An interview with my boss, and resident top shelf tea getter-downer, Erin Dickerson.
An interview by Emily Roberts Dickerson is the manager of the Station House location of TeBella Tea Co. and a University of Tampa performing arts graduate.
ER: You’re a Florida girl, right?
ED: Born and raised! I’m originally from Vero Beach which is on the east coast, but I’ve been in the Tampa Bay Area for the last 6 years. ER: What is a must-see/must-do/must-eat in DTSP? ED: A must-see would have to be the gorgeous Old Northeast neighborhood. I could spend a whole afternoon just wandering the cobblestone streets and gawking at the stunning historic homes. A must-do would be museum hopping. St. Pete is so blessed to have so many diverse art centers and cultural centers. My perfect art-seeing agenda would be starting the day off at the Dali Museum, then maybe a stroll to the Museum of Fine Arts, short fuel-up at Locale market and then on to the Chihuly Collection across from the Morean Arts Center. The must-eat is probably the hardest question to answer..but if it was a matter of life or death I think I’d have to go with Nitally’s. This Thai-Mex fusion restaurant is unparalleled in their inventiveness, inspiring flavor combinations, and diverse menu offerings. Not to mention their boba tea menu with over a dozen flavors!
ER: For as long as I’ve known you, you seem like you’re always rehearsing for a show. What’s been your best/worst production experience?
ED: Where do I begin…My best production experience was, ironically, the greek tragedy that I starred in during my final semester of college. Though the plot and content was sad and disturbing, the rehearsal process and final performances were some of the most challenging and rewarding times of my college career. I felt like I grew exponentially in my craft, and learned so much about the fascinating subject of Greek mythology all at once. My WORST production experience was during my first musical at the University of Tampa. We were doing a Rodger’s and Hammerstein musical revue which featured their most popular songs from a variety of musicals. This meant a lot of quick costume and set changes which can be a recipe for disaster. Enter: Me in a strapless ballgown that didn’t get zipped up before I was forced to run on stage with my 3 female counterparts. As they say in the theatre, ‘the show must go on’, and so it did. I performed a full 4 minute rendition of ‘Wash That Man Right Outta My Air’ with my arms clenched by my side praying that my dress would not wind up around my feet. That would have gifted a new meaning to a show stopping number.
ER: Speaking of the arts, what is it like dating a graphic novel artist?
ED: Like any relationship, it has its highs and lows. Sometimes we go through the “starving artist” phase when my uber talented boyfriend convinces himself that he’s not good enough yet, and wants to lock himself away for days and do nothing but draw. Then there are days when he feels so inspired and encouraged, and I get to reap all the benefits! For example, for my birthday he drew me the most beautiful ink portrait of me and a Silverback Gorilla (my favorite animal) set against an Amazonian jungle background. When I opened it I literally started crying because I loved it so much. So basically, dating an artist is just like dating any other person, except if he gets in trouble he knows he can just draw his way out.
ER: What’s your favorite tea that TeBella carries? Location?
ED: My favorite tea, hands down, is our Oolong Nirvana. It was the first tea I ever tried when I first started working here five years ago, and it has just stuck. It’s a Taiwanese Oolong with grade A vanilla, and lemon myrtle. It’s smooth, slightly sweet, and delicious hot or iced. And best of all, it’s offered at all 3 of our locations!
ER: You have always had pretty cool jobs. Tell me about your WWOOF-ing (WWOOFING= World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms)?
ED: So I WWOOFed for a week in France and two weeks in Ireland during the summer of 2015. My first experience was on an organic produce farm in Bernay, France which is equidistant between Paris and the coast of Normandy. The hours were long and the work was really challenging. Every morning we showed up to the farm at 7AM sharp, and left at roughly 6PM every evening. While I was there, we were mostly planting crops to harvest that coming fall. It was a lot of laying down tarp, planting pumpkins, and squash, and watering dozen of rows of seedlings. The last few days got a little easier when we began harvesting fruits and veggies for the farmers markets that my hosts sold on the weekend. We picked handfuls of lettuces, strawberries, onions, chard, and beets. This WWOOFing experience was rewarding, but I definitely wasn’t suited for the long days and back-breaking work. Luckily, my experience in Ireland was quite different. I was in Wexford County down on the bottom east coast on a charming goat farm! We only worked about six hours a day and the work was pretty straightforward; herding, scooping manure, repairing fences, etc. The most interesting day was when we learned how to clip goat toenails. It wasn’t a glamorous job, but the fact that I can now say that I know how to do that was well worth it.
ER: So you have traveled a lot, but where would you dream vacation be?
ED: Sailing around the Mediterranean. I was in Greece for about a week before I began my WWOOFing journey and it simply wasn’t long enough. I would love to just take a couple of months to sail to every single island and explore.
ER: With all of these amazing places to visit, where do you see yourself settling down in 10 years?
ED: That’s an excellent question. By then I’ll be 34, maybe ready to start a family and settle down. I have a lot of traveling I still want to do, but I really can see myself coming back to St. Pete to live. Maybe buying one of those gorgeous homes in the Old Northeast. If not here, then maybe somewhere on the West Coast, like San Diego or Portland.
ER: The short-term is definitely an easier mindset to work in. What is a short-term goal you’ve set for yourself this year, anything you hope to work on or get back in to?
ED: I’d really like to get back into music. I play the piano, sing, and I really miss doing that in a group! Right now I am one of three paid singers in the Pass-A-Grille Community Church choir. It’s a really fun and rewarding experience, but I’d love to get my piano and ukulele chops back up. Who knows, maybe get a jam group together!