About FunctionalQi

Our company was born to empower people to care for themselves. By thoughtfully curating medicinal herbs and botanicals from a variety of traditions, we make teas to enhance specific bodily systems or functions in a way that’s maximally effective and delicious. Our founder, Kate, is passionate about living well. With great attention to food, health and hospitality, she’s a bit obsessive about quality and efficiency, delights in bright, bold, elegant flavors and colors, and has an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and travel. As she embraced a natural plant-based lifestyle, she found that many medicinal teas didn’t taste good, had few ingredients and weren’t maximizing their flavor or functional potential. So, she began blending ingredients to make getting the benefits of medicinal plants more pleasing to the palate and broadly beneficial. Through the exploration of a variety of natural health traditions, careful research and consultation with herbalists and a tea sommelier, she develops complex blends of botanicals that are complementary in both flavor and function. Though each blend began with a particular ailment or issue in mind, the health benefits of each are broad, with flavors that are beautifully balanced thanks to the variety of ingredients in each. Thus, the effect is to maximize specific functions, overall health, convenience, bioavailability and enjoyment. Read their story