Iroh's Corner

Join us for tea with Jamie Gross, Senior Director at adidas of the US Kohl's wholesale business and co-owner of Silver Harbor Brewing Company in St. Joseph, Michigan. Jamie shares about her career journey in sales from Whirlpool to adidas, launching Silver Harbor Brewing Company with her husband and friends, and how she manages it all with two young children.

Join us for tea with Josalyn & Bolaji Osoba, owners and founders of be. macarons and Kwerke. be. macarons is an online macaron shop and Kwerke sells easy magnetic photography backdrops and mini studios. Josalyn & Bolaji share about their career journeys, Josalyn perfecting macarons, Bolaji designing the Kwerke setup, and what it's like to launch multiple online businesses.

Join us for tea with Mike & Laura Ellis, owners and founders of Mt Hope Farms, an Oregon specialty fruit farm. Laura and Mike share about choosing their specialty crops (table grapes, aronia berries, and haskap berries), developing a line of artisan fruit spreads, and how they highlight the legacy of their farm and other local Oregon farms through their products.

Join us for tea with Emily Mikiko Strocher & Alex McGillivray, founders and creators of Mikiko Mochi Donuts. Alex and Emily share about starting a mochi donut company during a pandemic, experimenting with more than four business models, the influence of family and tradition on Mikiko, and a not-super-distant dream of a retail shop in Portland.

Join us for tea with Courtney Lesnik, founder and creator of Toast'd PDX, an elevated vegan pop tart company. Courtney shares about her love of baking and creating art on her pop tarts for pop-ups each week, being a vegetarian and then vegan, and how she navigates the tough topics of burn-out, life as a mompreneur, and growth plans.

Join us for tea with Jan Taborsky and Lacy Gillham, co-founders and co-creators of Happy Campers Gluten Free, a gluten free, vegan, and ancient grain bread company. Lacy & Jan share about starting Happy Campers as students in Oregon more than 10 years ago, the steps to going from a local bakery to making bread available across the nation, and how they keep all aspects of their life nourished.

Join us for tea with Charity Chalmers, owner and founder of Chariteas, an online retailer of teas from the road less traveled. Charity originally started a corporate gifting company, then a tea cafe in Sandy, Oregon, and then converted the business all online to allow her to start a tea garden in the Philippines. Charity shares about her journey at Chariteas over the last ten years including how she initially got into tea, her travels to tea gardens in multiple companies to source her teas, and learning to blend teas.

Angel investing sounds esoteric and irrelevant to most of the population; however, it's more prevalent than you think and shapes the companies and brands we know and love. Join Jessi as she does an overview of angel investing - afterward, you can watch Shark Tank like a pro, spot angel investing in the wild, and understand which businesses are eligible for investment funds and why.

Join us for tea with Emily Cafazzo, co-owner and co-founder of Sugarpine Drive-in, a premier drive-in restaurant on the banks of the Sandy River in Troutdale, Oregon. Emily and her husband, Ryan Domingo, also have started Da Pine Grinds, a pop-up food truck, and are in the process of opening the Sugarpine Roadhouse. Emily shares about the source of her love for food, starting Sugarpine with Ryan, creating and maintaining a company culture, and adapting during a pandemic.

Join us for tea with Anne Smith, founder and owner of Oregon Bark, a local candy line of nutty, all gluten free & vegan candies. Anne shares about her journey from animator, to cooking school owner, to confectioner, with lots of surprises along the way - especially about candy and its eccentricities. "Toe" candy versus "Finger" candy, dreaming up fancy ice cream sandwiches before the world was ready, and Anne's infectious laugh and affable nature are just a few pieces of this fun conversation.