Kettle on, earbuds in. Last month, Top Tree Herbs’ head of design Caro Freinberg spoke with Madalyn Sklar, host of the Kratom Stories Podcast, about why she starting drinking kratom tea and how she advocates for kratom as a graphic designer.
Tune in to hear them chat about:
- Getting the kratom wobbles (and then overcoming negative experiences)
- How the food vs. dietary supplement vs. drug categories are socially constructed
- How strains are usually based on marketing, not science
- Why we need to be more honest in our advocacy efforts
- Advocating for kratom through design
Not a fan of podcasts? You can still get the story. Here’s the recap of Kratom Stories Podcast Episode 47 from Caro…
Kratom Stories Podcast Ep. 47: How Caro Went From Veterinary Nurse to Graphic Designer at a Kratom Tea Company
Hi all! I’m Caro, Top Tree Herbs’ graphic designer. You’ll also find me responding to emails when you have questions, researching kratom laws and science for the Better Brewing Blog and our monthly community newsletter, and wearing a few other hats at Top Tree.
I didn’t start out as a graphic designer—while I always loved sketching and painting, I was discouraged from pursuing an art career. So I ended up studying environmental biology and sustainable development in college.
In the fall of my senior year, I realized I might want to apply to veterinary school. So I started volunteering every Saturday at a small veterinary hospital near campus.
Welcome to Wobbletown: the Local Time Is Nausea O’Clock
I tried kratom for the first time that fall. My friend (and now partner!) Soren Shade had been tossing-and-washing powder instead of drinking coffee to get late-night studying energy that wouldn’t leave him wide awake at 5 AM. (Side note: Soren loved the shorter-term energy boost of kratom, but despised the powder… you might know how that story ends.)
One Saturday morning, when I was especially exhausted, Soren offered me some kratom powder, so I tried about 1-1.5 grams.
I meant to grab breakfast on my way to the vet hospital, but forgot. Very soon after I arrived, I got the wobbles—I was lightheaded and nauseous, and I had to excuse myself and sit down in the doctors’ office.
After I had a snack and some water, I felt completely fine, but I was embarrassed and confused by what had happened. I avoided kratom for many years because of that experience.
The Cross-Country Adventure that Led Me Back to Kratom Three Years Later
After finishing my Environmental Biology undergrad degree, I started working full time as a veterinary nurse. As a very small person who was also very dedicated to my work, I pushed myself to carry a lot of weight at work—metaphorically and literally.
Over a few years working at the veterinary practice, I had worsening anxiety and developed a chronically tight muscle that was compressing a nerve in my back. The daily discomfort wasn’t severe, but it was enough to pull me out of the moment and distract me while at work and at home.
To get a change of scenery, I hopped in a camper van with Soren in the summer of 2021. We planned to drive from West Virginia to Colorado and then through the Pacific Northwest, but the ’94 Mitsubishi Delica we were driving had other plans for us.
Feeling Broken (Down)
On day three of our trip, while driving down I-55 in Mississippi, the engine started smoking. One tank of fire extinguishing liquid, a 97-mile tow, and a week of engine work later, the van was up and running, but the suspension needed to be completely redone. We drove to Denver, and ended up stranded there for a month while waiting for specialists to fix it.
In Denver, I found myself mentally and physically uncomfortable, stuck wallowing on the couch instead of doing my favorite things (like hiking and biking) with my favorite people.
By that time, Soren and his great friend Sam had founded Top Tree Herbs, so we had a lot of crushed-leaf kratom tea with us. I was reluctant to try it again, but I was far from home and out of other options.
So I gave kratom another shot (this time with a small snack in my stomach).
The tea helped me immensely. It wasn’t a permanent solution for any of the challenges I was facing, but it really helped me change my perspective.
I was looking on the bright side of life again, hiking incredible mountains in Colorado and Wyoming, and enjoying time spent with friends and family.
Slowly and steadily, I started building new habits and patterns of thinking to get back to the person I had been years before. I was refocused on caring for others instead of being stuck paying attention to my own body.
Sucked into the Top Tree Orbit
When Soren and I returned to New York City, I made the difficult decision to leave my job at the veterinary practice. I’d known two years prior that the veterinary industry wasn’t the right place for me, but I held tight and worked there through the pandemic. Like many other businesses, the hospital I worked at was faced with severe staff shortages, and there was a demand for veterinary care had also noticeably increased in New York City.
I became the graphic designer at Top Tree Herbs somewhat by accident. One of Top Tree’s founders, Sam, passed away in the summer of 2022, and Soren needed support and help with the business.
I dipped my toe in to help, then ended up diving into the deep end head first, inspired by the mission and the work. The position I jumped into was the perfect blend of my love for design, environmental science, and caring for others (two-legged, four-legged, furry, or scaly).
Black Sheep in a Gray Market: A Mission-Driven Kratom Company
Top Tree’s mission was one that I have rallied behind since Soren and Sam founded the company.
On the surface, we make tea that tastes great instead of the common kratom products like powder or extracts. But on a foundational level, our mission is to destigmatize kratom (and other similarly misunderstood plants and compounds) and to provide safe products and honest information to consumers.
There is a huge amount of misinformation that is circulating in the industry. This doesn’t always happen through bias or accident. It’s oftentimes intentional. Large companies hide a lot from consumers, from the fact that kratom strains aren’t real to the lack of thorough lab testing of products.
Kratom has historically been sold in smoke shops, and consumers haven’t seemed to be all too upset by the lack of transparency in the industry. Opacity is the name of the game for most vape and herb companies selling products in these settings.
Reducing Stigma Through Unexpected Avenues
Kratom consumers have been stigmatized for decades. I felt a relatively mild version of this stigma the first time I tried kratom and got the wobbles.
I wasn’t able to tell my coworkers what was wrong with me—I didn’t want to admit to them them I had swallowed this terrible-tasting green powder that I knew very little about aside from the fact that it interacted with vilified receptor sites in my brain, and was far outside of the mainstream for energy supplements.
That is why I work extremely hard with the rest of the Top Tree team to reduce the stigma surrounding kratom. Our goal is to bring kratom out of this gray market and into the light.
We do this in ways that aren’t common in the kratom industry—not just by putting on a suit and visiting our state capitol or funding lobbying and research efforts, but also by creating well-designed products and tea recipes that people can more comfortably consume out in the open.
We hope that the products and resources we provide help others have a better experience with kratom. We’re insanely grateful for the community of tea lovers that supports our work.
Learn More On the Kratom Stories Podcast
If you want to hear more personal stories from people whose lives have been impacted by kratom (including host Madalyn Sklar’s story), you can listen to other episodes of the Kratom Stories Podcast here.
Thanks again to Madalyn for being a wonderful host. Cheers, everyone.
