Life and Work with Morgyn ‘Mo’ Taith

Today we’d like to introduce you to Morgyn ‘Mo’ Taith.

Thanks for sharing your story with us Morgyn ‘Mo’. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I’m relentless. The last 12 years of my life have been an amazing journey lined with challenges and lessons in resiliency. I’ve learned more about myself in these 12 years than I have in the previous 41 years of my life.

In late 2013 my gallbladder had to be removed which led to a drastic change in my diet. It was then that I discovered fermented foods. At first, I started brewing my own kombucha (which is fermented sweet tea), that led to culturing my own kefir, which is a sort of drinkable yogurt but not quite. Then veggies, hummus, cheese…My business tagline is, “If it can be grown, I can ferment it”. I used to sell fermented foods to my coworkers and neighbors.

Friends began calling me ‘Lemony’ because I went through a series of unfortunate events, one after the other. When I was deciding on a name for my fermented foods business the natural progression in my mind was Lemony’s Fermented Foods, which is now Lemony’s Fermented Baked Goods.

In 2016 I had to have surgery on my left shoulder and wouldn’t be able to work for a while. I’m a massage therapist and I had no other way to pay my bills. A month prior to my surgery I began baking pastries just for fun and that eventually led to cinnamon rolls. I felt like a mad scientist. I wanted to incorporate my love of fermented and cultured foods into my cinnamon rolls. Then I thought, sourdough is essentially fermented flour, so I began testing out recipes on my friends. The rolls were pretty rough at the beginning. They’d bake up too dry or they wouldn’t rise correctly. Finally, I had a batch bake up exactly the way I wanted them to, but I wasn’t crazy about the uber sweet frosting. I think it was out of utter frustration that I poured some of my freshly made kefir into the frosting recipe. The darn things were amazing! Everyone began ordering cinnamon rolls from me!

Selling fermented cinnamon rolls at one of the little farmer’s markets near where I lived helped me out financially after I had my shoulder surgery. I splurged on a KitchenAid stand mixer because I knew I wouldn’t be able to knead the dough.

One Sunday I decided to bring my cinnamon rolls to the Rillito Farmers Market and give testers to the owners of Fermented Tea Company. They liked them and I began supplying their kombucha cafe with fermented Cinnamon Rolls. Now I’m trying to get them into other coffee shops around Tucson. Those rolls bought me groceries when I wasn’t able to massage. Now it appears they’re going to take me into retirement!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
This was not a smooth road. At the time I created my Fermented Cinnamon Rolls I was in a relationship with someone who did everything he could to keep me from succeeding. Ultimately, I had to learn to believe in my own strength and dream. I had to know that I could make this work in my life that I could have another career even if I wasn’t able to massage, even if I decided to go it alone and single. And I made it work. I was persistent. I believed that I deserved better. And I knew that my hard work would eventually pay off.

So, as you know, we’re impressed with Home-Baked Goods Business – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
I’m best known for the original Fermented Cinnamon Rolls, but I experiment with new flavors all the time. The two most recent sweet rolls are the Purple Rain Sourdough Sweet Rolls (named after a flavor of kombucha that Fermented Tea Company sells). They’re made with Earl Gray tea and have a lavender kefir frosting. Then there’s my Sourdough Chai Sweet Rolls with Cardamom Kefir Frosting. They have chewy bits of crystallized ginger in the filling and literally taste like a glass of Chai Tea. It’s fun. I’m enjoying this journey very much!

Often it feels as if the media, by and large, is only focused on the obstacles faced by women, but we feel it’s important to also look for the opportunities. In your view, are there opportunities that you see that women are particularly well positioned for?
Women are unbelievable! We have seen seven decades of sweat. It seems we don’t take no for an answer when it comes to equality. If a woman sets her mind to something BOOM! it happens. We’re unafraid of sharing our stories. We WANT others to understand our journey because we recognize the strength within ourselves. Having the ability to share your story may be what allows other women to rise up and become everything they always knew they could be.

Pricing:

• The Original Fermented Cinnamon Roll – $3.50/each $19.00/Half-dozen $34.00/dozen
• Purpe Rain Sweet Roll – $3.75/each $20.50/Half-dozen $41.00/dozen
• Sourdough Chai Sweet Rolls – $4.00/each $22.00/Half-dozen $46.00/dozen

Contact Info:

• Phone: 520-222-8926
• Email: ferment.goddess@gmail.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ferment_goddess/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fermentgoddess/?ref=bookmarks

Getting in touch: VoyagePhoenix is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.