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Taste a Selection of Leafies 2024 Winning Teas

Six amazing award-winning teas 

Saturday 22nd March 2025

10am to 12pm London time – online

Numbers are limited for this very special event so book early to secure your place.

Samples of the 6 teas will be sent out to everyone who books this event. So please give us details of the address to which the teas should be sent.

The people and companies that entered their wonderful teas into last year’s Leafies competition will join us online to tell us about their tea company, their teas and their passion for high quality, award-winning teas. 

This very special event will feature the following 6 teas:

Dragon’s Breath Oolong from the Wang Family Tea in Taiwan: GOLD AWARD 

The Wang family, from Taiwan’s Nantou County, have been making tea for several generations. For their oolong teas, they use the ‘time-honoured’ longan charcoal roasting which gives the teas a unique flavour of ripe fruits. The family believes in preserving and passing on the rich traditions of Taiwanese tea culture. They regularly engage with local elementary schools, introducing young students to the world of tea. The family’s goal is to inspire curiosity and appreciation in the younger generation, showing them how tea can be both a daily ritual and a link to their cultural heritage. 

Himalayan Gold from Sandakphu Tea Plantation in Ilam, Nepal:  GOLD AWARD

Sandakphu Tea is grown in and around Jasbirey Village in Ilam in the east of Nepal where the country borders with Darjeeling. A few years ago, Chandra Bushan, who has been involved in almost every aspect of Nepali tea over the past 30 years or more and won this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award, built a small factory with his wife Twistina so that the villagers who grow tea here had their own processing factory. The teas that are made here are of extremely high quality and are raising awareness of Nepal’s tea-making talents and determination to gain recognition as a world-class tea origin.

Gyokuro from Katsute Japanese retail:  GOLD AWARD

Katsute owns 3 Japanese tea rooms in London and one in Edinburgh, and sells and serves an impressive range of high quality Japanese teas sourced from small artisan producers in Japan. They also offer truly delicious Japanese-style cakes that they make themselves. The word Katsute translates as ‘once’ or ‘before’ and the name, the décor and the elegant furnishings link back to the early 20th century and create a quiet, calm ambiance. The tearooms also hold special events, including classes in how to make wagashi (the little sweet treats served at the Japanese green tea ceremony), and Kintsugi (the art of repairing broken ceramic vessels with gold lacquer). 

Kumari Gold from the Nepal Tea Collective: GOLD AWARD

The Nepal Tea Collective was established in 2017 by Nishchal Banskota. His father Deepak was the first, with his wife Dambar, to start growing tea in his village in the late 1970s and created the first Certified organic tea garden, Kanchanjangha Tea Estate, in Nepal in 1984. In 1991, Deepak and Dambar’s youngest son Nishchal was born and by 2015, he had opened the first tea bar in Nepal. In 2017 he launched the biggest Kickstarter campaign in the organic tea industry and today, the Nepal Tea Collective is run by a team of 12 talented young Nepalis and the company offers organic black, green, white and oolong teas, herbal blends and organic chai concentrate.

Seijiiro green tea from MA.LLC : HIGHLY COMMENDED

MA.LLC is a Kyoto-based Japanese company selling Chinese and Japanese teas. They say that they “play in the tea world and expand the possibilities of tea, especially by focusing on designing ways of pairing tea with food, and exploring tea’s role in lifestyle, culture and art. They offer Japanese black tea from Shizuoka, Jasmine tea from China, Roasted tea from Shiga in Japan, Tamaryokucha (coiled tea that has a tangy, berry-like flavour profile) from Nagasaki, and a green tea flavoured with Chinese Sichuan pepper.

Sweet Sorbet from Wild Orchard Tea Company in South Korea: HIGHLY COMMENDED 

Wild Orchard Tea Company grows its tea on its partner organic farm on Jeju Island where the plants love the volcanic soil and flourish in the misty air that rises from the surrounding ocean. The partner farm was planted in 1999 and in 2007 became the first to obtain USDA Organic certification. The company’s mission is to “produce the most delicious and pure green tea which is beneficial for both our health and the health of the natural world”. Wild Orchard’s Highly Commended Sweet Sorbet tea is a blend of green tea with a fascinating blend of organic botanicals.

Samples of the 6 teas will be sent out to everyone who books this event. So please give us details of the address to which the teas should be sent.