Where Does Your Tea Come From?

Most tea in the world begins on a hillside in neat rows that someone planted on purpose, replanted every few decades, bred for yield and consistency.

Ours didn't start that way. Nobody planted our trees. They grow wild, at altitude, in a stretch of protected forest in northern Vietnam, the kind of place Vietnam formally recognizes under the name Shan Tuyet - snow mountain tea, for the fine white down that covers the young leaves in the cold mountain air. These trees have been standing for a few hundred years or more. We found them already here, doing what they've always done.

What that means for the tea is simple, even if it took us a while to really understand it: nothing about this leaf was optimized for anything. It grew slowly, at its own pace, shaped only by the mountain around it - the quartz-rich soil, the shifting temperatures, the high altitude. All of that ends up in the cup, in ways plantation tea usually can't reach.

We named the brand after a word we found almost by accident - Ammil, an old English term for the thin film of ice that forms on branches and grass after a frost. It's easy to miss if you're moving too fast, and that felt like the right name for a tea that only gives you something back once you slow down with it.

We think the right tea finds the right person eventually. If this is that tea for you, we're glad it found its way here. Have a look through the collection, and we hope one of these four finds a place in your week.