Orleatha Smith pitches Sip Herbals, her caffeine free faux coffee business, in Shark Tank episode 1522, the Season 15 Finale. Her and her partner, Kelly Raulerson (not in the Tank), founded the business in December, 2020. Both women have entrepreneurial backgrounds and founded another business together before founding Sip. Their product is a coffee replacement they call “faux Joe.”
Both women enjoy the ritual of a hot cup of coffee or tea in the morning, but the caffeine often made them jittery. They wanted to create a beverage with the richness of coffee without the harmful effects of caffeine. What they came up with is a mixture of organic dandelion, organic chicory and organic carob that you brew like coffee or loose leaf tea. It has the richness they were looking for.
Those three ingredients are in the original Faux Joe flavor they sell. There are other flavors with additional flavors and (organic) ingredients. These include: Dirty Chai, Royal Mocha, French Vanilla, Salted Maple Blondie and Cinnamon Roll. They also sell in sample packs and they sell a coconut creamer and some brewing accessories. A 1 ounce packet with 6 servings costs $10 and a 6 ounce packet with 30 servings costs $24.99. They offer a 10% discount if you subscribe. Right now, they’re available on the company website, on the shelves at a dozen or so mom and pop markets and on Amazon. They likely want a Shark to help them get into national chains.
Company Information
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Video
Posts about Sip Herbals on Shark Tank Blog
Sip Herbals: Your New Favorite Coffee Alternative
Sip Herbals Shark Tank Recap
Orleatha enters the Shark Tank seeking $100,000 for 10% of her company. She explains that she used to suffer from anxiety, jitters and tummy troubles every single day. The culprit was coffee. She wasn’t ready to give up her morning coffee ritual, but she’s allergic to everything and has to read every food label carefully. She says artificial vanilla flavoring contains beaver butt!
That’s why she created Sip Herbals, a gut supporting, caffeine free, herbal coffee substitute made for label readers like her. It’s a pre-biotic tea made with whole food ingredients. Each cup of “Faux Joe” contains chicory root for gut support, dandelion root for liver support and roasted carob for “that smooth sweet taste without any of the waste.” It steeps like tea but it feels like coffee so you get that full mouth flavor and all the coffee house flavors you love.
Samples and Questions
Kevin wants to know more about the Beaver butt. Orleatha tells him manufacturers don’t have to disclose what’s in natural flavors. The “beaver butt” ingredient is from thwe anal castoreum gland in the beaver. The Sharks sample their tea: the signature roast, salted maple blondie and dirty chai. The Sharks like their tea. Orleatha knows about chicory because chicory coffee was “a thing” ffrom her home in Louisiana. As a former biology teacher, she knew about the herbs as well.
Kevin wants to know the size of the Market and Orleatha tells him 20% of Americans can’t tolerate coffee. Candace says she’s one of those people who won’t give up her morning coffee no matter what it does to her. Orleatha says she used to be that way, but she has an auto-immune disease that coffee exacerbates. As a child she had eczema so bad shespent a month at the Mayo Clinic getting treatment. Rather than giving her steroids, Orleatha’s mother took a holistic approach with clean eating and Orleatha grew up understanding the power of food.
Let’s Talk Numbers
Sales for this year (2023) are on track to do $250,000. The cost for 1 bag of tea is $3.44 and they sell for $19-$24. Her vision is to give coffee sensitive people a sense of normalcy. They just got on the shelves at Lazy Acres Markets and New Leaf Markets. The packaging is a result of a recent re-branding to explain the product as a tea. Lori says she should put the phrase “the tea that feels like coffee” at the top of the package.
Lori thinks the tea tastes great. She’ll be a customer but she doesn’t think Orleatha is there yet as an investment; she’s out. Daymond thinks it’s a great business for Orleatha but he doesn’t think she needs an investor; he’s out. Mark thinks she has a great opportunity to grow the business herself; he’s out. Candace says she’s a die hard coffee drinker and she needs to be a cheerleader for companies she invests in; she’s out. It’s to niche for Kevin, he doesn’t think he can realize a 10X return; he’s out.
Sip Herbals Shark Tank Update
The Shark Tank Blog constantly provides updates and follow-ups about entrepreneurs who have appeared on the Shark Tank TV show. Once an episode has aired, we monitor the progress of the businesses featured, whether they receive funding or not and report on their progress. The Shark Tank Blog will follow-up on Sip Herbals & Orleatha Smith as more details become available.
