About ROOTS AND RITUAL
We really believe that the Roots & Ritual story is an All-Paths-Led-to-Here tale. For 25 years, we (owners Sandi Hein & Amber Wilson) lived an outrageously fun, but incredible out-of-balance life in Ybor City nightclub world. We had a hugely successful nightclub named Czar, with a staff of 89 eccentric creatives that 4000 people came to play with each week. It was a blast and a massive responsibility at the same time.
About 10 years ago, we began to feel that crazy lifestyle starting to take its toll. We found ourselves seeking ways to help bring balance to our lives. We started spending more time in nature, which led to gardening and healthier diets… and eventually led us to our incredible love for bees, beekeeping, rescuing and rehoming bees. Soon after that, Sandi became an Ayurvedic Practitioner and Amber a Reiki Master and Ayurvedic Yoga Instructor. Our small garden grew into an apothecary as we learned how to mend ourselves through plant medicines.
When we started to feel the results of a more balanced mind, body and soul, we wanted to share that with our friends… and Roots & Ritual was born. It’s a unique blend of Ayurveda and Apitherapy – sacred self-care through ancient remedies. However, something was still missing…
It’s hard to walk away from the service industry, especially when you love people as much as we do. So, we started a couple small makers’ markets (Vagabond Gita, Monday Night Moonlight Market & Widdershins Dark Market) with the intention of eventually vending Roots & Ritual in them. We wanted to personally interact with our customers. Not only to get direct and immediate feedback, but to get to know them and their needs. However, we quickly learned that managing a market and wrangling vendors was a full time job.
Right about that time, we were also presented with an opportunity to partner in to live venue/restaurant, Hooch & Hive. Creating a home for Tampa artists and musicians was incredible alluring and rewarding… but we soon found ourselves back in the world of imbalance. Three markets, Hooch & Hive and Roots & Ritual was too much.
When Covid-19 shut our markets and venue down and some of our friends and former customers became sick, we immediate threw all of our efforts back into Roots & Ritual. We created a lot of Ayurvedic remedies tailored for specific individuals. A few of them became incredibly popular, so we added them to our product line. Once again, we have found peace. Roots & Ritual has brought true holistic balance to our lives.
Ayurveda is a 5000-year-old healing modality with roots in ancient India. As a practitioner, Sandi treats her clients with all types of remedies, from herbal to dietary to lifestyle. She and Amber create herbal teas, churnas (personal spices), salves, oils, ghees, tinctures, elixirs, balms, and herbal-infused honey elixirs personalized for each client. We’ve re-developed some of these to serve a broader audience, and we have many more in progress.
We create all of our products at home. All of our beehive-based products are created with ingredients from our hives. Only about 5% of the herbs for our Ayurvedic teas are grown on our property. We try to locally source as much of the rest of our herbs as possible, and all are organic. Our Ayahuasca vine is grown and harvested on our property. We create each talisman by hand in our home. A word on our Ayahuasca… we do not sell this for consumption. Because it has a healing quality, we create pieces to wear and carry as energetic amulets.
Being beekeepers, we are hyper aware of our impact on the environment. All of our labels are printed on recycled paper. All of our packaging is either glass, paper or tin, and our new resealable tea packaging are recyclable stand-up pouches.
Welcome to Roots & Ritual… Bee Safe and Bee Well!
~ Sandi & Amber