Discovering rare tea can often be daunting unless of course you had been introduced to a tea company by someone who is passionate about the tea he sells in his café. I recently heard Jenny Lo, the founder of this rare tea company that is based in Vancouver, BC.

The focus is on quality and direct trade through building real and trusting relationships with both farmers and customers. The Oollo collection is small, Jenny Lo explained, by travelling and seeking out exclusive farms and gardens around the world, we are able to find delicious rare leaves made by dedicated farmers.

Our teas are hand crafted by skilled and dedicated farmers on micro farms instead of big agriculture corporations. All of our teas are rare with some only producing few kilos ever year. Our teas are from farmers harvesting their own teas, not from commodity brokers. Flavour and Sustainability is our focus. We look for the finest tea grown by farmers using sustainable practices that protect and benefit the people and the land. During the harvest season, we travel to the farms be the first to taste the teas then arrange export and import back to Canada to pack, label, warehouse and distribute. Working with many farmers far away from ports, we help make it possible for micro-farmers to reach our customers.

All the teas are from Taiwan and the Tea gardens are appreciated like vineyards. Jenny took me on a journey recently to smell, taste and savour a selection of her teas.

The 1^st tea was Maliba High Mountain which was grown at 200 metres above sea level and had floral notes.

The 2nd tea, grown at 500 metres altitude, natural process green leaf hoppers was called the Oriental Beauty and had light wine notes.

The 3rd tea, Iron budha, grown closer to the high mountain, oxidized and roasted with fruity notes.

The 4^th tea was the Red Jade, grown in the mountains not high mountain a natural varietal black tea and was my favourite out of the 4 teas that I tried.

Read the history of Oollo Tea here and see the product range of teas.

You can contact Jenny by phone at 1 (778) 858-3638 or follow her on twitter @oollotea

By: Richard Wolak