Press Photo/Dave RaczkowskiSuits her to a T: Phuong Le's personalized license plate says "tea chick" because she says she's way too young and adventurous to settle down and become a tea lady.

Phuong Le's personalized license plate, "tea chick" isn't what you might expect from a company president and CEO, but her company, Ono Tea, is brewing a niche in the uber-competitive beverage industry.

Le is giving tea a glamorous makeover, introducing rose petals, chrysanthemum blossoms, chocolate chips and green yerba mate, a South American herb, in her tea collection.

"'Ono' means delicious in Hawaiian, and that describes my loose-leaf tea collections," said Le. "I want to make tea fun to drink. I want to educate people about tea and how good it is for you. I have a slimming goddess tea packed with antioxidants, hangover tonic with licorice root and cinnamon bark and superman organic green tea with guava and red peppercorns. It's all fun and really good."

Le and her brother, Viet, introduced the 10 lifestyle tea collections last fall. Their tea is only served in such luxe hotspots as the JW Marriott in Grand Rapids, the Townsend Hotel and Revitalize Day Spa in Birmingham, Toscana in Windsor, Plum Markets in Detroit and The Grand Wailea on Maui. The company is based in Novi, and products are available at iloveono.com.

Enhancing foods

One day last week, Le demonstrated how to cook with edible tea leaves. She infused heavy whipping cream, vanilla bean and granulated sugar with Ono Aphrodisiac tea for creme brulee. She enhanced banana bread with Ono Matcha powdered green tea, common all over Japan in baking. She simmered Ono Strawberry Mango white tea with fresh, diced strawberry, mango, onions and garlic for a savory sauce. She steamed beef tenderloin bundles tied with leeks and lemon grass over Ono Lapsang Souchong for an appetizer.

"Cooking with teas adds all those great antioxidants that fight off all the bad stuff, like harmful free radicals," Le said. "And it gives you this wonderful infusion of flavor. A lot of time, we're using vanilla extract for flavoring, so why not use tea?"

Long ago, her mother, Thuy Dam, taught her how to poach shrimp with green tea when making Vietnamese spring rolls. Pasta

Press Photo/Dave RaczkowskiSpecial brew: Here is an Ono modern mug with Ono Blooming Goddess white tea, which blossoms into an amaranth flower when brewed.

can be cooked in water infused with tea, it can plump up dried fruits before baking, braise beef, be simmered with a simple syrup for fruit salads and alcoholic beverages, or the simple syrup can be drizzled over muffins and pound cake.

"My mom is such a talented cook -- she's always whipping up something wonderful," Le said.

"Like wine, you want to taste the tea when cooking. It should be pleasantly drinkable, not so strong that it becomes bitter or so weak the infusion won't work."

Coming to the U.S.

Le's story started in 1980. When she was 2, her family emigrated from Vietnam to the Grand Rapids area, where her dad, Chinh Le, owns Mr. Le's Tailor and Alterations. After graduating from East Kentwood High School, Le attended the University of Michigan for three years before moving to Maui.

She was attracted to healthy lifestyles and started looking for an alternative to coffee's jolt-and-crash.

"I needed something that would give me more stable energy. My mom told me to start drinking teas. I brought these little tea bags from the store and called her, 'Mom this stuff is gross. I can't drink this stuff.' And she said 'No, no. Drink loose tea.'"

Before long, Le, a pastry chef trained at Schoolcraft's Culinary Arts School in Livonia, had begun putting dried papaya and mango, aromatic spices, citrus peel and jasmine flowers into her loose tea leaves.

"I started blending my own teas as a hobby, and then one day I was at a bookstore and saw a magazine for the World Tea Expo in Atlanta (June 2007)," she said.

Le convinced Viet Le to go with her, and three months later, the duo developed Ono tea, a collection of teas to fit every lifestyle.

Designed by Viet Le, chief creative officer of Ono Tea, the Ono Tea Web site shows sleek photographs of each loose-leaf tea blend, and online personalities introduce each collection.

Bright ideas

"It was my brother's idea to do the lifestyle collections," Le said, "so we have an athletics collection, which has teas for endurance, for replenishing after a workout and Tee Time for golfers, but it doesn't give you the jitters like coffee does. We have the beauty collections, teas for tots, professionals and yogalates."

"We're trying to make tea fun and tempting and innovative," she said.

The sister-and-brother team has created a set of clear glass teaware branded with the traditional Camellia Senensis tea leaf. Each pot is equipped with a removable infuser so the tea leaves are not free-floating in the pot, eliminating the need for a strainer.

"I love, love, love all of this," Le said. "Of course, there are blah days, but this is my passion. This is my life and I love it."

-Jaye Beeler, Grand Rapids Press