Summary
Chris caught up with Ehsan from MagicT at Fieldays this year. He found out about MagicT’s journey at bringing New Zealanders quality herbal tea with ingredients sourced from around the world.
This is a great story about a great product.
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Chris [00:00:21]:
Okay. So now The Chris and Sam Podcast has got to the Pantry Pavilion, and our first interview here is going to be Ehsan with MagicT. So, Ehsan, tell me a little bit about what MagicT’s all about.
Ehsan [00:00:35]:
Hi. My name is Ehsan, me and my wife, Frida, we founded the business named MagicT, and we make, loose leaf herbal tea blends, that are sourced from different countries in the world, and they’re based in New Plymouth. We blend and pack them there, and we sell them nationwide.
Chris [00:00:55]:
And so how how long has this been going on?
Ehsan [00:00:58]:
We started, right before COVID probably back in 2020. Lots of ups and downs, and, obviously, I’ll have a long way to go.
Chris [00:01:07]:
And is this your first, Fieldays?
Ehsan [00:01:09]:
This is my first Fieldays, and I found it very good actually.
Chris [00:01:13]:
So have you ever been to Fieldays before before you had a business? No. No. You’ve never even heard of it before?
Ehsan [00:01:19]:
I I I’ve heard it. I have lots of farmer friends and, in June. They were all excited about coming to Fieldays, and, talked about it, but, never expected something this massive, to be honest. It’s, like, it’s huge. It’s massive.
Chris [00:01:32]:
This is day 1, mate. You wait. Saturday will blow your mind. It’ll blow your mind. So, assuming Saturday’s good weather, if Saturday’s good weather, twice as many people as you got today will be in here. So anyway, going back to thris. So you come from Iran originally. Yep.
Chris [00:01:49]:
So tell me about the history of the tea in terms of is it a family thing? Why is it imported? What all that sort of thing.
Ehsan [00:01:58]:
So we we, as I said, my wife, Frida, she comes from the family history of, herbal tea, and she’s a herbalist herself. But, in general, tea is a great thing in Iran. So we, we drink tea on daily basis, even and hourly basis. So everywhere you go, they offer you some tea, and it’s it’s something very, very, common in in terms of culture. And, so when we came here we were the struggling finding a property to drink. It was back in 2017, and it was just like, gumboot tea with lots of milk inside it in huge, ceramic jars and things. It’s ceramic mugs and things. And I was like, oh my goodness, these people, they don’t have any idea about a good tea.
Ehsan [00:02:44]:
So we ended up bringing some of our own stuff in sam in a suitcase back to New Zealand when we went back to Iran. And then, some of our friends came to our place and say, hey, you have to start selling these. These are beautiful. And we said, let’s do it. And we started The business. We started an online, website, and then started to sell it to some stockists. And, from there, it was just like a domino effect, so it goes and now we are selling in 100 stores nationwide, and we are also selling to Australia on our online website.
Chris [00:03:14]:
Oh, that’s awesome. That’s awesome. So I tried the hibiscus and cinnamon earlier. I really like that. I haven’t tried any other, I do wanna try your Turkish breakfast because that’s an apple tea, and I I was a big fan of the apple tea. I stayed in Morocco for a while. I’ve never been to Iran, but I think the tea culture was a little bit similar there.
Chris [00:03:34]:
The 1 thing I did notice though was we had mint tea, and that was pretty good, I think. But some of the teas, some of the people would put a cup full of sugar in a tea. Like, there was so much is that the same sort of thing in Iran?
Ehsan [00:03:48]:
We we have the tea with with cubic sugars.
Chris [00:03:51]:
Yeah.
Ehsan [00:03:51]:
And we don’t we don’t, dissolve it in the tea. So we have them separately like a candy. I have to say that we we have too much sugar with our tea. I can’t deny it. But you have at least, you don’t have it, you know, by default inside your tea. So you can have it less. But the teas that we do, we don’t add any sugars and additives to our tea. So, this Turkish breakfast, is 100% natural sweet of the apple.
Ehsan [00:04:23]:
And the apple is actually very important from Turkey. It’s a a yellow apple, which is, relatively sweeter than the red apples that you find in New Zealand.
Chris [00:04:32]:
Awesome. Awesome. Well, that sounds really good. Now is there something I should have asked you that I didn’t?
Ehsan [00:04:37]:
No. I think it covered, almost everything in a very fast pace. I just wanted to invite, everyone to come to our website, www.magict.co.nz, and try our teas, and, the shipping is free for the first time orders.
Chris [00:04:54]:
Yeah. Absolutely. Check it out. Like I said, I’ve tried 1 of them. I’m gonna taste 1 of the others after this, and, yeah, you should definitely check it out. It’s really good stuff. Now we’ve got 2 questions we’ve been asking people today. and of them probably isn’t a good question for you, but I’m gonna ask it anyway.
Chris [00:05:10]:
And then, so the first question is AI. Everything’s happening with AI. Do you use AI at all in your business?
Ehsan [00:05:17]:
Daily basis.
Chris [00:05:19]:
Yep. What do you do with it?
Ehsan [00:05:20]:
Because English is my second language, and I make lots of grammatical mistakes. My vocabulary is maybe limited. So I I use AI to, enhance, my, my copyrights, and that’s something really helps me. And, but this is the most part that, I take and I ask too many questions from Gemini and Chat GPT about everything, even ask them some ideas about what do you think about this tea and that tea, and they answer me actually. Yeah.
Chris [00:05:53]:
No. That that’s The that’s the thing. It’s so ubiquitous now. It’s so everywhere. So that’s really cool.
Ehsan [00:05:59]:
Can I say something about the AI? Everything that human being, invents is like a knife. A knife can save, life if in the hands of a doctor and can be can kill a person if in the hands of a murderer. So AI is the same thing just like a knife. It can save a life. It can kill people. So it just depends how we use it.
Chris [00:06:20]:
100% totally agree with that. And I also wanted to ask you, The last question is, do you normally listen to podcasts?
Ehsan [00:06:26]:
I listen to podcast and audiobooks. Like, that’s I don’t listen to music, and, I don’t play mobile games and things. So that’s something I do. And I listen to Farsi podcast, not English. Sorry.
Chris [00:06:40]:
I was gonna say, what are your top 3 podcasts?
Ehsan [00:06:44]:
There there’s a there’s a podcast that reads Iranian poems named Ferdul Zikhani. That’s I I listen to that 1. It’s about The epic poems of Iran. That’s my top podcast. The the others are a lot like very political one you don’t want to know about it. But this 1 is about the Iranian epic poems that I always listen.
Chris [00:07:03]:
Excellent. Alright. Well, thank you very much, Ehsan, and, good luck with the rest of field days. And I I’m looking forward to hearing what you think of Saturday when you you’re gonna you’re gonna need Sunday off, mate. You’re gonna you’re gonna be buggered. Alright. Thanks.
Ehsan [00:07:17]:
Thank you very much. Have a great day.
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