Janelle Boyle, co-owner of Corrales Teas and More, shows off the array of teas and essential oils she offers at her new store. (Note: Boyle removed her mask only for photos upon agreement with the photographer, the photographer continued to wear a mask and socially distance, and there were no customers in the shop at the time.) Argen Marie Duncan / Observer

After recovering from life-threatening health problems, a local woman from California opened a store to help other people feel better and less stressed.

Co-owners Janelle Boyle and Tyler Heap opened Corrales Teas and More in mid-May, offering organic fair-trade teas, flavored honey sticks, essential oils and diffusers, cannabidiol products, an oxygen bar and items from local artisans and growers.

Corrales Teas and More at 3923 Corrales Road, Ste. B, displays an array essential oils. Argen Marie Duncan / Observer

Boyle said she’s working on being able to serve tea, but for now, people can buy dry tea and then boil water to make a cup at the store.

Corrales Teas has free wi-fi as well as indoor and patio seating.

“It’s kind of like a relaxing Starbucks,” Boyle said.

Before moving to New Mexico, she ran bridal shops and then day spas from San Diego, and was a massage therapist for 20 years. In 2016, she became sick with a disorder doctors didn’t expect her to survive.

After nine months in the hospital, 10 surgeries, multiple strokes and heart attacks, and amputation of the end of one foot, she left the hospital in a wheelchair with an opioid addiction from high doses of painkillers. She couldn’t run spas any more.

Friends invited her to move to New Mexico, so she did. Over the past three years, Boyle said, she broke the opioid addiction using cannabidiol products, became able to walk again and now feels healthy.

“Then I decided, ‘Well, I like helping other people, so it was a great place to help others, with the teas, essential oils and CBD products,” she said.

With her three children grown, Boyle said, this is her retirement job. Heap is her boyfriend, and she “drug him along for the ride” with the store, she said.

Boyle lives in Rio Rancho, but chose Corrales, which reminds her of small towns in California, for her business.

“I love all the green trees,” she said of the village. “I love the community, the horses walking by.”

Teas on display at Corrales Teas and More on 3923 Corrales Road, Ste. B. Argen Marie Duncan / Observer

Inside the shop

Her store has almost 45 teas.

Boyle said the functional teas help with things like stomach aches, sleep, energy and immunity, while other teas simply have fun flavors such as chocolate mint, vanilla and ice wine. Teas are $5 for an ounce, which makes 12-15 cups.

Essential oils alleviate many of the same complaints as functional teas, Boyle said. As a massage therapist, she said, she found they helped her clients, and they helped her relax and meditate in the hospital.

Corrales Teas and More has more than 100 essential oils, and Boyle can look up what oil might alleviate a specific complaint.

The CBD products include tinctures, topical creams and treatments for pets’ anxiety.

At the oxygen bar, people can inhale 96 percent pure oxygen, Boyle said. They can choose up to four essential oils among the eight offered for aromatherapy with the oxygen. Fifteen minutes at the bar is $15 for one person or $20 for two.

For sanitation, customers get their own nose hoses. They can keep their hose and bring it back to use again for a $5 discount, or Boyle will throw it away if the customer doesn’t want the hose.

“I just hope it’s a place where they can come and relax, meet friends and feel a little less stressed and less pain, and take that home with them,” Boyle said of her store.