So back in 1965, Lei Nichols was born in Xi’an, China, and her folks decided to ship her off to live with her grandparents and great-grandparents in a tiny mountain village. They didn’t have electricity and just one well for water. They could even see the ocean from the mountain where they went to pick mushrooms. Nichols’s grandma would whip up some herbal medicine by boiling plants from her garden in a big pot during the summer. Since the town didn’t have a doctor, this was the go-to remedy for all sorts of health issues. Her great-grandpa, who was getting up there in age, started chugging down that medicinal soup almost every day and ended up living past a hundred years old. Towards the end, he wasn’t too thrilled about being around for so long, saying only donkeys lived that long.
When Nichols was twelve, she headed back to Xi’an. She went to college there to study literature, published some poetry in regional mags, and met other creative folks. Later, she landed a job at a newspaper where she was assigned to cover foreigners studying at a local college. She even started dating one of the Americans she interviewed and eventually got hitched. In 1995, they moved to Massachusetts, had two daughters, and Nichols picked up English and started working as an antiques dealer. Fast forward a bit, and after a split with her husband, she found herself working as a Chinese-language teacher at a Catholic school. She bought a cute little light green house in North Attleborough, put up a white fence, and dubbed it her “American Dream house.” One day, she shared a version of her grandma’s medicine, made with chrysanthemum flower, with her students. They loved it and pushed her to sell it. And that’s how her company, Wise Mouth, was born.
Nichols kept teaching but spent more time focusing on her new business. She perfected her recipes, traveled an hour to make each batch in a small industrial kitchen in Rhode Island, and convinced Stop & Shop stores to carry her tea. Most of her ingredients were imported from China. Fast forward to 2020, her daughters moved out, and she sold her house. Business took a hit due to the pandemic, so she took on a night job selling clothes to make ends meet. She also came up with new flavors and marketed them as alternative medicine.
In 2024, Nichols decided to level up her business game. She took a course with the Small Business Administration, devised a three-year plan for expansion, got a loan, and leased space in an old textile mill in Fall River. Then bam! The Trump Administration dropped some hefty tariffs on Chinese imports. This threw a wrench in Nichols’s plans as she was ordering glass bottles from a Chicago supplier. Prices shot up, and she had to scramble to find new suppliers in other countries. This caused her stress, but she soldiered on, adapting as best as she could.
Small businesses like Wise Mouth were hit hard by these tariffs, and Nichols felt the squeeze. She had to tighten her belt, postpone hiring, and rethink her launch party plans. But she remained determined to keep her American dream alive and was hopeful that the tariffs would eventually lift. Despite the challenges, Nichols pressed on, holding onto her faith in a better future for her business. And that’s the story of a woman who refused to let obstacles stand in the way of her dreams.
