How does this start?
¡Hola! 你好
My name is Alberto, and I’m one of the two members of Slow Tea Club. Right now, I’m at my desk, tea in hand, writing these lines for you.
Slow Tea Club was born out of absolute ignorance. I’ll explain why in a moment, but first, let me introduce us. We are Wen Hsuan and Alberto, from Taiwan and Spain, respectively. Our relationship with tea couldn’t be more different: in Taiwan, tea is an everyday staple, while in Spain, tea culture is practically non-existent. The closest we come to hearing about tea is from our Moroccan neighbors or the British.
And this is where the ignorance comes in—mine, to be precise. When Wen Hsuan returned from visiting her family, she brought back a Chinese tea called Oolong. When I first heard the name, my initial reaction was, “How can they make tea out of Udon noodles?”
I held onto that false belief for longer than I’d like to admit.
But from that moment, the idea of Slow Tea Club was born—a brand to bring high-quality tea from Taiwan to a European audience, with an educational twist. And here’s something I hadn’t mentioned yet: Wen Hsuan is a teacher.
So this all made sense.
We know very well that coffee is almost a religion in Europe. There are thousands of shops, cafés, and terabytes of information about it out there. But here’s the challenge: how do you convince a die-hard coffee drinker to switch to tea?
We don’t have a definitive answer yet, but we believe that education is the key to showing tea’s many benefits. Plus, while coffee is associated with speed, productivity, and a hectic pace, tea is all about reflection, tranquility, and calm. That’s why we came up with our slogan:
“Tea at your own pace, in your own place.”
Our initial plan is to find the right collaborators to help us bring the best tea we can to Europe. We know this will be a slow and lengthy process, but we’re excited about it. In the meantime, we want to share our journey with you through this newsletter. We think it’s interesting—at least, it is to us.
We’re two complete novices in the world of tea, trying to build something meaningful. We don’t plan to write very often, but we’ll reach out whenever we have something worth sharing. We want to document this process so that, if we fail spectacularly, at least there will be a record for someone else to pick up where we left off and continue this adventure.
And with that, the game begins in 2025.
A big hug
Wen Hsuan & Alberto
