Hauppauge woman brewing new tea business

Evelyne Romaine of Hauppauge remembers the teas her grandmother, Emma Ghomas, brewed in their native Haiti, made from leaves in Ghomas' own garden.

"We drank tea starting at noon till 8 o'clock at night," Romaine said. "We drank it all night, all of the time."

Ghomas died in Haiti in 1994, at age 92. Two years later, Romaine said, she dreamed her grandmother showed her the tea. "It was so vivid to me," Romaine said. "I thought she was in the room."

Sometime after, Romaine had the same dream, except this time her grandmother told her to pursue the tea as a business.

Now, the tea is a business - Emma's Deity Beverages.

Next week, the first batch of the organic teas - Ginger Lemon, Rosebud and Hibiscus - brewed under Romaine's supervision at Hauppauge-based Bio-Botanica Inc., a developer and manufacturer of botanical extracts, is to be distributed to Gristedes stores and Uncle Giuseppe's marketplaces, according to John Tsunis, chairman of Islandia-based Gold Coast Bank and a partner in Emma's Deity Beverages.

Tsunis arranged financing for the new company. Other partners include Romaine's husband, Louis Phillipe Romaine; Maria Gasparis, an attorney in Tsunis' Islandia law firm, Tsunis Gasparis and Lustig; and Frank D'Amelio, Bio-Botanica's chief executive.

Her grandmother's tea garden may be long gone, but Romaine said one thing will never change: "I make the tea," she said. "I will never, never let anyone do it without me there. I am the only one who knows what the taste must be."