Our Story and Philosophy
Giacomo and Meng Ying
Hi, we are Giacomo and Meng Ying, the creators of Hermitage Tea. Giacomo is an Italian anthropologist, currently teaching at Hubei University for Nationalities in Enshi, Hubei, China. He is a multidisciplinary, holistic researcher, studying alternative economic models, tea cooperatives, popular religion, and traditional pottery making. Meng Ying is a calligrapher and designer from Fujian. We love traditional tea and tea ware from small, selected producers who respect, nurture and are nurtured by their living environment. We travel there, spend some time with them, learn with them, and share their organic tea beauty with the world. We aim to preserve their traditional tea making skills and local botanic variations. We also want to narrate tea people's stories, ideas, culture, worldviews. There is a lot to learn from farmers' knowledge, wisdom and ways of work, in order to enrich this increasingly standardized world. Tea is not a commodity, it is art, it is a sublimation of a healthy life in harmony with the cosmos and all fellow inhabitants. We are always open to suggestions and criticism and sincerely hope to receive your opinions!
See you soon, take care.
Giacomo and Meng Ying
Enshi, China
Our Aim
We value cultural diversity, biodiversity, and traditional craftsmanship, but above all, we love tea, tranquility, inner peace, friendship. We value and promote awareness in farmers' livelihood and equitable wages. We love conviviality and solidarity in economy and all relations.
We want to share some of these values with friends from around the Planet.
Vision
To share precious and high-quality teas with the world, from small producers, at fair prices. We support and empower the local communities of tea producers with each of our sales. We want to show and narrate their life stories and traditional livelihoods, systems of conviviality, systems of value. So everyone can learn, grow as human beings, and enjoy the beauty of tea.
