Verdant Tea

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GOOD TEA COMES FROM GOOD PEOPLE


a marketplace for small family tea farmers and teaware artists, bringing in fresh, seasonal, and unique offerings direct from farm and workshop since 2010

Save up to 15% on all tea + teaware for the Year of the Dragon!Save up to 15% on all tea + teaware for the Year of the Dragon!

Verdant Tea is dedicated to
the story of the growers,
our partners.

We are all about representation, bringing teas never before seen outside China to the world with a unique direct trade model based on personal relationships. 

SPOTLIGHT:
our oldest partners -
the He Family in Laoshan Village

Mr. He in Laoshan Village remembers when his father struggled to even grow enough food on their land to feed the family. Now Mr. He’s work in tea has raised up the whole village, and helped to establish a shared workshop space for tea finishing.

By partnering with Verdant, Mr. He is able to take risks on new growing techniques like Laoshan oolong that are bringing national attention to the new growing region. Today, his now internationally famous tea provides a living for his entire family and the cooperative that has grown up around it, and inspired local regulations to declare Laoshan an environmentally protected growing region.

Mr. He in his tea fields

He Qingqing and her mother in the workshop

Mr. He works while his granddaughter watches

What makes good tea?

Ms. Li and her mother climb their trees to pick in Qianjiazhai

Good People

The best tea in the world takes the skill and care of people committed to what they do, people who own their land and control their entire process without being hidden or controlled by a brand.

Craft starts in the fields.

Our partner farmers work over generations to care for their land, encourage biodiversity, plant the right tea for their climate, use clean organic and sustainable techniques, and pick every bud and leaf entirely by hand.

Native plants grow alongside tea in the Zhang Family's fields

Craft continues in the workshop.

Tea requires skills that take generations of accumulated knowledge to perfect. Our partners craft every batch by hand and adjust their technique to match the harvest and the weather. Some of their teas take over 40 hours of straight finishing work to bring from fresh leaf to finished tea, and months or years more for some aged teas.

Shui Huamin finishes Dragonwell green tea

All this so that - no matter how you brew - your tea tastes perfect

Brewing great tea takes no fuss. Our partner farmers got all the hard work out of the way.

 

Try our simple tea challenge:

Take the leaves, put them in your favorite mug or tempered glass, add hot water and enjoy. No timers, no thermometers, no scales, no worries. Even brewed this simply, these teas should be unlike anything you’ve tasted before.

That’s because they are the true work of real small farmers - our partners and co-founders - not the work of big plantations with a mechanized processes. These will change the way you think about tea, and about tea farming.

Introduction to Oolong Craft

This bundle includes four 25g bags of oolong tea and five 7g cakes for 135g total (26 sessions). Oolong is the most technically-demanding and time-consuming tea in [...]

$42.20 $37.98

Tasting True Dragonwell with Mrs Li

This bundle includes four different seasonal green teas for 100g total (20 sessions). We believe that green tea should be as fresh as possible. That's why we share  [...]

$63.00 $56.70

Introduction to Black Tea

This bundle includes four 25g bags and five 7g mini-cakes of craft black tea for 135g total (25 sessions). The finest black teas in the world come from small family [...]

$49.00 $44.10

How should good tea taste?

 

Good tea is not bitter and astringent.

It is sweet, aromatic, complex, and packed with aftertaste.
It is beautiful hot or iced, in a mug, or brewed in a traditional ceremony.

 

With Li Xiaoping’s Dragonwell Green Tea, you might taste notes of cucumber, sweet minerals, bamboo shoot and a sparkling sensation.

With Master Zhang’s Tieguanyin Oolong Tea, you might taste juicy tropical fruit, jasmine and other florals, and saffron and cream.

With the He Family’s Laoshan Black Tea, you might taste chocolate, malted milk, honey and cherries, and a naturally sweet aftertaste,

 

This is the beauty of fine tea.
There is so much to taste and discover.

These teas flavors are a reflection of a healthy biodiverse landscape, clean and deliberate farming, and meticulous dedicated craft.

 

Want to go deeper?

 

Join our CSA-style Tea of the Month club!

Curated by a different farmer each month for the freshest most seasonal teas and limited experimental harvests.

Ships free every month!

Tea of the Month Club

PACKED & CURATED by our farmer partners //
Each month, our Tea of the Month Club box is hosted by one of our partner farmers, from the He Family in Laoshan Village to the Dongsa Farmer’s Cooperative in Yunnan.

$30 / each month

Six kinds of tea & Six passionate growers - these are the iconic classics that represent what we and our partner growers stand for: true sustainability, transparency, and the taste and aroma that come from the impeccable terroir and craft of the best growers in China.

$53.60 $48.24

Try a tea Tasting Kit!

These kits are put together to help you discover your next favorite tea, exploring tea styles and different farmer collections. Free shipping on orders over $39

ABOUT VERDANT TEA

Verdant Tea is a farmer-first tea company founded in 2011 after co-founders David and Lily met co-founders Weiwei Ren and Wang Huimin on a research grant to collect the folklore of tea and interview farmers about their craft.

Verdant has represented many of the same farmers for over a decade, and has offices in China and Minnesota to serve both the farmers we export for and the tea lovers we ship to.

Verdant is co-owned in China by tea farmer He Qingqing, ensuring that farmers decide how much they need to be compensated for their craft and what teas they want to create and share.

Verdant Tea co-owner He Qingqing

co-founders Lily Duckler, Weiwei Ren, Wang Huimin

co-founders David Duckler and Lily Duckler

Meet the People Behind the Tea

Li Xiaoping - Dragonwell, Zhejiang

Mrs. Li has been growing Longjing Village’s famous Shi Feng (Lion’s Peak) Dragonwell green tea her entire life. She learnws from her father, one of Dragonwell’s preeminent tasters and graders.

Despite her family’s pedigree, Mrs. Li is still one of the most warm and welcoming people that you will ever meet. We are honored for the opportunity to share Mrs. Li’s fine tea on her behalf each year.

the He Family - Laoshan, Shandong

Pioneers and community leaders in Laoshan Village, the He Family was one of the first to plant tea on the misty ocean-facing slopes of the holy Taoist Mt. Laoshan in China's northernmost tea region.

We are proud to share the He Family’s tea every season, and we are dedicated to spreading appreciation for their craft while sharing their unique and innovative teas with the rest of the world.

Dongsa Cooperative - Qianjiazhai, Mt. Ailao, Yunnan

The Zhenyuan Dongsa Farmers’ Cooperative brings together several families and craftsman across the stretches of wild tea forest in the Qianjiazhai region of Mt. Ailao National Forest Preserve.

Members work together to preserve the region’s unique old growth tea trees (and wild tea near-relatives) and to share their knowledge and techniques., new and old. 

Master Zhang - Daping, Fujian

Master Zhang’s thousand-meter-high terraced peaks above Daping in Anxi, Fujian are a beautiful sight. He practices traditional organic farming, and his biodiverse fields place Daping’s native Mao Xie cultivar alongside Anxi’s famous Tieguanyin and unusual cultivars like Ben Shan, Rou Gui, Cai Cong, Ba Xian, and more.

His recognized dedication to collaboration, his awards for transparancy, and his constant innovation and experimentation are an example to generations of tea farmers.

the Wu Family - Wuyangcun, Fujian

Mr. Wu is following in his father and grandfather’s footsteps, wild-picking white tea from his family’s untended mountaintops. His drive for perfection has led him to not only encourage biodiversity on his family’s land, but also invent new techniques for finishing white tea.

In a time when white tea is wildly popular in China, many farmers are tempted to cut corners. Instead, Mr. Wu produces in the tiny batches, spending time to produce something truly inspirational.

Huang Ruiguang -
Wudongshan, Guangdong

An accomplished technical master of tea - both in the workshop and in the fields - Huang Rui Guang is affectionately called a ‘modern tea sage’ by many because of his lifetime of cultivation in the skills of planting, processing and tasting tea.

In 2012, Huang Ruiguang was conferred the title of a recognized Cultural Treasure by the city government of Chaozhou. Today, he is working to pass on his lifetime of experience to his two sons Wei Ming and Zhen Ming.


Not sure where to start?

Try our our introductory sample pack >>>

Or drop us a line and let us help you pick out just the right selection to suit your taste.

Meet the Farmers Sample Pack

Get to know the work of farmers across China and get a $5 gift card towards your next order. This special pack ships free to the USA!

$5.00

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