Sometimes things just click, like a shared rhythm and an instant fit. That describes the partnership between satotea and Amsterdam Teas. Two extraordinary people are behind satotea, and I’ve been lucky to meet them. Thanks to them, we are offering some really extraordinary Taiwanese teas, made by some really extraordinary people.
She goes by Shao, he goes by e. I remember the first voice message that I received from them. They thought maybe Amsterdam Teas might share a bit of the ethos behind satotea. They were right, and then some. We share a philosophy and a feeling. Alongside the tea, there is a lot of music and an equal measure of quiet, a lot of listening and a lot of appreciation.
Let me stay with the tea. When I first met Shao and e, after that voice message, they brought with them the sort of tea that a person will travel the world for. Which they had done, traveling half the planet to crisscross Taiwan over and over on a small motorbike in search of extraordinary teas. They live in Taitung now, close to the families and individuals they work with to share truly unique tea with others.
Shao and e are full of contradictions, like all the rest of us, and so are the teas that they share. What I get from them more than anything else, what I discover in their tea, is wild refinement, the dream of an entire ecosystem contained in the craft of a single, simple cup. They are working with extraordinary people to make this contradiction possible, people who harvest wild-growing trees with the intention of participating in the vibrance of the living world and resonating with it.
Shao and e are humble people who have built satotea with an ambitious mission: to experience real poetry in a cup of tea, and to share it with others. It’s an honor to partner with them in their mission.