Our story begins on the top of a mountain with which we fell in love at first sight, a mount called Nannuo. This first plot of land was far from the inhabited center, and was going to be exploited for intensive agriculture. We decided to save it and thanks to the support of the local community, we purchased it (in China we should say: "rented for 50 years") to let tea trees free to grow in its wild undergrowth.

In the photo: the 18 local land owners that share the land of our first forest plot. They have inherited the rights to the land without touching it. This local community supported our project by giving us this extraordinary responsibility.

During the first three years we focused on ourselves, which means only on our teas: we have worked for quality, facilities, and a stable organization. Our team is made up of professionals from different ethnic minorities, Hani, Han and Dai, in a typically Yunnanese cultural mix, from centuries to today.
We spent this time to fully understand our terroir and to engage with Chinese buyers and collectors.

At the end of 2019, after a decade spent as a tea scholar and producer, our founder Vivian Zhang decided to start an educational program in partnership with the Chinese National Tea Academy.

With our Eastern Tea Academy we offer courses and masterclasses about Chinese tea, with long and short term learning programs, online or offline in our tea room and tea forest.

For four years, we focused solely on our forest and travelled through Yunnan and China; in the autumn of 2024, we restarted our journey on the western route, with seminars and masterclasses in the Netherlands, France, Belgium, and Italy.

We wished to visit even more countries, and we will undoubtedly return soon! If you wish to cooperate with us, write us an email, we will be happy to hear from you.