends more as a hobby, and then I just thought, you know, I'm getting too old, you know. I've got to take a chance at this, and I did. And then, to have programs like what the Beehive offers, if you get that opportunity, you take it because they're going to help your business.

NARRATOR: To finish up our episode, producer Chris Lantinen joined Tony and Dan for a taste test and some additional discussion of the Voodoo collaboration, you can find HopLeaf on Facebook and Instagram at HopLeaf Tea. We've also placed purchase links in the episode description for the HopLeaf products, enjoy the rest of the episode.

TONY PEYRONEL: Our producer Chris, Dan, and I are going to sample the product.

CHRIS LANTINEN: I'm a little nervous, first time on mic on this program, out from behind the board, so. So, Dan, so we're getting the canned version. So, that is what Voodoo--

DAN BICKEL: This is what Voodoo Erie is actually brewing on site right now. They're going to be the ones housing all the tea brewing, whereas at the Meadville location is all the beer brewing. So, they're going to be doing all the tea and then shipping that off to the various locations.

CHRIS LANTINEN: So, at the Voodoo location, can you get this on tap?

DAN BICKEL: Yeah, this is on draft at the Erie Voodoo location, very soon to Meadville.

CHRIS LANTINEN: And they'll sell you the cans?

DAN BICKEL: Yes, they'll have the four ounce tins of this available.

TONY PEYRONEL: Chris, we noticed at the event Thursday, Dan and I were looking at the directory, and I said to him, I said, look they already have you up there, but we noticed it wasn't quite as noticeable as the other ones. So, we assume that it's like a coming soon. They're kind of teasing drinkers with the fact that they're going to have it just here in a little bit.

DAN BICKEL: And once we were at that event and I saw it wasn't available, I could tell Tony wanted it, so I went down to Erie and grabbed it can.

TONY PEYRONEL: We appreciate it, and we're going to give it a shot right now.

CHRIS LANTINEN: So, what should we be tasting?

DAN BICKEL: So, a Ceylon tea is going to be pretty bold, pretty brisk, and you're going to get lemon notes on this and almost earthy tones from the hops.

CHRIS LANTINEN: So, when you say earthy tones, what exactly to, again, to tea beginners such as us, what is that, exactly?

DAN BICKEL: Almost like malty, a little bit of a malty taste to it.

TONY PEYRONEL: And it does taste good, and the first time trying your product, it's good. It has a very good taste. I have to admit, it wouldn't hammer me out, though. I wouldn't right away say oh, there are hops in here. The blend is very subtle, but it's very, very good, is that the reaction you like to get from drinkers?

DAN BICKEL: Yeah, so the hops is going to be a subtle, almost on the back end, the finish, is where you get a little bit that hop factor. I tried early with these blends because I'm a hophead, I mean, I love hoppy beers, I love IPAs, I tried to have super hoppy teas, and it just doesn't work. I mean, it ends up being just hop water. So, you have to watch the ratio between the hops and the tea.

TONY PEYRONEL: Right, I'm the same when it comes to beers, I really like IPAs. At events like that, I'm always careful. I mean, it's the sessiony IPAs that are my favorite because I love the taste, but some of them, you can get so high in alcohol content, it's like, even if you're an established beer drinker, if you have more than two of those, you're starting to lose some function, and that's not necessarily good. So, it's funny, as I said, I'm not sophisticated in tea, but in beers, it's always the session IPAs that I gravitate for. So, that might be part of the reason this tastes so good to me.

CHRIS LANTINEN: I think one thing I've noticed is that Dan drank his tea very quickly. Somebody that has to taste test their products all the time, I assume, you still very much like it, which I think, speaks to the quality of it. I guess I could see somebody that makes the product, has to test it all the time, maybe they want to gulp it down, but I think you still like it, which is a good sign.

DAN BICKEL: Plus, it's also 90 degrees out today.

CHRIS LANTINEN: Is this like the iced tea? This is the iced tea variety.

DAN BICKEL: This is the cold brew version. So, it sits for about 12 hours overnight, and then at the brewery they put nitrogen in it, so it's nitrogenized, but this is just the cold brew version.

CHRIS LANTINEN: So but what with your blends, people can make like an iced tea version, which I assume is just they cool it.

DAN BICKEL: Absolutely. Yep, you just let it cool just a little bit after hot steeping it, and pour it over ice.

TONY PEYRONEL: It's very good.

CHRIS LANTINEN: Yeah, it's good. I can definitely taste the lemon immediately. I'm not a big lemon person, but it doesn't overpower. You know it tastes like a brisk, like the actual brand, Brisk, tea, in a way.

TONY PEYRONEL: Good stuff. Well, Dan, thank you very much, not only for joining us and sharing this with your listeners, but thank you for actually sharing the product with Chris and with me.

CHRIS LANTINEN: Another first. for our program.

DAN BICKEL: Thank you guys, appreciate it.

NARRATOR: The Northwest Pennsylvania Innovation Beehive Network works to enhance business expansion and development in the Erie area. The Beehive is made up of five grant-funded funded centers that collaborate to encourage business growth. The centers work together to form the hive network, while each location operates in its own specialized area of expertise. The Erie County Public Library, Penn State Behrand, Edinboro University, Gannon University, and Mercyhurst University are each responsible for a specific service.

You can contact any of us at NWPAbeehive.com. You've been listening to Buzz, Generated. This podcast was released through Edinboro University's Center for Branding and Strategic Communication. It's produced by Chris Lantinen. Thanks you to our guests for their insight and to you, our listeners, for taking the time to experience innovation alongside us. Consider subscribing, if you like this episode, to get more as soon as they drop. And if you really enjoyed it, jump over to Apple Podcasts for a five star review Thank you for listening.  

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