Our Tea Story

I was a bit of a ‘seeker’ from a young age, reading all the guiding texts about life and deeply believing in the invisible, energetic world around me. As I got older, alongside the esoteric, I became interested in nutrition and natural healthcare and started studying mechanisms for promoting self-healing, really noticing how when we manage our stress and feel strong, we weather life differently.

I eventually ended up running a clinic that specializes in herbal medicine and while working with so many knowledgeable herbalists, I really saw how powerful the subtle action of plant medicine can be, often its effects taking longer to show itself but healing at a much deeper level.

It was around this time that my love of green tea, something that Ric and I drank to support our yoga and tai chi practices, blossomed into something much bigger. 

Auspiciously my Uncle treated the family (my mother's family is Chinese) to a trip to China. With a secret mission to find some fabulous green tea, I headed to the famous tea markets in Shanghai and was introduced to the wonder of Chinese tea (a quite different experience to the teabag tea back home). 

I was truly blown away by the tea culture, with so many different types of beautiful teas, all drunk loose leaf and the same leaves refreshed all day. I was struck by the rituals and the reverence bestowed on this single plant. The rucksack was filled with tea and an idea was born.

Full of enthusiasm Ric and I opened a tea-themed cafe in Bristol in 2006 and although very popular, it soon became apparent that these were not the sort of teas you could casually sell alongside the brownies and coffee. So we closed the cafe and began travelling the country to exhibit at health and wellbeing shows. 

Our exploration into why tea was such a sought after drink led us to the science and how these Chinese teas contained higher levels of nutrients ideal for calming and centring the mind as well as healing the body, a fact the monks who first cultivated tea in China instinctively knew. This is why tea is so suited to sacred ceremony and why a daily tea drinking practice is a perfect personal way to destress and self-reflect too.

Always used historically to create safe and welcoming spaces where people come together, we now work with many practitioners who create group experiences with tea all over the country and we run our own tea circles in Bristol too.

We hope the unique presentation of these teas will help you discover a whole new world of companionship, support and wisdom.

Welcome to 'All The Tea In China' Teas 💚

Anne and Ric x