Verdant Tea

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Qingqing He

He Qingqing grew up in Laoshan Village, Shandong, and is the third generation in the He Family to learn tea craft. Her grandfather was one of the first to plant tea in the entire area, and her father has expanded the tradition with strict organic farming practices and meticulous hand finishing techniques.

Qingqing met Verdant Co-Founders David, Lily and Weiwei at Qingdao University as a student, and that friendship grew into a deep partnership over the years. Now Qingqing owns and operates Verdant’s China offices in Laoshan with Weiwei, overseeing tea packaging, and  – of course! – helping her family at harvest time. She works with her parents to develop all new kinds of tea like Laoshan Osmanthus tea or Gan Zao Ye with the goal of building a new market for the entire village cooperative across the Pacific.

When Qingqing isn’t crafting tea or packaging tea of the month club, she has her hands full with her precocious daughter Jiaqi, who is already learning all about tasting and brewing tea. Qingqing hopes to visit the United States soon so that she can see the tea culture she grew up with gain new life and meaning across the world.

Wei Wei Ren

Weiwei is an incredibly gifted taster and tea scout with family near Laoshan Village, and a father whose lifelong goal is to track down the best Tieguanyin in China.  Though she is young, Weiwei has the most formidable palate of anyone we know. Weiwei met David and Lily at Qingdao University and taught them most of their Chinese.

Now, Weiwei is running Verdant’s Headquarters in Jimo, China near Laoshan in collaboration with tea farmer He Qingqing. Weiwei works hard every day to make sure that every package ships with the freshest tea possible. She checks every order to make sure they are perfect, excited to share tea across the world, and she coordinates with our partners across China to collaborate on special projects and project and reserve seasonal harvests ahead of picking. 

In her free time, Weiwei teaches Chinese to Korean students in Jimo, and hopes to travel to inner Mongolia to further her teaching experience.  Her favorite food is Mala Tang soup, and she will travel miles and miles to the smallest hole-in-the-wall restaurants to find the best.  She hopes to visit America soon and see the growing tea culture here.

Lily Duckler

Lily spent her childhood growing up all around the world – from Indonesia to Angola and the UK – so moving to China to study tea was no big change. Lily picked up all her Chinese in the tea fields, working at the same time as a teacher at Qingdao University. Lily got extensive taste training from all the farmer friends we work with today. 

Lily heads up all of Verdant Tea's operations in the United States, working with David and across time zones with Weiwei, He Qingqing, and Wang Huimin to share her love of tea and the stories of the farmers she counts as her friends.

When she's not working with tea lovers around the world, she's illustrating articles, photographing teas and teaware, and running the day-to-day online operations of Verdant Tea. Her background in media design, video post-production, teaching and literature come together every day to share the stories of all of Verdant Tea's amazing partners.

Wang Huimin

Wang Huimin met David back in 2007, teaching them everything he knows about tea ceremony and about tasting Tieguanyin. She grew up near Anxi, making tea an inseparable part of her life. Wang Huimin has run several successful tea businesses in China and knows small farmers across the country from her travels.

Wang Huimin now works directly with Verdant Tea by scouting tea wares and finding the most beautiful pieces in collaboration with Mr Chen in Xiamen. She also regularly visits our partners in Yunnan, Fujian and Zhejiang as often as possible and makes sure they can plan on what to set aside for Verdant and pack up to order with each harvest.

Wang Huimin’s favorite thing in the world is to learn new things and experience new cultures. When Wang Huimin is not brewing tea. she is learning everything she can about fine spirits, cooking, incense, Buddhism, precious stones, and basically anything she hears about. 

Wang Huimin met David back in 2007, teaching them everything he knows about tea ceremony and about tasting Tieguanyin. She grew up near Anxi, making tea an inseparable part of her life. Wang Huimin has run several successful tea businesses in China and knows small farmers across the country from her travels.

Wang Huimin now works directly with Verdant Tea by scouting tea wares and finding the most beautiful pieces in collaboration with Mr Chen in Xiamen. She also regularly visits our partners in Yunnan, Fujian and Zhejiang as often as possible and makes sure they can plan on what to set aside for Verdant and pack up to order with each harvest.

When Wang Huimin is not brewing tea. she is learning everything she can about fine spirits, cooking, incense, Buddhism, precious stones, and basically anything she hears about. Wang Huimin’s favorite thing in the world is to learn new things and experience new cultures. She had an incredible time visiting Minneapolis and tasting tea with friends across the Midwest in 2014. She looks forward to visits to America every few years, continuing to share her love of tea with new friends around the world. 

Eva Duckler

Eva's first experience with tea was as a middle schooler when she was visiting her brother, David, and sister-in-law, Lily while they were teaching in Qingdao. After sitting down for Tieguanyin with Wang Huimin, she knew tea would forever be a part of her life.

Splitting her time between Santa Cruz, CA and Minneapolis, MN, Eva spends most of her day at the virtual "tea table", connecting with customers to answer questions, provide solutions, and make recommendations. She enjoys meeting folks from around the world with a shared love of tea.

Before joining Verdant Tea, Eva graduated with a degree in Art History and has a background in exhibit design and art installation. She has a passion for creating immersive, storytelling experiences that are both educational and fun. This work has greatly informed the way Eva shares and enjoys tea - the ultimate immersive experience.

Lauren Johnson

Lauren is the logistics manager and resident problem-solver for Verdant Tea and all of our partner businesses, including Tea Partners and Chroma Tea. She joined the team in 2013 upon moving to Minneapolis and has helped Verdant Tea stay organized, source better materials and make better product while managing day-to-day production, fulfillment and wholesale operations.

Outside of work, Lauren is an avid bike rider and an advocate for active transportation. She loves backpacking, rock climbing, and bicycle touring and can likely be found adventuring outside, reading a good book or playing board games with friends.

She hopes to one day visit China and meet the rest of the team she has worked closely with from afar.

Chris Weiss

Chris came to Verdant Tea in 2018 after having lived in Japan where he developed an interest in the tea world that supported local farmers and ceramic artisans.  Upon returning to the states and wanting to continue cultivating his understanding of tea, he joined Verdant Tea at the Minneapolis warehouse and has quickly grown into several roles from customer fulfillment to wholesale outreach.

When he isn’t working, Chris is loving getting to know the Twin Cities – mostly by bike – through exploring its diverse food scene and surrounding nature. When he doesn’t have a cup of tea in hand he enjoys experimenting with new recipes in the kitchen using local ingredients or fostering his love of cinema by visiting independent movie theaters.

David Duckler

David came to tea not through business, but through a deep engagement with classical Chinese culture.  Schooled as a translator of Chinese fiction and poetry, David has spent much time in China on various research grants from the Freeman Foundation and the Fulbright program.  If David is not off sourcing tea, he might be found translating novels, like The Mountain Stairway by Tibetan author Alai.

David originally came to tea as a student while researching, training under a tea master and working in the fields collecting folk tales about tea from the farmers.

This extremely hands-on experience gave David the chance to make lasting friendships with farmers across China.  David returned to America indebted to these farmers for the knowledge they passed on, realizing the only way to pay them back was to share that knowledge and tea with the rest of the world. 

Verdant Tea continues to work directly with the same farmers that David met years ago, and as a result of these friendships, we are able to bring in teas that have never before left China.

David came to tea not through business, but through a deep engagement with classical Chinese culture.  Schooled as a translator of Chinese fiction and poetry, David has spent much time in China on various research grants from the Freeman Foundation and the Fulbright program.  If David is not off sourcing tea, he might be found translating novels, like The Mountain Stairway by Tibetan author Alai.

Years ago, David was working with an advisor at Qingdao University on a translation project and happened to walk past a tea market every day.  In exploring Chinese tea for the first time, David immediately saw the traditions preserved from China’s classical heritage.  David couldn’t help but go back for another year to study tea in more depth, training under a tea master and working in the fields collecting folk tales about tea from the farmers.

This extremely hands-on experience gave David the chance to make lasting friendships with farmers across China, and exposed him to some of the most obscure and wonderful tea in the world.  David returned to America extremely indebted to these farmers for the knowledge they passed on and realized that the only way to pay them back was to share that knowledge and tea with the rest of the world.  Verdant Tea continues to work directly with the same farmers that David met years ago, and as a result of these friendships, we are able to bring in teas that have never before left China.

In David’s free time, he enjoys cooking as a second passion, attending culinary school and playing with food.  He also has a real weakness for collecting yixing teapots.  David’s favorite author is Jorge Louis Borges, with Italo Calvino coming in second.

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