5 Minutes With Charlotte From Olive & Pop

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m a mama to two of the sweetest souls Esme and Roman and a photographer. We live in our cosy wee home in Christchurch. For years I felt like I didn’t really know who I was and so it was becoming a mama seven years ago that really has allowed me to explore my full nature, find a grounding place and root into what I’m here to offer and build more from. Interestingly, ritual and grounding processes have been what has allowed me to feel more at home and to live consciously and intentionally. I feel like I’m finally coming home to myself and with that I have so much more space to offer our children a guiding light.

What is your earliest memory of trying tea?

Tea brings up memories of sharing tiny cups of barley tea with an old lady in her ceramics shop in Korea, or sipping sweet cardamom chai on the dusty streets of North India but I think I’m drawn more to my earliest memory of tea which instantly brings me straight back to my childhood summers spent in Napier. Memories of my Grandma, Mum and Aunties drinking endless cups of tea while I sat, bored and waiting, on the hot, red driveway squinting into the horizon and wondering just how long this would take! The ritual for them I now see, was social. For them tea and its ritual represented a convivial atmosphere, a safe space to be together only a few times each year. I see this playing out for myself now, as a mama, sharing tea and coffee with my friends while our children play. I also remember my mum recalling how she would sit down with a pot of steaming chamomile and breastfeed me as a baby in the sunlit lounge each afternoon. Now I make it as a nurturing, nourishing drink for Esme and Roman; a small cup of chamomile as they emerge from their beds each morning and sharing a pot of green tea most afternoons with books in the corner of our lounge. It feels like a very small, simple but timeless offering to hold space and create an atmosphere in our home. I often think that it’s not necessarily the things we do as a family each day but the tone of the home or the activities that will pervade and shape their lives. And so tea and other ritual/habitual things like playing Spanish guitar or jazz, drawing the curtains, lighting candles, filling our home with intentional objects are intertwined with creating an almost sacred space in our home.

What does ritual and ceremony mean to you, which ones are most important and impactful in your life?

Ritual is very meaningful to me. It pervades my daily life and allows me to live intentionally, consciously and rooted to my life and those in it. To me mindfulness and ritual are intertwined. They have given me a grounding anchor in my days and inform how I choose to show up in the world, how I exist in my motherhood, how I let things go and how I create space.

Ritual means the tangible things I do (like adding tea leaves to boiling water, pouring coffee, stirring a pot of simmering onions, plaiting my daughter’s hair, walking to school) blended with the empty space - the moments between the actions where I recalibrate, re-energise, centre, ground, breathe, gain perspective, notice and through this, take in the many moments of utter beauty. Gratitude flows in many more moments when I’m living mindfully daily as there’s less time on autopilot, more time thinking, speaking, moving and acting mindfully.

In the context of Ayurveda I am Vata Dosha and in human design I am a generator. Putting these two together means that I get overwhelmingly excited about the things that light me up and really anxious about a lot too. Adding rituals to my day, living intentionally and using mindfulness give me an ability to ground - either in the moment of drinking the tea but also taking that feeling and awareness with me into many other moments throughout the day.

Ritual I hope, flows from me into our children. I constantly think how can I teach them how to create or anchor into a rhythm in their days which will hopefully set them up for an adult life where they can draw on this. So yes it’s creating ritual and ceremony for the big things - the birthdays and holidays - but more importantly, the smaller daily rituals like reading books on the floor, setting the table for our family French-style dinner each Saturday and noticing the seasons with the flowers they pick or the scent in the air. Allowing and encouraging them to see beauty, transformation and ritual everyday.

Every time I make coffee and tea I close my eyes briefly and repeat a mantra and aim to walk with intention and deep breath every time I do things habitually like walking down our hall or putting clean cutlery away. Ritual is the presence I get from practising mindfulness in daily life and taking this with me throughout the day in as many moments as I can.

Tell us how your experience with Mikaku Tea has been?

My experience with Mikaku is layered. It’s sharing a beautiful friendship with Leeya, having the privilege of photographing her many times for her branding and drinking the tea itself. The beautiful, clean, fresh tea effortlessly imparts everything that Leeya puts into her process. The tea is layered with insight and awareness of each step, from growing the herbs and flowers, her acute knowledge of the rhythms and cycles of nature, wild foraging and a tangible connection to nature, consciously and creatively blending, packaging and offering. “Learning to live each and every moment in concert with cyclical rhythms of the universe provides a solid foundation for building a rich and wholesome life.” This quote I stumbled upon last night by Bri Maya Tiwari feels so appropriate to how Leeya creates her tea and approaches her life. I’m so looking forward to diving deeper into her Inner Seasons blends.

For many, the last few years have been a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs, what are you most grateful for?

I acknowledge what I’m most grateful for as a ritual every day; as a mantra while I’m brewing my coffee each morning, before I take my first mouthful of my dinner and in the moments before I fall asleep. Always revolving around gratitude for the earth, our family, our presence of mind, our harmonious home, our commitment to living consciously and whole, our safety and security and our nourishment. I don’t want any of this life to rush past me unnoticed or unacknowledged and I want Esme and Roman to see their mama living fully and joyfully and experiencing everything with the greatest presence available in the moment.