That’s the message from Paul Owl, the entrepreneur behind Treeteas Brewing Co., as he prepares to address some of the province’s top players in the tourism industry at the Ontario Tourism Summit in Huntsville on Oct. 25-26.Owl, a member of Serpent River First Nation, said he began brewing cedar teas with nothing more than a pot, a burner and a box of mason jars, gathering cedar in his backyard and boiling it down on top of his stove.
“You don't need the production facility. You don't need a big building,” Owl said. “The only thing you need to do is go out there and get it.” “So we would tell people to take a picture of the cedar at the bottom of your jar when they're done, and we'll give you a reading,” he said. “So people were sending us photos of their empty jars with the cedar in it, and we would give them a nice saying or something, like a fortune cookie.”
Owl added that he’s making sure that as the product extends into western provinces and further territories, artists from that region are featured on the product. Despite the success, Owl said he still likes the day-to-day hustle of meeting people, knocking on doors, and selling his product. “And now we're getting ready to send samples out there to them. And they're looking to purchase for Israel, Europe and the United States,” Owl said.