Caroline Nicholas champions the state and its foraging history through her thoughtfully crafted tea blends.
When Caroline Nicholas was young, her grandparents and their friends helped raise her, introduced her to the flowers, greenery, and herbs that sprouted from the land in their holler. They taught her to love them and to put them to good use.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and she went back to that same holler, those folks were gone, and Nicholas felt their absence. To stay close to them in spirit, she returned to the plants and started leaning back into the folk herbalism they’d taught her about. “I was very alone, isolated, and I felt comfort in doing all those things that I did with the people who aren’t here anymore,” she says. “And then it just got to be really, really interesting. So I kept digging, I kept thinking, I kept practicing.”
Now, through Hill & Holler Herbal Co., Nicholas sells tea blends, salves, balms, and other herb-based products that offer soothing or even medicinal qualities. She uses a mix of creative and scientific methods to produce concoctions that are totally unique. She imagines what a certain Dungeons & Dragons character might need or what herbs might complement the aura of a Greek god. Then she gets technical, researching plants that pair well together under those themes. She notes whether something is safe for those who are taking medication or are pregnant. And it all comes together in the final products. Hill & Holler Herbal Co. has shipped around the world, with customers ordering everywhere from Charleston and Elkins to Australia and Germany.
Nicholas takes pride in where her products come from. When she first entered certain tea spaces, she remembers being looked down on because of her roots, and it just lit more of a fire. “You think I’m stupid or ignorant or whatever. I’m going to add all these foraged herbs, these folk remedies, these old medicines into this tea,” Nicholas remembers thinking. “I’m going to make something unique and something West Virginian out of something that you think is too good for me.”
All of the work that Nicholas does she does with the good of her planet and her community in mind. She grows much of the herbs she uses herself and gets the rest from local growers and programs in the state that empower veterans and former coal miners to be farmers. She uses backyard compostable packaging, rejects the pseudoscience and racism that she says often infiltrates the herbalism field, and highlights the hardworking folks of West Virginia and their history whenever possible.
It all comes back to her people, including those who helped her pick her first plants. Nicholas even named her company after something she remembers her grandfather telling her years ago as he picked up litter along the railroad tracks as they walked. “We didn’t make this mess,” he said. “But as long as we take care of these hills and hollers, they’ll always take care of us.” hillandhollerherbalco.com, @hillandhollerherbalco on FB
Hill & Holler’s Most Popular Blends
- Aphrodite’s Tea Blend
- Demeter’s Tea Blend
READ MORE ARTICLES FROM WV LIVING’S SUMMER 2025 ISSUE
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