AFRICAN TEA EXPERIENCE

Why I Started the African Tea Experience

By Ayanna Zahra

We are all evolving. That’s the truth that grounds me. We come into this world searching, seeking something that aligns with our soul’s rhythm, something only we can do, something that brings us peace. And when we find it, when we truly find it, we begin to understand and appreciate the path we were always meant to walk.

For me, that path began to reveal itself in 2024.

That was the year I started drinking tea with intention. Not just sipping, experiencing. I realized this wasn’t just about herbs or flavor; this was about remembrance, about ritual, about returning home to something ancestral. I knew deep down that only I could do this in the way I was meant to. And so The African Tea Experience was born.

I’m Ayanna Zahra. Born in South Carolina, raised in Georgia. I graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design, an international design school, with a degree in fashion design. Savannah State University is an HBCU, which I attended in my earlier college years and where my roots were shaped. After graduation, I traveled the world as a clothing designer. And those travels changed me. Not just creatively, but spiritually.

Every country, every face, every tradition added something to me. They cracked me open. I learned not to wear shoes in the house, not just for cleanliness, but to protect sacred space from bad energy. I learned to honor stillness. To drink tea at the end of the day not just to rest, but to release. I didn’t know it then, but the tea was teaching me. Preparing me.

Fast forward to the studio, Ayanna Dennise Skin. Clients walk through my doors for facials, education, healing. And you know what always greeted them? Tea. Tea has always been part of my service, part of the ritual. It calms the body. It opens the heart. It creates presence.

At the end of 2023, I wrote down everything I was thankful for, and everything I desired for 2024. One of those things was to expand the tea I had already been creating and share it with the world, but specifically through an African lens. I wanted to tell the truth of African culture, the truth so many people never get to see. I knew that the majority of the world’s tea comes from Africa, yet we are rarely the face of it. I wanted to change that.

In April 2024, I hosted the very first African Tea Experience. I had sponsors. The community showed up. And it was divine. People didn’t just come for tea. They came to reconnect, with their roots, with strangers who felt like family, with pieces of themselves they forgot they needed. They left with tea sets, skincare, and stories. They left with healing.

And I wanted more. So in December 2024, I wrote again: in 2025, I want this experience to be free for everyone. I didn’t want cost to be a barrier to something that was created to heal. I believe everyone deserves this moment, this space to sit, to breathe, to sip, to connect. This isn’t a luxury. It’s a necessity.

This year, 2025, the City of Albuquerque sponsored the African Tea Experience. I’m proud to say over 50 people were served. And not just tea. They were served presence. Reflection. Community.

That’s why this exists. Not because I think tea is cute. Not because it’s trending. But because I know, deep in my bones, that tea is sacred. It is medicine. It is connection. It is a ceremony we deserve to reclaim.

The African Tea Experience is my offering. It’s my soul work. It’s the bridge between healing and heritage. It’s a place where we sit down, pour up, and lean into community, one cup at a time.

Because we all deserve a moment to feel seen. To feel still. To feel home.

And for me, that begins with tea.

— Ayanna Zahra