How I got into Tea

I used to be an English teacher. Well, and ESL teacher to be exact. I was teaching in San Francisco, and drinking coffee hand over fist. I had grown up as a book worm, spending lots of time in coffee shops, bookstores, libraries, and I drank that molten, rich liquid like water all day. But then I discovered what real tea was. Beautiful, whole, hand-rolled tea leaves that took the freshness and complexity of tea to levels I had never thought possible. I was on a food tour through China Town in San Francisco, when I went in to Vital Tea Leaf and saw what real tea really was, along with the purpose and processing of each specific tea. The rest, as they say, is history. I fell in love with tea and wound up apprenticing under Ming Duong's mentorship for four years learning the art of tea, traveling with him to source tea in China, and bringing the best quality leaf back home to provide to our customers happiness and health here in America and around the world.