I fell over.

That's it. Not a lightbulb moment, not a gap in the market — I went for a run, I fell over a tree root, and I spent two weeks on my sofa with my ankle elevated, unable to leave the house.

Anyone who knows me will know I am not a person who can sit still for long. The first couple of days were great — I binge-watched back episodes of The Pitt and cringed at the antics at The White Lotus — but then I got fidgety and, to be honest, frustrated. For 20+ years I worked in IT and that job took me across the world — India, Malaysia, Amsterdam, London — and looking back now I can see that I solved most of my problems by gathering people together and working things through over a cup of tea.

But there I was. Ankle up. Kettle on and wondering what flavour tea to have next.

If I think about it now, things had been brewing for a while. My lovely neighbour Kathleen, in Chicago, had given me a tea wallet so I could carry my own blends wherever I went. Thoughtful, if also a bit telling about how recognisable my tea habit had become. She's that kind of friend. By then I'd been blending and tasting teas for years — spiced masala chai in India, the fresh fragrant teas in Amsterdam, and time on the tea farms in the Cameron Highlands of Malaysia.

So things began to piece together. I started writing down tea recipes, then the geek in me took over and The Tea Blend Studio was born. The idea that had been quietly forming for years finally had somewhere to live — that the right tea at the right moment, chosen for how you actually feel, might be worth sharing.

The Tea Blend Studio came from there.