116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Local resources help Mabel & Pearl Tea Co. blend passions
Online shop hopes to grow into brick-and-mortar tea cafe with cat lounge
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This story first appeared in Celebrating Entrepreneurship 2025, an annual special section that highlights the entrepreneurial ecosystem in the Corridor.
Sadie Sell and Nicholas Terbovic never owned a business before co-founding Mabel & Pearl Tea Co. a year ago, but training opportunities and community resources have their business purring.
Mabel & Pearl Tea Co., based in Marion, is in its first phase of operation as an online store where customers can purchase chemical-free and non-irradiated tea as well as teaware and merchandise. The name of the business is inspired by their daughter’s rescue cats.
In 2022, Sell and Terbovic founded A Purposeful Life Animal Rescue & Sanctuary, an unaffiliated nonprofit dog and cat fostering organization in Marion.
“It helped inspire us to create something where we can blend these two passions together,” Sell said. “Mabel and Pearl, our beloved grand kitties, are the heart of our vision.”
Since making their first sale on Oct. 1, 2024, Sell and Terbovic have leaned on local organizations and academic institutions to start off on the right foot.
“We’ve never been business owners so we kind of needed to learn the ropes,” Sell said.
The New Bohemian Innovation Collaborative, Inc., or NewBoCo, was the first place to look for guidance. Through NewBoCo’s website, Sell and Terbovic learned about Venture School at the University of Iowa.
Venture School is an intensive seven-week entrepreneurial training program in the university’s John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center. It teaches participants core skills that help them with the startup process of their new businesses.
The pair completed the spring program this year.
According to Terbovic, the Venture School experience gave them important insights for guiding their business. Their love for cats, evident in much of the merchandise they sell, opens the business up to a community of like-minded feline fans.
“We learned our target market is our awesome cat people,” Terbovic said. “They are really supportive of the cat community.”
The culmination of the Venture School program is the final pitches, an opportunity for entrepreneurs to pitch their business ideas and get feedback. It is also an opportunity to earn seed funding.
Mabel & Pearl Tea Co. was awarded the second-place prize of $1,500 in seed funding. They used the funding to purchase a vintage 1955 camper that they will use to begin phase two of the business: a mobile tea bar.
While the couple builds their business’ online presence and prepares their mobile tea bar, the University of Iowa and Kirkwood Community College continue to offer support.
Mabel & Pearl Tea Co. is working with a marketing class at the University of Iowa. A group of students are tasked with helping the business with marketing and promotion as part of their class project, earning undergraduate credit in the process.
“They basically help us understand where to go next, which is awesome,” Sell said.
Meanwhile, Sell and Terbovic are working with the Kirkwood Community College Small Business Development Center. They have been meeting with a business coach at the center who is helping them find the best route toward achieving their goals.
The ultimate goal, phase three of the business plan, is a brick-and-mortar tea cafe with a cat lounge.
“Our plan is, when we can open up our cat cafe or cat lounge, we’re going to partner up with Cedar Valley Humane Society and basically house a number of their cats in our cat lounge,” Sell said. “And make it an enriching environment for them where they can be socialized and meet people and just be loved on while they wait for their homes.”
Mabel, half of the duo that inspired Mabel & Pearl Tea Co. (Mabel & Pearl Tea Co.)
Tins of Mabel & Pearl Tea Co.’s Dream Drift tea blend. (Mabel & Pearl Tea Co.)
The Mabel & Pearl Tea Co.'s website, shown on a cellphone, is where all business products can be purchased. (Renee Kratt/RK Images)
For the tea drinkers with cat allergies, Sell said the cat lounge will be separate from the cafe with a separate HVAC system for each. This is a common practice that complies with health codes related to food and drink service.
“It’s just going to be a really cool place for both segments,” Sell said. “So we get a lot of feedback from people who have actually had experiences with a cat cafe setting that never thought that our local community would host one.”
Another part of phase three growth is hiring employees. To this point, Sell, Terbovic and Sell’s mother, Pam Rusk — under the unofficial title chief executive mother — carry out all tasks that keep the business moving.
As the business continues to grow, it is giving back to local shelters through its “Tea for Toe Beans” initiative, donating 10 percent of sales of certain items during special weeks. Sell said they plan to have a two-week Tea for Toe Beans sales event soon.
In the meantime, Mabel & Pearl Tea Co. continues to toy with new tea blends to add to its offerings, whether it be seasonal limited-time offerings or future staples. The focus remains on sourcing ingredients that are chemical-free, never-fumigated and without microplastics.
“We found that there’s a ton of tea drinkers that really just order online,” Sell said. “We also found that new tea drinkers are a little bit intimidated by tea because there’s so many options. Essentially, our goal is to put tea out there but make it approachable.”
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