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Who is The Chinese Tea Company?
Juyan Webster is the founder of The Chinese Tea Company. She was born and raised in Zhejiang Province, China - one of the most important provinces in China for tea production. Zhejiang is the area where the famous Dragon Well Green tea is grown. When growing up, Juyan was surrounded by tea and tea culture as her family grew tea on their land and, as a child, she worked alongside her family, picking, processing and then selling Tea at market. It was this upbringing that shaped her passion for tea and her vast knowledge of tea production.
Tea is in her blood.
Juyan also lectures for one of the UK Tea Academy’s ‘Masterclasses’. The UK Tea Academy is the only body in the UK to offer a professional tea certification programme.
The Chinese Tea Company started from humble beginnings by selling just a few grams of tea, here and there, to friends and work colleagues from small batches that Juyan would bring back from China after visiting family. After Juyan noticed there was interest in her teas she decided to set up a company and sell tea on a larger scale.
We started small, but eventually, we grew into a large speciality tea company. Since 2010, The Chinese Tea Company has painstakingly compiled a great range of single origin, rare and obscure teas. Our teas are not only good, but they also come with passion and a wealth of knowledge, distilled from the experiences and discoveries Juyan has gained over the years.
Every year, in April, we visit all of our Tea Farmers in China. We go in April so that we catch the first harvest of the Green and Oolong teas. Over the past 10 years we have nurtured very solid relationships with all of our tea farmers so that we get ‘first dibs’ and the choicest picks of the current season. We normally first see our tea as it is still on the bush.
More often than not we actually pick a few handfuls ourselves. We will help pick tea in the morning, taste already picked and processed tea in the afternoon and then have a meal cooked for us by the famer’s family during the evening. We repeat this process over a good few days. This ensures that we get the best teas form their batches. Oh, my god.. We drink so much tea...
Yes, this is all time consuming. We spend upto 5 weeks visiting 5 different tea growing regions and we sample a part of every batch of tea that we buy. Our hands on and personal approach guarantees minimal handling of the fragile leaf, superior quality control and optimal storage conditions.
Our exclusive relationships with the tea growers ensure up to date information on the season’s harvests and the latest tea production techniques. We also ship all the tea we buy direct back to the UK. No middle man and no buying blind from a whole-seller based in Europe. We live and breath tea for the whole 5 weeks we are in China. And we bring it all back for you. We take pride in what we do because we love it. It is our passion.
