‘‘The perfect tea starts with nurturing partnerships half a world away."
Tea is the most consumed beverage on Earth (besides water, of course). The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® is here to bring you the perfect version of the world’s favorite drink.
As you’re sipping(experiencing) one of our brews, know that the liquid gold in your cup began its journey thousands of miles away, on the lush tea plantations of Sri Lanka, Kenya, China, Japan, Thailand, and India. The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® works directly with tea growers in these regions in handcrafting varieties of tea that meet our desired specifications. Thus we(CBTL) make sure that you enjoy the highest quality whole-leaf teas and tea drinks available anywhere, brew for the brew, cup for cup.
On the road to tea perfection, we insist on buying directly from the growers, without middlemen, wholesalers, or importer-exporters. This isn’t only about doing what’s right, it’s about staying connected to the harvest so that we can source and deliver the world’s finest, most distinctive teas. It also keeps us connected to the people for whom tea is a source of livelihood. Our commitment to local tea growers goes beyond paying fair wages; it means giving back to the plantations, estates, and communities that grow our tea by supporting local education and health-care programs. Cultivating such close ties to community benefits everyone, from the local growers to our global customers who get to drink in the delicious benefits of our partnerships.
Our Master Tea Buyer-Blender David De Candia is an industry pioneer who travels the world in search of the best. David is regarded as a trailblazer in the art and business of all things related to tea, and over the years, he’s joined forces with charitable organizations dedicated to the tea estates and communities where our teas are grown.
He is a co-founder and a director of the Aid Lanka Kids Foundation and spearheads numerous community welfare initiatives at many of our tea growing regions.
ORIGINS
Sri Lanka | Kenya | Thailand | India
‘Our core values ensure you’re getting the best from the best!’ How your tea looks and tastes has a lot to do with where it’s from. For example, Japan almost entirely makes green tea, while India produces mostly black tea. Taiwan specializes in oolong while various regions in China grow green, black and oolong tea. Think of The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® as your window to the world. Let the invigorating aromas and flavors of our tea evoke the exotic plantations of Sri Lanka, India, Thailandand Kenya, and the lush estates of China, Taiwan and Japan in your heart and mind.
Sri Lanka
Home to the celebrated Ceylon black tea, Sri Lanka is the world’s 3rd largest producer of tea. The tea industry employs more than a million of the nation’s people. With its tropical locale, Sri Lanka benefits from the perfect weather for growing world-class tea the year round.
The highland teas, which are highly desired for their well-matured aromas and taste, are grown at an elevation between 3500 and 7500 feet. Growing this singular black tea is a process mastered since the first 100% pure Ceylon tea was produced here in 1867 by Scottish planter, James Taylor.
All of our Ceylon black teas, along with our Limited Edition Green Ceylon Tea, hail from the world-famous Bogawantalawa Estate in Sri Lanka. In fact, we even have our own reserve growing area there -- in Field 17 of the gorgeous, one-and-only Loinorn Garden, recognized as one of the prime producing gardens in all of Sri Lanka! The proof’s right there in every glorious cup.
Kenya
Tea had gone to Kenya from India in 1903, and since then, this East African country has grown to become the 2nd largest tea producer in the world, producing a distinctive black tea that ranks with the best the world has to offer. Kenyan culture is steeped in the ritual of tea drinking, and the locals enjoy it with cream and sugar.
Kenya prides itself on producing the best quality black tea in the world. Only the bud and the two selected upper leaves of the plant is hand-plucked before the tea is skillfully manufactured under the most stringent conditions to ensure the best quality product possible. Due to strict planting guidelines, Kenyan tea is all natural, with no pesticides or other added chemicals. The materials that go into sowing and growing tea plants are carefully selected by an expert production team, guaranteeing that only quality, high-yielding clones, resistant to pests and disease, are planted.
The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® is the first U.S. company to buy tea from Kenya’s renowned Mukengeria Tea Estate, located on the gorgeous slopes of Mount Kenya in Kangaita in central Kenya. With its nutrient-rich volcanic soils, this tropical region is ideal for tea growing, and you’ll taste Mukengaria’s distinctive flavor and character in every sip.
Thailand
Nestled at an elevation between 3,900 and 5,000 feet, this is the home of the storied, family-run estates of the 101 Tea Plantation, along with the tea-growing hills of Thailand. Established in 1901, the 101 Tea Plantation (the ‘101,’ by the way, means “best” in the local dialect) is regarded as the master producer of 100 percent organic green and oolong teas. The 101 Plantation also holds equally renowned, high-quality tea gardens in the Mae Salong region of northern Thailand – where their estates have helped the Thai Royal Family convert the local crop from opium to tea – and in the Yunnan district of China, the world’s oldest tea-growing region dating back 1,300 years.
What’s so amazing about the Yunnan estate is how 101 Tea Plantation has been able to blend the local tribes’ ancient method of tea harvesting with modern production techniques. The estate grows tea in cooperation with the local Dai, Lahu and Bulang communities, for whom tea is an essential part of daily life. And these aren’t your typical tea gardens, either, but ancient tea forests – the trees here are a thousand years old. Workers must scale these towering tea trees to pluck the leaves and buds, before the tea is processed using modern oxidation techniques that bring out their full richness of aroma and flavor.
India
The Chamong Group is almost as legendary in the world of tea as the regions in which their world-famous brew is produced. Established in 1916 and now entering its sixth generation, the family-run Chamong Group owns tea estates in Darjeeling and Assam, in northeastern India. Both these exotic regions are fabled as much for their immaculate, timeless beauty as their dazzling varieties of black tea. In Darjeeling, Chamong runs five estates, and thirteen in Assam, and these estates are the exclusive sources for all our Darjeeling and Assam black teas.
QUALITY
You already know that The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf® serves up some of the most delicious and savory tea drinks around, so it's not surprising that quality is our number one commitment. Our quality starts with the relationships we build with our growers and producers, continues with the processing of our whole leaf teas, and extends to the expert handcrafting of the world-class drinks we serve in our stores.
At The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf®, we process all of our teas using the Orthodox method of manufacturing, which means hand-plucking only the delicate top two leaves and a bud from the tips of each tea plant. This is a very labor-intensive method, exclusively isolating and oxidizing the top quality leaves and buds to produce teas of supreme flavor and character. All three types of tea – Black, Oolang and Green – can be produced using the Orthodox method.
BLENDING
‘Leave the Blending to the Artists’
At The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf®, we consider blending tea to be an art form, with the unique ability to engage all five senses in perfect harmony. Mastering how to combine the specific characteristics of different teas, herbs, spices or botanicals takes exquisite skill and practice.
Green, black and oolong teas all have very distinctive flavors and aromas so it’s critical to understand how each will react to the other as we hand-blend them to create adventurous new flavors.
Our exclusive blends are crafted to bring out the singular flavors in each component of our teas. Take Pomegranate Blueberry, one of most beloved blends, as an example. Pomegranate Blueberry combines three high quality teas (Ceylon, Oolong, and Lung Ching), all with distinct color and flavor attributes. Ceylon tea gives the blend the body and color, oolong gives it the floral notes, while the Lung Ching, with its earthy and grassy flavor, counterbalances the other two to perfection.
TEA CUPPING