BlueHorn Tea’s Yubi Hassan brews success selling aromatic Somali tea
The young entrepreneur and mentor hopes his small-batch tea catches on with the broader population.
Yubi Hassan remembers the aroma of tea filling his grandmother’s house in Somalia as he spent long afternoons chatting with relatives and friends.
“For me, my grandma’s place was like heaven,” he said.
When Yubi wanted to help out, his grandmother gave him the job of tea maker. It became his specialty.
Yubi, 24, now owns BlueHorn Tea, a company based in Hopkins that makes authentic Somali loose-leaf tea to brew at home. Yubi said all his tea is made by hand, in small batches.
“People associate Somalia with negative things like war, terrorism, piracy, famine, all things happening in Somalia,” he said. “Our goal was to create something positive from our culture that our people can associate with us.”
BlueHorn Tea brings in about $15,000 a month selling tea to Somali grocery stores in five states and farmers markets in Minnesota. Yubi hopes to expand to sell to mainstream grocery stores, while still grinding, blending and packaging the tea in-house.
“It’s a passion for me,” Yubi said. “I did not get paid for two years, and I’m still doing it eight hours a day.”
Yubi first sought validation from the Somali community before sharing his product with the broader population. He said he would like to see BlueHorn Tea become the first Somali product sold at Target.
Yubi hopes Somali tea will become a household staple, the way other culturally specific foods such as hummus and Greek yogurt have.
“In Minnesota, you see Somali people everywhere, but you don’t necessarily see the products everywhere,” Yubi said.
People can find Somali tea at Somali coffee shops if they seek it out, but Yubi wants to make his product more widely accessible. He wants consumers to experience brewing tea themselves, with the strong aroma filling their homes as they share a pot of tea with loved ones.
An ‘amazing kid’ and a ‘great leader‘
Six months ago, Yubi left his job as a supervisor at a home health service to work full-time at BlueHorn Tea. Yubi and two employees make 1,000 bags of tea in an eight-hour day at a shared commercial kitchen in Hopkins.
Yubi buys ingredients from Rashid Ali, owner of Osari Trading, a supply company in Brooklyn Park that provides halal ingredients to African and Middle Eastern restaurants and food producers in 46 states.
Rashid said it is more difficult to make and sell authentic African products in the United States because they have to import rare ingredients from around the world. The Trump administration’s tariffs have made it especially expensive for Rashid to import products.
Rashid supplies Yubi with spices, including ginger flour from Nigeria and Kenya, tea leaves from India and Kenya, cardamom from Guatemala, and cinnamon from India. He also contacts stores around the country to help distribute Yubi’s product.
Rashid said he sells products to Yubi at a discounted price and saves scarce ingredients for him because he believes BlueHorn Tea has a bright future. Yubi, his youngest client, makes an “unbelievable” product, he said.
“That kid is amazing, man,” Rashid said.
Yubi said he wants to be a positive role model for young Somali boys in the United States. He has visited Hopkins High School and the University of St. Thomas to give talks on how to start a successful business.
“We want to be an example of what’s possible in America,” he said.
Yubi hires young interns and employees in an effort to support Somali youth.
Abdi Hassan, 17, a rising senior at Edison High School in Minneapolis, has been a BlueHorn Tea intern for about four months.
Abdi helps grind and bag the tea, takes some videos for social media and sells the product at farmers markets. He said Yubi has taught him how to be patient and manage his time, to be a kind salesman, and to get out of his comfort zone by participating in social media videos.
“I think I’ve become a great salesman now,” Abdi said.
Abdi said his favorite part of the internship is learning how a business should operate. He hopes to one day become an orthodontist with his own practice, while owning a cafe and restaurant on the side.
“Yubi is a great leader, and I feel like more people should highlight that part of the Somali culture,” Abdi said.
BlueHorn Tea is a finalist in the food and beverage division of the 2025 MN Cup competition for startup businesses hosted by the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.
BlueHorn Tea is Yubi’s third business venture since he moved to the United States in 2018. He started a clothing brand in high school, followed by a Bloomington car detailing business.
Yubi did not always plan to be a business owner. Originally, he thought he would be an engineer or have a technical job.
“Entrepreneurship just kind of just came out of nowhere, and I felt like, oh, I’m really good at this,” he said.