New spice and tea business helps family rise from tragedy
October 12, 2015 6:30 am •
When profound personal tragedies rocked Jeanne and Kylea Wagner’s world, they found solace in the foundation of family and friends.
But the mother-and-daughter duo also found inspiration to rebuild their lives from the simplest of pleasures: a home-cooked meal and a soothing cup of tea.
In the span of 15 months, Jeanne and her husband Jay Wagner of Rapid City, and daughter Kylea, endured the wrenching loss of a son Jake, 22, in an automobile accident in June of 2013, and the death of Jay’s sister, Michelle Snipes, 41, after a brief battle with cancer in March of 2012.
“Our family was gut-struck,” Jeanne recalled.
“When Jacob died in a car crash, it just undid me. I’m not any different than any other mother who has lost a child. It derailed me,” she said.
Even in their grief they were forced to pick up the pieces and keep going.
Kylea helped Jay in the family business, J & J Asphalt, while Jeanne resumed her career as an intensive care unit nurse at Rapid City Regional Hospital.
“It not about the bad that happens to you, it’s how you handle what happens to you. We just had to get up and go back to work,” Jeanne said.
But Jeanne thought she needed a new direction to help her through her pain. She turned to the things she had shared with her family and friends — cooking and a love of tea.
She enjoyed giving specialty teas as gifts and, while searching the internet, she found a website for Spice & Tea Exchange, a Florida-based company specializing in custom-mixed flavored spices, oils, sugars, rubs and teas.
“I just wasn’t very happy anymore and I had to figure out something to bring me and my daughter together to bring us something positive and fun,” she said.
In that spirit, she and Kylea and Jake’s girlfriend, Katey Riley, decided to team up to bring a Spice & Tea Exchange shop to Rapid City.
They found a prime location in downtown Rapid City at 519 Sixth St., formerly the location of Cranky Jeff’s Bike Shop, just north of the Hotel Alex Johnson and within a few steps of other eclectic specialty shops near Main Street Square.
They plan a soft-opening on Oct. 16, with a grand opening scheduled for Nov. 6.
The first thing one will notice in their shop is the myriad of aromas emanating from the variety of flavored sugars, salts, peppers and rubs for beef, pork, poultry and fish as well as a wide selection of teas.
Customers are encouraged to lift the lid of the large glass decanters containing the spice and tea blends. Custom blends are mixed from fresh ingredients right in the shop.