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“Honestly, we would take our dogs for a walk and really crave fresh, healthful smoothies afterward. But there was no place around here that sold what we were looking for,” Sumanis, 29, said.
Taylor, who lives in White River Junction, and Sumanis, of Hartland, realized that the Upper Valley needed a place that catered to people who weren’t looking for coffee, tea or beer to quench their thirst.
But there’s more to JUEL Juice + Smoothies, the business the two women started in a retrofitted camper this summer. Much of the two women’s sense of purpose stems from their background in herbalism and holistic medicine. They call their small shop on wheels a “modern apothecary.”
Taylor, 35, had been musing about opening a juice bar, and the pair took her decade’s worth of informal notes and got to work last spring. Originally, they considered opening a brick and mortar space, but quickly got rerouted when the “stars aligned,” as Taylor put it. As the duo began to consider the mobile concept, a quick search on Craigslist turned up a well-loved, 1965 Shasta trailer for $1,900 from a family in Williamstown. “We like to think it was meant to be.” Taylor said.
After a few months with Sumanis’ cousin, a builder, the Shasta was completely refinished, outfitted with two generators, and ready to hit the road. During that time, the pair spent hours in their kitchens perfecting their nutrient-dense recipes.
“I think we probably made a million smoothies,” Sumanis joked.
After learning to navigate the bulky trailer behind Sumanis’ Toyota Tacoma, the two women packed up their produce and debuted JUEL Juice + Smoothies (taken from the first two letters of their first names) during one of White River Junction’s First Friday events on Aug. 4.
When not towing their trailer around the Upper Valley to sell their concoctions, they work at local restaurants. And they both have a background in natural medicine: Sumanis studied in Montpelier at the Vermont Center for Integrative Herbalism, and Taylor at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in New York City.
Sumanis emphasized a broad need for natural medicine within society. When asked if she chose to become a certified herbalist, she said, “No, I didn’t become certified. I learned so much that I felt sharing that knowledge with the general public and making it accessible was more important.”
“JUEL exists because of our combined interest in a more holistic healing approach and bringing that approach to people in a fast, fun way,” Taylor said.
Their goals shape the juice and smoothie menu, which is covered with smoothies containing turmeric, ginger, coconut water, greens, herbs and nuts.
One of their mainstay smoothies, The Green, is packed with a cup of kale, one bunch of parsley, half an avocado, lemon juice, coconut water, pineapple and mango. Kale contains vitamins C, K and A, while parsley is high in vitamin K (potassium) and acts as a digestive aid. Avocados are full of beneficial fats that help keep you full and support healthy hair, skin and nails. Lemon juice and pineapple are both loaded with vitamin C, and mango is rich in fiber. All this mixed with electrolyte-heavy coconut water makes for a smoothie that is “good for you but doesn’t necessarily taste like it,” Taylor said. “The most exciting thing is how many healthful foods you can get into that one cup.”
Almost 100 percent of the vegetables they use are sourced from local farms, including Sweetland Farm, Crossmolina Farm and Riverview Farm. “The farms have been really easy to source from. They’ve been great,” Taylor said.
The local produce is not entirely organic, but the JUEL ladies prefer sourcing from nearby farms that use ecological practices instead of ordering large quantities of certified organic produce from out of state.
Their fruit supply, however, is a different beast. The region’s short growing season, especially for fruit, has forced Taylor and Sumanis to turn to certified organic frozen fruits purchased in bulk at the local wholesale club. Though they did recently spend a morning picking blueberries at Riverview Farm for their blueberry smoothie.
Soon after that First Friday in August, the JUEL Shasta began popping up for afternoons in White River Junction, Norwich and Lebanon.
On one of the first chilly autumn mornings, the trailer was nestled into a spot on North Main Street in White River Junction, with a few lawn chairs and a chalkboard menu of juices and smoothies set up outside. Construction vehicles cruise through the narrow streets amid the buzz of power tools and chattering pedestrians on the way to an early lunch.
Taylor and Sumanis have been humbled by the community’s reception of their young business. Even as they began to set up the Shasta on a late Tuesday morning, three friendly faces stopped by to chat and laugh with the co-owners. Taylor was drawn away to serve a steady stream of patrons.
Despite their success, the JUEL team is still working out a few kinks. One challenge they are battling is a common symptom of the food industry: waste. They are so dedicated to curing it, that they spend time turning leftover lemon peels into cleaning products — a process that takes two weeks.
And as with any new business, the pair is constantly improving their efficiency when serving customers. “Looking back at that First Friday event, I feel like it took us forever to make a smoothie. We had some people waiting 20 minutes!” Sumanis said.
Though recent trips to large events like the recent Shelburne Farms Harvest Festival or Taste of Woodstock generated more volume and capital, it remains important to them for JUEL to stay embedded in its local community. Both women moved into the Hanover-Norwich axis at age 12, and both are Hanover High School graduates, though they didn’t overlap there.
As the season winds down, Sumanis and Taylor are looking toward the future. They hope to nail down a regular schedule next May through October and intend to sell at a few local farmers markets. They’re also revisiting their original plan to open a brick and mortar location with hopes of selling not only freshly made juice and smoothies, but vegetarian and gluten-free food, and maybe even some of Sumanis’ homemade skin care products.
Vermont and New Hampshire regularly rank high in surveys of the healthiest states, and local food has something to do with that. Taylor and Sumanis have found a niche, and whatever is down the road for the traveling juice bar and its owners, they plan to keep on with their mix of flavorful, medicinal drinks.
Jillian Conner is a freelance writer and farmer. She lives in Tunbridge. She can be reached at jillianfconner@gmail.com.
Correction: JUEL Juice + Smoothies cofounders Elena Taylor and Julie Sumanis live in White River Junction and Hartland, respectively. Also, Taylor moved to Norwich from Orford at age 12. Those locations were incorrect in a previous version of this story.