There is a fundamental difference between finding your tea from big tea plantations and small, privately-owned tea farms. If you want organic, if you want clean, it is always hard to trust the big guys, because they are always trying to shave off a little more cost to make a little more money.
Small farms, on the other hand, are an excellent way to find not only organic, but hand picked, hand rolled, and hand processed tea. You can hardly find much better than that.
The downside is that these small farms are hard to find. So, we wanted to showcase one such farm. If you are interested in the strictest quality control for your tea, and are interested in Jade, Yun Bi Oolong, or Ruan Tze Oolong, you can find all these wonderful quality teas in one place.
The Doi Inthanon Tea Partnership is a small farm in the mountains of North Thailand. They provide the following teas:
- Jade Tea (#12 Green Tea) — 100g US$5
- Yun Bi (#12 Oolong Tea) — 100g US$7
- Ruan Tze (Ruan Tze Oolong Tea) — 100g US$10
Those are wholesale prices, not including shipping. And no, this is not a related company and NewFrontierChina has no benefit from these sales. Our aim is to make known some of the great, small and family-owned suppliers out there. This is excellent tea, provided by a small farm run with ethical and transparent business practices, sharing great tea at great prices.
Tea produced by the Doi Inthanon Tea Partnership has the following guarantees:
- Hand picked -- strictest quality control with no bad leaves
- Hand rolled and processed (no machinery)
- Government Certified Organic -- no chemical pesticides or fertilizers
- High Mountain Tea — grown at over 5,000ft altitude
The government certification is from the Royal Thai Government's Ministry of Agriculture and Cooperatives. This tea is qualified as organic and has a "quality food safety" seal. In the United States, there is no one agency which specifically certifies any products as organic, but rather is confused by the varying standards of many different private organizations.
