Tea of the Month Club

Sign ups now open for December's Tea Club!

Sharing the gift of tea is easy with a Tea Club subscription!
Just choose send this as a gift at checkout to include a personal note!

a MONTHLY CSA
from SMALL FAMILY TEA FARMERS

PACKED & CURATED
by our farmer partners

Our Tea of the Month Club Subscription box is full of hyper-seasonal teas and fresh, limited harvests. Teas are selected each month by a single farmer to highlight their family’s work, including club-exclusives and first looks, rush-shipped in for club members.

this month’s tea club box is picked, finished and curated by the Zhang Family,
small family tea farmers in Daping, Anxi, Fujian

What do you get in your club box or gift box?

This is no ordinary Tea of the Month Club subscription box. This is a true tea CSA - a chance to support small, passionate tea farmers and enjoy their stunningly unique hand-picked, hand finished teas from beautiful, biodiverse microclimates.

Every monthly tea club shipment comes with special background on the farmer and each tea, with tasting notes, brewing tips, and exclusive savings. Each club box includes everything you need to get the most out of every cup, making it easy give the gift of true tea.

Subscription Plan Options

Tea of the Month Club Subscription

Available as a $30 monthly club box,
or reserve your box for 3, 6, or 12 months at a time and save extra.

Monthly clubs bill on the 15th each month, and ship within a week of billing. Free shipping is included with all US subscription boxes and tracking is provided by email once your box ships.

Tea of the Month Club Gift Box

Give the gift of tea with a monthly recurring subscription
or a three month, six month, or twelve month term gift shipment.

Gift boxes ship with your greeting card note, with messaging you can choose at checkout, and gift boxes include free shipping and tracking provided between the 15th and 20th each month.

Want to keep your gift a surprise? Select a date at check out to choose when your favorite tea lover gets a virtual card.

Lily Duckler, Weiwei Ren, and Wang Huimin

We are here to support your tea discovery with personal service for every plan.

Get in touch, and we’ll be there with tips and recommendations on all things tea. Who reads your emails? The owners, and our small team.

Meet the Verdant team >>

Verdant Tea Club Reviews

“The folks at Verdant Tea have been importing and brewing seriously thoughtful flavors for years now, and their Tea of the Month Club offers a fascinating gateway into some of the best and most unusual teas that China has to offer.”

– The Heavy Table, 2017 Local Food Gift Guide

“Tea Clubs that Help You Explore ... This small tea CSA offers an appealing tea subscription program. [Verdant Tea] focuses on sustainable farming. This includes an emphasis on biodiversity and economic sustainability. The individual farms even use traditional techniques when working with their fields to ensure the best possible outcomes.”

– Foodfornet, 35 Delicious Tea Subscription Boxes to Choose From

“What is most unique about this tea club, is that each month is entirely different from the last. Because each farmer gets to assemble the box, there will be anywhere from 3-15 different samples in each box. Some farmers decide to offer a wide variety of samples, while others want to give you a good taste of what they do.”

– Tea Perspective, Best Tea Subscription Box

December 2021
curated by Zhang Rongde
in Dapign, Anxi, Fujian

In Decmeber, the Tea Club box will be curated by Master Zhang Rongde in Daping, Anxi in Fujian. This upcoming club box will be filled all new fresh picked 2021 autumn harvests of Anxi oolong teas!

Club members will also receive an exclusive coupon code to save on every tea in Master Zhang's collection.

November 2021
curated by the He Family
in Laoshan Village, Shandong

In November, the Tea Club box will be curated by the He Family in Laoshan, Shandong. This upcoming club box will be filled the freshest 2021 autumn harvests of Laoshan tea - including the very fist fall pickings of Laoshan Green and Laoshan Black!

Club members will also receive an exclusive coupon code to save on every tea in the He Family's collection.

Coming up: Fall 2021!

Tea clubs for Fall 2021 include autumn harvests from the He Family in Laoshan, oolong teas from the Liu Family in Longjuan, Anxi, special tea pressings from Qianjiazhai, and more!

Want to see what we shared in past months? Review past shipments (coming soon!) >>

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.

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.

Learn More >>>

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.

Learn More >>>

the 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.

Learn More >>>

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.

Learn More >>>

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.

Learn More >>>

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.

Learn More >>>

What makes this tea club unique?

Verdant’s CSA-style tea of the month club is unlike any other subscription tea box in the world.

We’ve been working with many of the same farmer families for over fifteen years, and turn over complete control each month to our farmer friends and partners to curate. This means that you get to benefit from our decades of relationship building by getting direct access to the freshest, most unique teas in the world, direct from award-winning small farmers growing tea on stunning, clean and biodiverse land, hand-picking and finishing every leaf.

When our partners can plan on sending you a tea box ahead of time, they can take risks with daring and experimental new processing styles that push the boundaries on the art of tea, or allocate unusual cultivars that normally never make it to market. Their outreach and curation brings recognition back to their community, and in return, we all get to enjoy teas unlike anything else out there, from the hand-fired oolongs to unique herbal teas finished using traditional tea craft.

Where do your teas come from?

All of our teas are picked, crafted, and packed by six small family farms across China.

Our partners send their tea to our fulfillment center near Laoshan Village in Shandong, where it is then sent on to our US-forwarding center in Minnesota.

Your boxes are assembled and sent directly to you from the United States, where our customer service team is based in Saint Paul, MN.

We give you the direct-from source transparency and unique product of a China-based company with the support and care of a US-based company.

The best of both worlds!

What is normally included in a monthly shipment?

Because each box is curated by the farmer like a CSA, each month’s offerings will look a little different. This club is an opportunity to connect with a real farmer, learn more about their goals and taste their teas.

You will receive at least three kinds of tea and at least 75 grams of tea total. Some farmers may choose to offer a wider array of samples to give you the best exposure to what they do, so you could receive up to 15 different samples in a given box. The total tea will still be 75g or more.

As directed by each of our partners, we will include any information they want you to know about what they do, and usually, coupons to use on their collections on our website.

Expect anything from white tea, green tea, oolong and pu’er to select herbal teas finished using traditional tea craft - every selection represents the very best of whichever farmer is curating each month.

How does shipping and payment work?

When you sign up for a recurring monthly subscription for the tea club, you will enter your payment information. Recurring subscriptions will be billed $30 at check out upon sign up; this first charge will apply to your first box, which will ship around the 15th of the month without billing your card again. For all subsequent months, subscriptions will bill on the 15th of each month. You can update your credit card information or change your shipping address any time before your subscription bills each month.

When you sign up for a bulk subscription of the tea club, you will enter your payment information and complete payment for either 3-months, 6-months, or 12-months at checkout. Your tea club boxes will ship around the 15th of each month, until the end of your bulk subscription. You will not be charged again, unless you sign up for a new subscription. Your subscription will not automatically renew at the end of your subscription period; we will include a reminder in your last box in case you would like to sign up for another subscription!

When will I receive my tea?

Tea club boxes will be shipped within one week of the 15th of each month.

Select club boxes - for example April, May and September club boxes - will usually ship later in the month due to the timing of the very fresh seasonal harvests that are included in those months. We will alert club members via email whenever the ship date will not occur within one week of the 15th of that month.

Once shipped, transit times vary by country. Every monthly box ships with full tracking info to ensure that they arrive promptly at your door.

For select international destinations, we can bundle your monthly tea club boxes together bi-monthly or quarterly in order to minimize your shipping costs. Please contact us directly if you would like us to use a custom international shipping option for your subscription.

Can you ship outside of the United States?

Yes, we can! Shipping to Canada is $15. Other international destinations vary by country and can cost up to $15 a month. See our full shipping FAQ to learn more.

Transit times vary by country. Every monthly box ships with full tracking info to ensure that they arrive promptly at your door.

Can I give Tea of the Month Club as a gift?

Absolutely! This unique subscription box celebrates the complexity and art of tea from small family farmers and makes a perfect gift.

Simply select “this is a gift” and enter your lucky recipient's info at checkout. We will ship their first box with your message included, with the option to send a virtual greeting card to the recipient at whatever time you specify at checkout.

Will I see my subscription if I sign into my account?

Club members who subscribed before November 15th, 2021 will be able to see their tea club subscription under the "Tea Subscription" section of your customer account page.

New members will not yet see your club subscription under My Account - we are in the middle of upgrading out Tea Club, so look out for updates soon! In the meantime, simply email us to update your shipping information, pause your boxes, or make other changes.

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