Today we’d like to introduce you to Wendy Wang.
Wendy, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was born and raised in Taiwan where tea and tea culture are an integral part of everyday life. Twelve years ago, I came to the U.S. to pursue my second law degree at the University of Washington in Seattle (UW). After graduation, I went to New York City for a fellowship related to human rights at Fordham University’s Leitner Center for International Law and Justice. When that was complete, I returned to Taiwan to contribute to political policy making at the Taiwan Think Tank. My legal career in Taiwan was really getting interesting, but life is unpredictable. My boyfriend Mike proposed and asked me to move to Florida with him. I decided to follow my heart.
When I moved to Florida, I had a hard time finding a tea that I really enjoyed. The variety and quality of tea that I knew in Taiwan just wasn’t available in the US. After a lot of reflection and self-discovery, I decided that I would reinvent myself in the US. I decided to set aside law and politics to become an entrepreneur and translate my passion for tea into something truly exciting.
I began to seriously study tea and found that Taiwanese tea has an international reputation as some of the very best tea in the world. As part of researching the tea industry in the United States, I went to the North America Tea Trade Show where I met the world’s leading tea master, Jane Pettigrew. I described to her my desire to create a socially responsible business to share fine tea from Taiwan with people in America. She strongly encouraged me to pursue my dream.
I began to visit a variety of artisan tea growers in Taiwan. It took time to find the first tea artisan who shared my values for social responsibility and organic growing practices while also producing a truly fine quality tea. Once I made that connection, Wang and Dickerson Rare and Artisan Tea was born.
I have continued to search for fine tea artisans in Taiwan, and have expanded so that I now work with an elite group of six artisan tea growers. I have also continued to study tea. Last year I traveled back to Taiwan to become certified as a tea master. I regularly travel to Asia in search of new tea tasting experiences to refine my palate and broaden my knowledge of fine tea.
Has it been a smooth road?
Living abroad, being an immigrant, exploring a new country and immersing myself in a new culture forced me out of my comfort zone. I learned a lot about America very quickly. At the same time, I developed a much deeper appreciation for Taiwan and its unique culture. During this process, I began to get very excited about creating a business to introduce more Americans to appreciate tea and tea culture in a whole new way.
In Asia, the culture of fine tea is very similar to the fine wine culture in the Western world. The father of one of my Taiwanese friends at the law school is a collector of fine tea. He always brought my friend the very best teas from Taiwan during his visits to the US, and she shared her tea with me. It was then that I started to understand and appreciate fine quality teas. It took me 30 years and traveling thousands of miles from home to find out how lucky I am to have grown up drinking some of the best teas in the world.
While the worldwide popularity of tea as a beverage is second only to water, the US is still a very coffee-focused market. Tea is secondary, and most of it is relatively low quality. Most Americans just don’t know that better tea is available because most of the best tea stays in Asia.
I decided that my mission should be to educate people about the culture of fine tea. My company, Wang & Dickerson Rare & Artisan Tea, is dedicated to making truly fine tea available to our American customers. We have developed relationships with artisan growers so we can import high-quality tea that would otherwise sell out in Asia. Once people try it, they become hooked right away because it is totally unlike the mass-produced teas that dominate the American market.
The biggest challenge for me has been to convince more people to try our tea. One trend working in our favor is that more people are paying attention to their health. They are becoming more aware of the health benefits of drinking tea, and go looking for a tea that they can really enjoy. Drinking fine tea that is sustainably grown is definitely part of a healthy lifestyle.
We try to connect with health-conscious people at farmers markets, by partnering with yoga studios to hold tea ceremonies and tea meditation events, and through herbal tea blending workshops. We collaborate with like-minded people and wellness entrepreneurs in our community.
We want more people to see beyond the cup of tea to the culture, the stories, and the philosophy behind this healthy drink! We receive lots of amazing feedback from these workshops and our local events are regularly sold out. Next year, we are planning to expand and hold more events in other parts of Florida and the southeastern United States so that more people can experience tea at a whole different level.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
Really good quality tea is actually very difficult to find in America. Truly premium and award-winning teas quickly sell out in Asia and most do not even reach the United States. Our focus is to find these top-quality teas and make them available to our customers in the U.S.
I think it’s very important to tell American tea drinkers the story behind a cup of artisan tea. It begins with the tea farmer and the methods that are used to grow the tea. Then the narrative moves to the artisans who skillfully wilt, dry and roast the leaves. It is a long and fascinating journey that ends in a tea lover’s cup. It’s truly a labor of love. It’s an art form unto itself. Turning tea leaves into a beverage with the rich aromas and nuanced flavors of fine tea requires the contribution of many highly skilled artisans.
Craftsmanship has been at the heart of premium Taiwanese Tea for hundreds of years. Each of our growers’ teas is a masterpiece in tea-making. From hand-picking to withering, from oxidation to roasting, each step plays an important role in the resulting aroma, taste, texture, and color of each batch of tea.
Every time I talk to our tea growers, I understand more about their philosophies related to sustainable agriculture, why their artisan processes make their tea different from mass-produced teas and I get to know more about their struggles to keep it all going. Instead of taking a day to spray their whole tea farm with chemicals and fertilizers, they choose much more time-consuming organic or natural farming practices. They take the risk that their crop will be destroyed by pests and they learn to carefully manage soil nutrients without chemical fertilizers. I admire their respect for the land and the time and effort they put into producing the very purest tea.
I am regularly inspired by a quote from Michael Pollan, author of “The Omnivore’s Dilemma”. He observed: “what the industrial food chain does best: obscure the histories of foods it produces by processing them to such an extent that they appear as pure products of culture rather than nature… Our food system depends on consumers not knowing much about it beyond the price disclosed by the checkout scanner. Cheapness and ignorance are mutually reinforcing.”
I am trying to fight one small part of the “industrial food chain” by providing tea with transparency. I can tell people where their tea was grown, when their tea was harvested and how their tea was produced. I can speak about the philosophies of the artisans who grew the tea because I have direct, personal relationships with them. I can explain to my customers how that makes their tea healthier and I can demonstrate that artisan tea really does taste better.
If I could change one thing about the world it would be to help make the world a much happier, healthier place! I am working toward that goal one tea-drinker at a time!
Contact Info:
- Website: www.wanganddickersontea.com
- Email: sales@wanganddickersontea
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wanganddickerson
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/wanganddickersontea
Image Credit:
Kaitlynn Black from Kaitlynn Black Co.
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