The story begins in 2017 with a small act: a gift of Jin Jun Mei from a retired neighbor in Nanjing, China, who visited often to practice his English and talk about the weather. Those afternoons sparked a deeper curiosity about the world of tea. This curiosity prompted visits to specialty shops and, eventually, dedicated trips to famous tea-growing regions, where I would make sure to return home with bags of my favorite leaves.

After returning to the United States in 2020, I found the emotional experience still lingered. That year, I started Austin’s Tea Sourcing in Philadelphia. What began as a way to share high-quality leaves with friends at local restaurants and cafes grew into an online shop with a presence at local farmer’s markets. Annual trips to Asia helped cultivate long-lasting relationships and continuously expand our industry knowledge.

Now, in 2024, we’ve back in China with a new home in Shehzhen, right by some of our favorite tea growing regions. Being here keeps the passion alive and allows us to continue to explore the ever-evolving story of tea.

Education

Our mission extends beyond finding exceptional leaves; we aim to bridge personal experience with the broader, cross-cultural conversations that surround tea today.

To this end, we are providing context and commentary so that everyone can growtheir understanding, no matter how much they already know. Our videos, dictionary project, and detailed packaging illuminate some of the lore, traditions, and craft behind each tea.

We believe that cultivating a richer, more nuanced relationship with the leaves we consume benefits everyone — from the producers whose livelihood depends on their crop to the drinkers who seek perfection from every single infusion.

Sourcing

We don’t just buy the same teas every year. Rather than adhering to a fixed, routine purchasing model, we prefer to choose based on the individual leaves that speak to us. Curiosity is our guide; a sense of inspiration, the lodestar.

While this approach inevitably means that our inventory shifts from year to year, it ensures they are thoughtfully chosen and represents a genuine moment of exploration. This feeling — the in-betweenness between the familair and unknown — keeps the work exciting and ensures that we’re always enthusiastic about the leaves we sell.

When evaluating, we look for three core values:

1. Quality:
   We seek teas that exemplify the archetypal traits of their category, yet go beyond expectation. It’s not enough for a tea to come from a renowned region or carry a celebrated name; it must leave a lasting impression, an experience that lingers in memory long after the cup is empty. When you find it, you know.
   
   
2. Innovation:
   We support creativity and experimentation. There is something thrilling about it — defiance of a tradition always manages to still honor its ghost. Whether through trying novel processing methods or creating hybrid products that eschew traditional categories, we like producers who explore possibilities.
   
   
3. Rarity:
   Occasionally, we find leaves that are relics of a different time. These teas may have obscure origins, an indeterminate age, or simply an interesting history. We share them when we find them, as perfect opportunities to explore and deepen our understanding.