It’s been fifteen years that we brought our first tea. There wasn’t much of it. Fifteen kilos, I reckon. In fact, it was a test for us to see how it’s done and if it is possible. And it was. The tea was great. The whole batch was bought by the Chajovna tea room in Brno. We still get together and reminisce how great it was. Maybe our memories keep improving the taste, but who cares…
Goomtee Factory
Before making this first tea business, we flew to India and visited the Goomtee garden and factory in the quaint Mahanadi River valley. This was the first time we stood in the middle of a tea garden, saw tea processing with our own eyes − and this was also where the idea of a tea business occurred to us. At that time, it was a quick decision, we didn’t have anything planned and the main reason was we would have enough tea for ourselves. We registered the domain Darjeeling.cz and created a funny website.
Fifteen years have passed. We changed the business’ name to Klasek Tea, established an eshop and opened a showroom in Holešovice in Prague. We went on to discover more tea gardens and buy teas from Nepal, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan. We travelled for tea and with tea… Today we can say we are a well established tea shop.
SF Darjeeling Goomtee DJ 62/ 2018
We got ourselves the same birthday present as those fifteen years ago: the second flush from the Goomtee garden. It is again an exceptional tea with full aroma of juicy fruit, wild berries and exotic spices. Darjeeling second flush as it should be. You can buy it in Chajovna in Brno as usual.
The Goomtee garden has a rich history. It was founded in 1899 by British pioneer Henry Lennox and then taken over by famous planter G. W. O’Brien. After WWII, the Nepalese Rana family purchased it. In the 1950s, it was run by Mr Mahabir Prasad and the Kejriwal family of Indian tea pioneers. In the past fifty years, the garden as well as the factory have undergone a complete renovation. Since this spring, the Goomtee garden together with the neighbouring “sister” Jungpana have got a new owner again – famous tea farmer, Mr Sanjay Agarwal who owns the Kacharigaon and Chandana gardens in Assam. We hope it is still going to be managed by experts and will keep producing grate teas. So far it seems it will.
Let’s enjoy our small anniversary together with a cup of great classic Goomtee with its fresh scent and genuine Darjeeling bite!
Memories of our first Goomtee visit:
