Amelia Schafer
ICT
MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin – Growing up in Arizona, Lizz Tsosie-Stachura said she wasn’t always a fan of tea. But in 2010, things changed for the Diné and Lenca woman as she had her first taste of Teavana tea and realized just how tasty it can be.
“Once I realized there was actually good tea out there I started exploring more,” she said. “Back then finding loose leaf tea was hard. … Any time I saw it, I would buy it. Since then, I knew I had a passion for tea. It just sparked something inside of me.”
Even after Teavana closed in 2018, Tsosie-Stachura said she continued to nourish her newfound love of tea.
Liz Tsosie-Stachura poses for a photo at a Tootsie’s Tea pop-up sale in Milwaukee. She plans to open her storefront in spring 2026. (Photo courtesy of Liz Tsosie-Stachura).
Now in 2026, Tsosie-Stachura is preparing to open her brick and mortar business, Tootsie’s Tea, just west of downtown Milwaukee. The business’ name comes from a frequent mispronunciation of her maiden name, Tsosie, which is a Navajo name.
“People would always pronounce it Tootsie or Too-saucy,” she said. “So I said, ‘If I’m going to start a business, I’m going to call it Tootsie’s Tea.’”
Tea blends are hand crafted by owner Lizz Tsosie-Stachura from the Tootsie’s Tea kitchen in Milwaukee. The storefront is expected to open in the spring of 2026. (Photo by Amelia Schafer, ICT)
Created in December 2020, Tootsie’s Tea has also brought her closer to her culture, she said. She didn’t grow up drinking Navajo tea. Many elders, including those in her family, had felt too ashamed of their culture to drink it, she said.
“They come from a generation where they had to be ashamed of who they were,” she said. “So they didn’t always share these traditions and cultures.”
Navajo tea, ch’ilgohwéhí’deí in the Navajo language, is created using the cota plant (Thelesperma filifolium), which is native to Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado and Nevada. For generations, Navajo families have boiled the plant to make tea and dye.
The end product is a natural remedy for colds as it reduces mucus and is caffeine free.
When her family did drink Navajo tea, it was usually around Christmas as a treat, she said. As she got older and grew more interested in tea, Tsosie-Stachura said, she wanted to reclaim the traditional staple drink for herself and her family.
“It’s almost created, like a bond within my family,” she said. “I’m hearing stories from them that I’ve never even heard before, just about [my relatives] being a toddler and remembering going harvesting with their parents … just different memories of that and then it actually even motivated my aunt to go and harvest them and give some to me.”
In December 2024, Tsosie-Stachura said, she decided to open a storefront for Tootsie’s Tea, which has been operating as an online business since its creation.
Starting a tea company has brought her closer to her family and the local Indigenous community, she said. Right now, as she’s still preparing for Tootsie’s Tea’s grand opening, Tsosie-Stachura said she’s sold tea at local Indigenous markets and gets many of her ingredients from local Indigenous farmers.
With a grant from Feeding America, she was able to buy her own food processor, allowing her to quickly craft blends in the business’ kitchen area. Tsosie-Stachura creates all her blends herself, meaning she picks individual ingredients based on flavor profile and health benefits.
A jar of harvested plants for Navajo Tea sits in the kitchen at Tootsie’s Tea in Milwaukee, waiting to be individually packaged and sold. (Photo by Amelia Schafer, ICT)
The brand incorporates traditional staples like cedar into different blends, one of which being the Blood Orange Forest Tea blend, crafted with orange, hibiscus, rose hips, rooibos, cedar, blood orange, Door County Cherry, sage, basil and lingzhi.
Cedar has been used by Indigenous people for generations. Due to its antibacterial properties, many tribes smudge with cedar to cleanse bacteria or illness from a space or boil the leaves down as a tea to be drunk by the sick.
“I really love the curiosity that a lot of people have with my teas,” she said. “I love when they’re like repeat customers. That makes me so happy that they don’t just try it, but they come back for more.”
Loose leaf tea creates a stronger, more flavorful cup, she explained. Ground tea found prepackaged in grocery stores often contains a very small amount of the actual ingredients, leading to a more watered down flavor, often lacking essential nutrients.
By working with loose leaves, Tsosie-Stachura said she’s able to more effectively control the end product. It also allows for quality control when it comes to ethically sourcing ingredients.
“I don’t want to discount or discredit any box tea at all, but I think that when I do buy tea from other, smaller places or smaller batches, I feel that energy,” she said.
Right now, her products are sold in 3.5-inch glass jars or in 1-pound mylar bags. Tsosie-Stachura offers a buy-back program for glass jars, helping promote recycling and an environmentally friendly business model.
With a new machine, Tsosie-Stachura said she’ll soon be able to create her own tea bags with recyclable film. Many big-name, boxed tea bags have been found to contain as much as 11.6 million microplastics and are often non-biodegradable.
Tootsie’s Tea owner Liz Tsosie-Stachura was able to purchase two new food processing machines using a grant from Feeding America. (Photo by Amelia Schafer, ICT)
Tsosie-Stachura said she purchases ingredients from Indigenous foragers whenever possible and makes sure ingredients are harvested in a good way – ethically with good intentions and by giving thanks to the plant. Several of her suppliers harvest on the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa reservation and Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa reservation.
“I’m still looking for more [to buy from],” she said.
The business is also about giving back to the community, she said. Tsosie-Stachura’s tea will be featured throughout the year in Feeding America, elder food boxes. Through the program, boxes of healthy food are distributed to Indigenous elders throughout Wisconsin. Additionally, 15 percent of her business’ profits will go back into the Milwaukee community.
The storefront will feature a community gathering space. Tsosie-Stachura said she plans to hold elders’ tea parties in the room and various community events. With a citywide Indigenous population estimated around 10,000 people, there are few opportunities or spaces for gathering for Native people in Milwaukee, she said.
“I definitely feel like there’s a community, but there isn’t so much a gathering place,” she said. “I hope that I can have a gathering place.”
Tsosie-Stachura expects to open Tootsie’s Tea’s storefront in spring 2026.
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