About us: How I have founded Tea Hong

A comforting sip

With sister in a corner in the subdivided apartment in Wanchai, 1964

Tea was part of life as a kid born to refugee parents in the late 1950’s in the British ruled tiny sanctuary of Hong Kong. We were way below poverty line even in those days’ standard, so the cheapest pu’er tea was already a luxury, and a comforting sip especially when there wasn’t even food, and after sleeping on a bed made by aligning three uneven wooden stools over a rat and cockroach infested floor.

When I started to make a little salary, finding something better became an agenda. Aspiring for better things for a better life had been ingrained in me from my mother’s teaching. Coming from a middle-class family in rural China when the Communist took over, she had also taught me the civility of classical Chinese heritage (very different from those in China nowadays). She made sure that I had a proper education, despite all the fiscal challenges.

By 1982 I was an art teacher in an elite high school and taking on two government advisory committee roles for developing a better art education in Hong Kong. Work was demanding. Tea was indispensable especially in days filled with classes. I tried finding better ones in those usual shops but was never satisfied.

The mission of tea has been blessed upon me

With Mr Donald Tsang (second right), who was later to become the Chief Executive for Hong Kong SAR, in an exhibition that my creative consultancy company created as a part of the image re-engineering for a government department. 1998

After a graduate degree in Chicago, my career path had somehow steered towards commercial arts, and by 1998, I had already been an established creative communication design consultant, serving major international agencies, corporations and the government.

A phone call from an old friend changed everything.

He asked me to give some free advice to his student who was trying to run a minuscule teashop opposite to one of the tourist attractions and adjacent to an antique shop street. His business was not good despite the location.

I went, and even bought from him a high ticket teabowl, as a gesture of support to the student of an old friend. Gave him some advice and ideas that were immediately obvious. Two weeks later he called to tell me that the changes made a big difference. He wanted to push forward with the next step.

It turned out that he had the ambition to create a much bigger shop, and wanting to make tea big. I had not known that he had the support from a wealthy father. I made some further suggestions and even negotiated for him a place where he did make a high profile teahouse.

True Quality. True Taste

Leo sharing a joke with school kids at tea bar

Sharing a joke with visiting school children in one of my tea bars during a tea education activity. Pacific Place, Hong Kong, 2003

Following my professional habit, I then researched on the market of tea, initially thinking that it would be an interesting side business. For the supply side, another friend introduced me to a connection in the tea region of Phoenix ( Fenghuang Shan ). I was totally hooked. ( read more on this )

The tea I tasted in all the farm families I visited was all so enticing, so lusciously tasteful like nothing I had experienced prior. I drank so much that I had my first ever tea-drunk in my life.

Now I realised how much the mass market had been missing. True quality can taste such a huge difference. The world (most of the world) is far from the deprivation I was in when I was a kid, why should people be bound to bottom quality tea?

That, was the beginning of my insistence on working directly with the source. That was the beginning of my tea career.

We are still learning about tea, happily

with Olivia and Jane Pettigrew at the Royal Academy

Selfie with Jane Pettigrew, the most prolific tea writer in the English language, and an old friend, at the Royal Academy, London, 2023

Two and a half decades later, having connected with many more farms in many more regions, extending beyond China to have covered Nepal, Japan and Taiwan, I am still learning about new tastes, new quality. Information from those who make the tea with their own hands offers insights not necessarily found in books or research papers. Every new tea can be a window to a new realm, a new horizon.

Since the mission that is blessed upon me is to spread true quality tea to more people, it has become natural that tea professionals with the same ideal become good friends. That is why the major business here at Tea Hong is wholesale export. I am an introvert so perhaps subconsciously I shy away from front line retail. Not that I haven’t tried it, I once operated three major tea bars in high end commercial areas in Hong Kong. And once in London on Oxford Street.

worker wrapping a pallet load of cartons before moving them

One of the pallets of export cartons. Working with fellow tea merchants is an important element in the advocacy for the use of pure fine teas.

With online retail, I am able to operate with a smaller team, much less expense on rent and renovation, and much less efforts in brick and mortar shop administration and management. This way, I can offer the real quality I want to share at a much lower markup and can still make the business sustainable. More importantly, my lovely teammates can spend more time studying tea with me, have a reasonable work hour, and loving this job. Even with the extremely heavy workload particularly during harvest seasons, the tranquility and ease of focus here at Tea Hong is a far cry from those days of hectic frontline tea bars and consignment distribution.

I think a happier company is a better company for sharing the real spirit of good tea after all. I am no longer that poor boy who had no bed to sleep in, no regular meals, but that sip of tea is still as comforting, as inspiring.

Leo Kwan
Founder, Tea Hong

a row of tea taster's mugs and tea bowls in a tasting session, brightly lit by the sun

Just reading, farm visits, and talking to different people are not enough. Knowing the tea with first hand experience is critical as well. Every sip, every sample, every new variety is a part of a learning process.

Photos at some of our producers in different regions, and us. Click any image for a slide show with captions.