What started off as a simple delivery on a bike business has evolved into a company that sells some of the finest Japanese tea around the world. Zach Mangan’s depth of knowledge manifests in all their products and blog. I have sent a few emails to him over the years but have sadly never received an answer to the questions below. Some of them have been updated with live Q&A answers from his class Zooms. Lastly, before you read below also be sure to check out Mr. Mangan’s book: Stories of Japanese Tea

Website: https://kettl.co/

Location(s) Headquarters: Fukuoka, Japan and Brooklyn, NY, USA

Company Focus:

• “All of our teas are sourced directly from growers and producers who we know – and visit several times a year. They are more than suppliers – they are our teachers, our partners and our friends.”

Most popular company tea(s)?

• Best Sellers

Does the company name have a meaning?

• Kettl, for me, as in the term kettle. I had to wrack my brain when it came to thinking about a name for my company. It always came back to starting my day by heating the kettle. I like how the name looks without the E. The three dots above it create a kettle. The three dots also represent how tea farms used to be found on a map.

Do you participate in any charities?

• None that I have found on their website.

What is your and/or your co-workers’ favorite tea?  

• That’s like picking a favorite child.

What are your thoughts on transparency in the tea industry?

• “All of our teas are purchased weekly from the growers and shipped to our Fukuoka, Japan-based packaging facility where they are repacked into our own date-stamped oxygen-free packaging, cold stored until dispatch, and then air-shipped to our customers directly from Japan. Buying direct and fulfilling from origin allows us to keep our prices lower – supplying pinnacle-grade tea at reasonable prices, direct to our customers. Our company is built on transparency, honesty, and an obsession with quality.” About Us

What role does tea play in our lives?

• “In the end, sharing the stories and deeper details of the teas allows our customers to gain confidence to make choices about what they like based on taste. Being guided by their palate allows them to avoid falling prey to the marketing hype that is still so pervasive in a young industry like specialty tea.” – From Stories of Japanese Tea

Social Media:

• Instagram

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TeaTiff Picks: Matcha. You’re probably sitting there saying, “Well, yeah, matcha, but which one?” Do I have to choose? I like to bounce around and try the different and new ones that come in. But honestly, their matcha is prodigious.