Our Mission

My love of tea began the day I brewed Forever Spring. I was new to this type of tea, and quickly became fascinated with it. As I steeped, then re-steeped the tea, again and again, the leaf, beginning as a tightly rolled ball, slowly unfurled to its original size. I held the fully unfurled leaf in my hand, looked closely, and noticed all the bruises, wrinkles, and tears, thinking “you must have an interesting story to tell.” I brewed another serving and paid closer attention to the leaf as it unfurled, revealing to me the end results of the process it had to go through to get to this cup. “What is your story?” I read about all the things that it had to go through. It was plucked, withered, shaken, tumbled, bruised, rolled, dried, rolled again, and again, until it reached its final form. At that moment I actually began to identify with that tea. I began to recall the challenges, trials, ordeals, and sufferings of my life. What I had to go through to reach my final form.

The idea for the company come about during a particularly affecting homily which involved the priest turning, pointing at the crucifix and exclaiming, “Look what He did for us!” Internalizing that, I began to look at tea in this way. Noticing again those bruises, wrinkles, and tears, asking myself this time not “What is your story?” but rather thinking “Look what this leaf did for me!” My perspective changed, it was more than just a story, it was the story: temptation, transformation, suffering and sacrifice. Being born a new. Becoming a better self.

Tea gives perspective to everyone: If you are young don’t be afraid of the suffering, it will make you better; if you are experiencing suffering now, know that it will make you great; if you have already suffered enough, make yourself vulnerable, share yourself with the world, show them the bruises, the wrinkles, the tears. You will never become your original self, because you became your best self. Tea will teach you that.

At Mass we receive the Eucharist to share in Christ’s sufferings, and now drinking tea became for me a time of prayer to mediate on that. To gain a fuller appreciation of what He did for us. This became our mission: to tell the story of tea so that it helps us tell the story of ourselves, and so that we can better understand the story.