Question: How do we choose our teas?
Answer: With love.
Although we are a small business, we are lucky to be supported by an extended network of friends and makers, which we are proud to call the Wan Ling Tea House team.
Fortunately for us, our friends share our passion for great tea and beautiful tea wares. This means that we can offer you the choicest products as direct as possible, and you have the convenience and security of buying from a UK-based company.
Provenance is paramount and we spend as much time travelling as sourcing teas and tea wares. Our base in Shanghai means we are in touch with the general market and the local producers throughout the year.
Our tea travels are not only limited to harvest time. For us it is vital that we are constantly in touch with the producers as well as visiting their tea gardens in all seasons, to develop our knowledge and understanding of the tea growing processes.
Wan Ling comes from a tea growing area in Fujian and her family are all involved in tea; Wan Ling and her sister travel to the tea mountains in Anxi to personally select the spring and autumn Tie Guan Yin teas. Fujian is also the source of our Wuyi Rock Oolong Teas and our White Teas.
Wan Ling's friend Huang Mei (a native of Anhui) travels to Huangshan, Shexian, Qimen (Keemun), Taiping and Luan to hand select our green teas.
We travel to Yunnan as often as possible to source our Puerh teas and Dian Hong black tea, as well as develop our network of farmers, tea aficionados and tea hunters. Our good friends in Yunnan keep us abreast of the complex tea market there and the ebbs and flows of a constantly developing tea world.
For our porcelain tea ware, we are very lucky that one of our oldest and closest friends, Xiao Ying, is a native of the porcelain capital Jing De Zhen. He runs a successful antiques shop in Shanghai and introduces us to Jiangxi ceramic artists producing the most stunning porcelain tea wares.
All our Yixing Zisha teapots are sourced direct from the artisans in and near Dingshan. It is a short bus ride from Shanghai, so we can visit regularly and develop lasting connections.
In recent years, travel had become more difficult owing to the Covid pandemic, but we're travelling again and have been in touch with our tea friends throughout.
If you have any questions about the Wan Ling Tea House range, provenance, regional information or would like to request a product please get in touch.
