About Us
Zhi Tea has been an Austin Treasure for 17 years. Put simply, we love tea and we love to share it. Our charming little shop serves up a wide variety of organic single-origin teas from around the world, high quality matcha, herbal teas, puerh teas, and dozens of our own amazing artisan blends made here in house.
More than just a cafe, Zhi Tea is also a place to pick up tea-ware or purchase loose leaf teas to enjoy anywhere you want. Our friendly and knowledgeable staff is ready to talk tea and answer questions for anyone who might be new to the tea universe.
We are also a wholesale tea provider and many of our customers discover us while they are staying or dining in fantastic places all over Austin and the rest of the country. Our list of wholesale customers is a who's who of the coolest and highest quality coffee shops, bakeries, restaurants, hotels and resorts in Central Texas.
Please come see us in person or order something fantastic here on our website.
Company History
Zhi Tea began with a dream that grew from our love of tea.
For ages tea has been part of culture and history to people all over the world. Consumed as a tasty beverage, as part of sublime ritual, and as an elixir to improve health, tea stands out as something extraordinary. We like to think tea is a perfect way to step outside the chaos of life to relax and enjoy something simple, a way to pause, reflect and connect with ourselves or with others. From our very beginnings we knew tea was something we wanted to share with the world.
We are die-hard tea lovers with a deep respect for traditional organic farming, fair trade practices, and high standards of quality.
In 2006, Owner and Founder Jeffrey Lorien and friend Candace Oneida set their minds and hearts on creating a world-class tea business built on a foundation of integrity, strong relationships, a culture of caring, and a demand for ethically sourced, high quality tea.
17 years later we are proud to share fantastic teas, including our own artisan blends, all of which are hand-crafted in small batches by our team right here in Austin, TX.
Our desire is to create and maintain a welcoming atmosphere in person or online where people can discover amazing teas and get a taste of our amazing signature blends.
A message from Owner/Founder Jeffrey Lorien
Zhi Tea is a homegrown Austin, Texas, company. Over the years we have done our best to share what we have in service of our community. We participate in local events to support others and contribute to a more sustainable world so more people can enjoy more of the best things in life: good health, good food and drink, good music, and a spirit of togetherness.
We were honored with "Local Heroes Award" through the Edible Communities in 2009. We enjoy supporting local non-profits that we are aligned with, like Urban Roots and the Sustainable Food Center here in Austin. Grass-roots has always been our approach and we survive almost exclusively by word of mouth promotion. Thank you!
I have a background as a start-up guy at Amazon.com way back when they were a mere online bookstore. As such, I was steeped in a demand for customer satisfaction and I brought that to Zhi from day one. The tea priestess (Candice Oneida) who helped me start it all drew from her background in design and project management to create a lasting standard of simplicity and elegance for our website, our package design, and our storefront.
As a small business, we deal directly with everyone we possibly can. I have to confess I am often on the phone with a retail or wholesale customer, advising about a particular tea or blend. We taste and cup hundreds of different teas to arrive at the very best. We design and blend our own tea. We cut no corners. Transparency is the key and that is one reason we choose certified tea every time as it allows us a certainty as to purity and source. If it's not organic, we don't want it.
One of our core values is true customer satisfaction. We want customers to say "WOW! This is AWESOME." When we hear that we know we have done our job.
Thank you for sharing the experience with us.
-Jeffrey Lorien, CEO Zhi Tea
