Chicago Tea Garden First to Import New Zealand Tea to the USA

June 29th, 2010

Tea lovers in the United States will have their first chance to try New Zealand’s only tea, Zealong, beginning on June 28, 2010, when Chicago Tea Garden makes it available to its retail and wholesale customers.

Zealong began in 1996 when its owners planted imported Taiwanese seedlings on their New Zealand farm. Only 130 of the original 1500 imports survived the strict 10-month quarantine period, and from these hearty plants, over 1,000,000 tea bushes now grow on Zealong’s 120 acre farm.

For Chicago Tea Garden’s co-owners, Tony Gebely and Erin Murphy, being the first American company to sell this exclusive tea is an exciting, but not unexpected, development. The company specializes in sourcing unique, unusual teas from around the world, including several from the collection of noted tea authority, David Lee Hoffman.

Co-owner Gebely remarked: “Just as the wine industry has expanded into many new areas around the world, the same is happening with tea. New regions for tea-growing, such as New Zealand, bring new flavors to tea lovers, and we are proud to be a part of this growing trend.”

Zealong is a fresh, floral oolong with tremendous staying power: Drinkers can expect to get 8 steeps from each pot of tea brewed. Zealong is grown without the use of chemical fertilizers or sprays, and is picked and processed on a farm and tea processing facility certified as meeting the ISO22000 food safety management standard. The result is a tea that is not only delicious, but that is unmatched for purity.

Zealong Oolong will be available for sale on Chicago Tea Garden’s website beginning June 28, 2010. The Chicago Tea Garden also welcomes wholesale inquiries from retailers. Zealong comes in 3 different styles: Pure, Aromatic, and Dark.

For more information on Zealong New Zealand Oolong tea and Chicago Tea Garden, visit: http://www.chicagoteagarden.com.

To download this press release: http://www.chicagoteagarden.com/zealong_press_release.doc

 

One Response to “Chicago Tea Garden First to Import New Zealand Tea to the USA”

  1. debbie says:
    July 15, 2010 at 8:34 pm

    You learn something new everyday. I had no idea about Zealong tea and the fact that it is grown without chemicals fertilizers or sprays is a plus! Look forward to trying it.

    Reply

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Open for business: Chicago Tea Garden…

March 2nd, 2010

chicago_tea_garden

I am proud to announce that our company, Chicago Tea Garden is finally open for business. We have 9 teas from David Lee Hoffman’s Phoenix Collection to start and some local tea-ware from Chicago Potter — Chris Chaney. Lainie Petersen has written a wonderful article on us as the Chicago Tea Examiner, see it here. The Little Yellow Teapot also wrote an article about our opening: here.

I chose to sell David Lee Hoffman’s teas to start for a few reasons… the man is a pioneer in the tea industry. He has relationships with farmers all over China and has been granted unprecedented access to some of the finest teas to reach our shores. Second, most of the pu-erh he has was obtained years before the pu-erh craze — and since then it has been aging in man-made pu-erh caves that he has created here in the United States. So not only is his pu-erh old, but it is authentic and has been stored properly for years. It is hard to buy pu-erh from China these days without having doubts towards its authenticity.

We are also working with tea farmers in India, Japan, and Hawaii as well — we just wanted to see how things go at first with our offering of 9 teas… no use jumping the gun here. But as I sip my last bit of tea for the day — I am thankful for everyone that pushed me to reach this goal – especially Erin — without her support this wouldn’t have happened. It was an exciting day today – I launched the site at noon and I sent out an email to the 77 people that had signed up for the newsletter, I notified my facebook friends, and tweeted. I’m pretty sure my host hates me because as the tweets started to flow, the site went down a few times and things moved at a general snail’s pace. At one point so many people were on the site at one time that I couldn’t even access the admin panel to view orders so I just left the house and went for a walk hoping to return to a working site. I can’t believe the support everyone gave me on twitter — I want to thank each and every one of you for helping me spread the word, that I am finally a tea merchant. A dream I joked about several years ago. Thanks also to everyone that blogged about our teas so far. Every time I find a review on one of our teas, I will link to the review on the product page.

Thanks again! Now that the site is up, I can get back to the normal World of Tea routine — sorry it has been so long.

 

4 Responses to “Open for business: Chicago Tea Garden…”

  1. Marlena says:
    March 3, 2010 at 6:02 pm

    Hooray for you! As soon as my tea budget recovers, I have my eye on a few of your teas. All the Best to you.

    Reply
  2. jay says:
    March 5, 2010 at 1:23 am

    Is there/will there be a brick-and-mortar store in Chicago?

    Reply
  3. daniel says:
    March 17, 2010 at 2:45 am

    Congratulations! Tony,for your dream coming true and for your good start.
    So now you and me stand in the same line. I also set up a new company (www.middleway.cn)which deals with loose leaf tea only last month.

    Oh your new company website looks excellent, I’m eager to buy some from you if I’m not a tea farmer. haha

    Good luck!

    Daniel

    Reply

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A Long Time Coming…

January 26th, 2010

Its been a long time coming, but I am finally starting my own tea company. Things are in the late stages, teas have been sourced, packaging is finalized. I’m just working on the web site at this time, so if there is anything that annoys you about tea shop sites, please let me know asap! I’m a web developer by trade, so I’m developing the site myself. It should be up soon. Thats all I can say, soon. This idea started in 2006 with a trip to China. My partner, Erin Murphy and I are excited to get things up and running! The website is: http://www.chicagoteagarden.com you can sign up there to receive an email when the shop opens. We hope to open a brick and mortar shop in Chicago within 5 years. Chicago needs good tea. Tea shops here are few and far between. World of Tea will remain in its current format — nothing will change here, this will not become a marketing engine — I will still review any teas and any tea-ware and I will still write about tea culture here. I’ve met too many great people through this site to ever shut it down. I am thinking about shutting down The Tea Roundtable though [http://www.tearoundtable.com] it has been overtaken by spam and I just don’t have the time to maintain it. If anyone would like to take over ownership of it, please let me know. I want to thank everyone for supporting my dream. Erin and I are very excited to start this up! Here are some sneak-peek photos:

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If you’d like you can sign up right here to get an email when we go live with the online store:





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5 Responses to “A Long Time Coming…”

  1. Eric says:
    January 28, 2010 at 1:41 am

    Tony, really excited to see you doing this! I’m at work, but Bec says your tea arrived this morning:) Can’t wait to try it.

    Reply
  2. jasonowalker says:
    January 28, 2010 at 11:00 pm

    Looking forward to where you will take us with Chicago Tea Garden.

    Reply
  3. Marlena says:
    January 29, 2010 at 7:33 pm

    Good for you and the best on this new venture!

    Reply
  4. Jake says:
    January 31, 2010 at 9:34 am

    It would be fun to also read about your experiences setting up the business and running it.

    Reply
  5. Veri-Tea says:
    February 16, 2010 at 11:23 pm

    Wonderful news!

    Reply

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Chicago’s Chinatown – Not a tea mecca.

August 10th, 2009

chicago_chinatownI set out about two weeks ago to explore Chicago’s Chinatown — just off the Cermak-Chinatown Red Line stop. I hoped to find tiny tea-houses tucked away off the main streets, tea importers, tea shops — I hoped to find a mecca of tea right in my own city. However, I found none of this. Not even an inkling of hope. I left completely and utterly disappointed.

I began walking around, first North on Wentworth to China Square on Archer, there were many shops, Americanized restaurants, Chinese Herbs, bookstores, and a few stores selling cheap souvenirs. The only store slightly of interest was the Chinese Cultural Bookstore [2145B S. China Place] which had a small selection of Yixing pots (all above $100USD) and an instructional video  called “Learn China’s Art of Enjoying Tea With Me” which I purchased and have not yet watched.IMG_2992

I then walked down Wentworth into the heart of Chinatown, going down each side-street a block or two just hoping to uncover a gem of a shop. But there was nothing to be found. I stopped by the well known Ten Ren tea shop on Wentworth. It is a classic Chinese tea shop, the walls lined with shelves of large tea tins. I had to wonder how long the tea had been sitting in the tins. They had one pu-erh cake priced at $20.00USD, and many tea-wares — few items to be found under $50.00USD.

Surprisingly the most “authentic” Chinese teahouse I’ve found in the Chicagoland area is in Evanston. It is called Dream About Tea [http://www.dreamabouttea.com/] if you get up there, make sure you check it out. Lastly, if anyone knows of any tea spots in Chicago’s Chinatown (perhaps I missed a few streets? maybe an entire section of Chinatown?) please enlighten me!


 

4 Responses to “Chicago’s Chinatown – Not a tea mecca.”

  1. Zinni says:
    August 10, 2009 at 10:51 am

    Thanks for the heads up to the tea shop in Evanston, I have lived here for a while and had seen is a couple of times but never thought it looked to spectacular or anything. I am definitely going to check it out now.

    Reply
  2. Susan says:
    August 10, 2009 at 10:05 pm

    My husband is from Chicago and we have tried looking for tea shops and they are few and far between. Chicago Chinatown is a big disappointment when it comes to tea considering the size of the city. The only place we even found was a Ten Ren and that wasn’t even that impressive.

    Reply
  3. Lainie Petersen says:
    August 11, 2009 at 1:14 am

    Yeppers, Dream About Tea is a special place to be sure! I am in there often, and always come away smiling!

    Reply

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