As Black History Month comes to a close, I wanted to share 3 newer Black-owned wellness brands with you. We’ve been celebrating successful Black business owners and voices all month long. These brands are up and coming brands that you might not know about yet. Each of these brands has a beautiful story and they deserve the support of each of you!

Equitea

Equitea is a new Black-owned tea brand centered on wellness and mental health. Quentin Vennie and his wife Erin founded Equitea after searching for ways to naturally manage their son’s ADHD. So they began blending their own teas to help their son find focus and calm. Quentin’s own mental health journey also inspires the brand. He has fought with anxiety, depression, and addiction, leading to healing practices like yoga, meditation, juicing, and tea.

Making wellness accessible to all is part of Quentin’s mission. He is a celebrated wellness expert and advocates for under-resourced communities. Equitea supports nonprofit organizations like the Know Your Rights Camp. Quentin also authored a bestselling memoir titled Strong In the Broken Places and was featured in Black Enterprise’s 100 Modern Men of Distinction. He has also earned recognition from the American Foundation for suicide prevention.

Equitea was founded on the principle that being healthy is a human right, not a privilege. What we put into our bodies matters, and Equitea’s tea blends make it easy to “drink to your health.” The community-driven brand is excited to share the tea blends that have helped their family with yours. 

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Equitea’s blends are crafted to help its drinkers find stress relief and mental wellness.

Some of their current blends of green and herbal teas are:

Awaken – A robust green tea blend with lavender to aid with relaxation and lemon verbena to counter the bitterness of green tea—a family favorite, especially for Quentin’s son with ADHD.

Breathe – 

Empower – Herbal tea that “packs a punch” of vitamin C. With ingredients like hibiscus, rosehip, elderberry, and lemon peel, this blend was crafted to be nutrient-rich and delicious hot or cold.

Escape – A simple herbal blend of organic South African honeybush and whole Madagascar vanilla bean with a deep, comforting flavor.

Surrender – A relaxing blend of delicate herbs—rose, chamomile, rosehip, calendula, and valerian root—that will soothe your mind and help promote peace before bed.

The teas are created with organic ingredients that taste great while helping you on your wellness journey. Three of the holistic blends even have the goop seal of approval.

Ilanga Wellness

Ilanga Wellness is an app and platform that Sinikiwe is creating. She founded Naaya Wellness, a yoga and wellness community that promotes well-being for bodies of color. Naaya Wellness shares a biweekly newsletter with tips on how to be well. They also created a list of anti-racism resources to share with white people and parents. Ilanga is the next step of Naaya’s journey. 

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The distribution of the $4.75 trillion global wellness market is “nowhere near equitable.” Illanga will be a movement app that works to break the barrier to entering the wellness industry for bodies of color. There are three key objectives of Illanga highlighted on their I Fund Women profile:

1. To carve an innovated and inspiring space for Bodies of Culture in the wellness industry. The goal is to show that anyone, regardless of race, socioeconomic status, or physical ability, can be well through representation from diverse instructors. 
2. To create a one-of-a-kind platform for yoga, pilates, and strength training in a fun, aesthetically pleasing, accessible, and culturally-sensitive way. They will strive to erase the association of fitness with privilege and punishment. The movement classes will be guided instead by freedom of expression and joy.
3. To offer 1:1 individualized training for folds of various backgrounds and abilities so everyone can have the opportunity to be well.

You can support Ilanga’s development here, or follow along on Instagram.

Tastelli

Tastelli is a 10-calorie konjac jelly snack created to satisfy sugar cravings without the sugar! The pouches are keto and vegan, and they contain collagen and vitamin C for healthy skin.

Tastelli was founded by three grad school friends who struggled to find easy snacks that were healthy and affordable. They were spending more time at home during the pandemic and wanted to create a nutritious snack to satisfy an occasional sugar craving. They were familiar with the konjac jelly pouches that you could find at Asian supermarkets, but they were hard to find and filled with artificial ingredients. So they tested formulas until they created a delicious, drinkable konjac jelly product that was sugar-free and plant-based. Tastelli is meant to be a snack that promotes wellness and is easy for on-the-go lifestyles.

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The ingredients in Tastelli pouches include konjac flour, collagen, vitamins, and erythritol. Konjac is water-soluble and aids digestion, making it a natural remedy for digestion issues. It also contains anti-inflammatory and blood-sugar-control agents. Konjac’s high fiber content also helps you feel full. You can find Tastelli on their website and Amazon in various flavors, like apple green grape, peach, and mango pineapple.If you follow Tastelli on Instagram, you’ll have a behind-the-scenes look at being a Black business owner!