Blog

Dear tea lovers,

at the end of the year, we would like to summarize our progress in 2024 and introduce our ongoing challenges and future goals.

1) What is new in 2024?

First, we are continuously working on improving our e-shop, particularly the design and content. Although it is still far from what we want, we will slowly introduce new features such as filters (e.g. volume of teaware, year of harvests, up-to-date taste profiles), markers (e.g. recommendations for preparation, storage, dosing) and good deals (i.e. make-to-measure tea sets with added value) and take better photos of our increasing number of products (i.e. identification numbers, new background, more angles).

Second, we really appreciate your honest feedback, which helps us to widen the scope of our products and provide better services. While we are unable to implement all of your ideas and wishes, we keep recording your thoughts and considering the possible implementations. Such efforts can be notably traced to offering various tea bags/containers (sharing is caring), special boxes (different needs require different bundles), tea subscriptions (surprises every month) and testing products outside of Xishuangbanna, particularly the teaware (famous tea potteries and tea porcelain).

Third, we partially renovated our tea chamber and re-designed our e-shop to reflect the tropical vibes of Xishuangbanna (e.g. flower decoration within and outside of Tea chamber, photos wall gallery, tea maps), Yunnan signature animals (e.g. red pandas, blue-snot monkeys and bamboo rats) and a wild environment (e.g. product background photos, photos of distributors/producers).

Fourth, we stepped into systemic tea research and introduced the publicly available Tealogy series. While both OASIS (interactive database of Czech tea facilities) and TEAEYE (interactive map of Xishuangbanna tea mountains) are still in the very early stages, we are working on future updates and other features to make it more user-friendly and educative.

Fifth, we have successfully enlarged our tea and teaware collection to new heights. Currently, we are offering over 100 different Xishuangbanna teas (new/archived shengcha, shucha, hongcha and baicha across twelve tea mountains) and more than 500 teaware (teapots, gaiwans, gondaobei and cups from Yunnan, Guangdong, Guangxi, Jiangxi and Jiangsu provinces). In addition, we have introduced several unique teas (e.g. wulongs from Mahei, yabao tea cakes from Bada mountain, sheng/shu tea paste from Menghai), tea series (e.g. Six Ancient Tea Mountains series of shengcha and baicha) and tribal teas (e.g. bamboo tea, tea snails and tea brooms), which are virtually non-existent in Europe.

Sixth, we have attended several public events (notably Prague Tea Festival 2024 and Čajů Fest 2024) and participated at the 1st European Tea Culture Conference in Dresden, where we presented part of our research on Czech tea culture in the context of puerh teas from Yunnan Province.



2) What are the current challenges?

First, we are continuously working on improving our e-shop, which is still far from what we want. Currently, we are trying to anchor the specific design (i.e. fresh tropical look with a playful style) and adding more content (i.e. creating structured templates with all necessary details for different products, improving accuracy and credibility by adding literature references and other visual materials). However, the scope and deepness, as well as deleting occasional typos and other errors (particularly formatting and corrections), need to be significantly improved and put in a broader context with relevant primary/secondary literature. This way, we will improve credibility, provide more options to verify our content, decrease misinterpretation on social media (facts vs. opinions) and prepare more solid content.

Second, we are preparing for another partial renovation of our Tea chamber (particularly new lights, decoration and renewing some other minor equipment) and enlarging our tea storage (we are still looking for a suitable new storage place in Prague), which we delayed last year due to the lack of time and other priority issues. Although these changes will require certain investments, we will be able to display our products better and elevate the interior of our Tea chamber to new heights.

Third, we would like to provide more first-hand inside information about the Xishuangbanna tea culture, which will not solely rely on our older audio-visual materials (before 2022) and content provided by our relatives and friends. In this way, we will increase the degree of transparency and raise awareness about this small tea area, which is significantly different from other Yunnan prefectures. Although we have participated in dozens of public events in Europe in 2023, we were not able to properly focus on our other projects. As a result, we will not attend any public event next year (yet, you can still visit us in our Tea Chamber anytime between 2-9 PM).

Fourth, we would like to provide more sustainable, affordable and diverse options for tea and teaware based on your needs and expectations. This way, you will really compare different qualities (beauty x quality of pouring x quality of brewing) and be able to choose teaware according to your actual needs. Yet, we are still negotiating how to address further information regarding tea certification (e.g. frequency of testing, scope of testing for small batches, double-degree certification option).

Fifth, our systemic tea science and tealogy series are still highly underdeveloped and will require further adjustments. Currently, we are preparing several research articles (in cooperation with several researchers in Europe), which are at different stages of finalization, and discussing new updates (e.g. adapting the content to mobile phones, showing a number of viewers, adding bug-report form, new map interface) that will make more added value. Right now, we are looking for new collaborators, which will help us to finalize our ongoing projects and save some time during the investigation.

Sixth, after moving to Czechia in August 2022, we did not travel to China to visit our family and friends. As a result, we were forced to import our products based on recommendations and our own testing after new products arrived. Sometimes, it took many months, or we just needed to wait for more testing before we decided to order more stuff. Right now, we are arranging several trips that will address our homesickness and stay more connected with Xishuangbanna.



3) What are you now planning?

Firstly, we have scheduled our visit to Xishuangbanna in early 2025, where we will travel across twelve tea mountains, show the life of local tea producers/farmers, provide our authentic content and bring new teas to Czechia. During our foreign stay, our Tea chamber will be closed, and all the e-shop orders will be processed after our arrival in mid-March 2025.

Secondly, we are determined to bring more teaware, particularly Dai, Jianshui, Nixing, Yixing, Fujian, Jingdezhen and Chaozhou. This will be the subject of our second or third trip to China (will be announced in advance), where we would like to visit our tea potters and get more details about the production.

Third, we are preparing to fill the gap in our tea series from Six Ancient Tea Mountains and Six New Tea Mountains (shengcha, baicha, hongcha and shucha) and aged teas (particularly shengcha and shucha produced before 2010). Although we are not sure if we will be able to provide these tea series in all three qualities (Banna, Premium and Royal), we will try our best to widen the scope of your teas, so you can literally travel mountain to mountain with us.

Fourth, we are planning to submit several research articles in cooperation with other tea scientists to discuss Czech tea culture and the international puer tea market. Apart from that, we would like to keep updating our Tealogy projects (both OASIS and TEAEYE), and introducing a new project called "OBSERVER", which show you our distributors/producers in the new light (more information will be announced in the late 2025). While the OASIS (i.e. database of Czech tea houses, tea shops, and several tea clubs) will require further effort in addition and double-checking existing tea venues, the TEAEYE still lacks more consistent information (both at the mountain and village level) and list of relevant sources beyond regular blogs, which you can find nowadays.

Fifth, to collect some money for future investments, we decided to slightly lower the price for our teaware (between 10-40%). This way, our teaware will be more affordable, and we will have more space to display our upcoming teas. At the same time, we would like to get more feedback about our teaware assessment (pouring quality, stopping water, sound, etc.) and know your expectations for teaware since we would like to bring less-known tea pottery (will be announced at our social media), particularly from Yunnan province.

Sixth, we will soon introduce our new membership program that will integrate our physical loyalty cards with our e-shop and prepare our monthly newsletter with further details for our tea lovers. In addition, certain memberships will provide extra Tealogy content and other features for those who appreciate our work. This way, you will still receive some benefits regardless of whether you physically carry the loyalty card and keep updated about our pre-orders and other news in advance.



Conclusion

In general, our goals will require a certain amount of time and effort to see tangible progress. While not all of our wishes may not come true or will be delayed, we believe that most of these goals are feasible if they will be timely and properly managed. At the same time, regardless our expectations, the most important is your valuable feedback through which you help us to grow and improve our services. Therefore, feel free to ask for any further questions and we are looking forward to compare our goals with final results at the end of 2025.

Thank you for being with us and tea with you,


Richard and Shanshan