Henrietta Lovell is the founder of Rare Tea Company and is known as the Rare Tea Lady. In the late 1990s, she was working in corporate finance, until a trip to China and a $50 pot of oolong changed everything. She fell in love with tea, not the industrial tea bag she grew up drinking in England, but tea crafted by farmers from specific places with terroir as complex as wine.
For over 20 years, she's worked directly with farmers who grow tea organically and regeneratively, paying them what their work is actually worth. She runs the
Rare Charity, where tea communities decide how funds are used - primarily putting kids through university who would otherwise have no access to higher education. She supplies tea to Michelin-starred restaurants around the world and has built her entire life around the belief that if you look for great flavor and know where it comes from, you can change communities while filling your life with pleasure.
I joined Henrietta at the Rare Tea Company headquarters in London where we enjoyed incredible teas on a rainy afternoon. We talk in depth about camellia sinensis (tea), how the British stole it from China and grew it across their empire, the exploitation built into most of the tea industry, the 15 million people working in tea and mostly living in poverty, organic farming versus certification, bed tea as a morning meditation, and making rhubarb fool in her grandmother's Scottish kitchen.
"Healthy soil is healthy mankind. It's not just us who drink the end product. It's the people who grow it and the communities around where it grows. It does matter."
00:00 - Falling in love with tea in China
03:15 - The $50 pot of oolong that changed everything
07:30 - Tea comes from one plant: Camellia sinensis
10:45 - How the British stole tea from China
15:20 - Corporate finance escape: "I can't wait until retirement"
18:40 - Starting Rare Tea Company with naivety and stupidity
22:15 - Meeting the first tea farmer in Fuding, China
26:30 - The exploitation built into industrial tea
31:45 - 15 million people work in tea, most are women in poverty
35:20 - Why we don't know where our tea comes from
39:10 - Direct trade: Paying farmers what tea is worth
43:25 - The Rare Charity: Education chosen by communities
47:50 - Why only 20% of charity revenue goes to admin
51:15 - From seed to cup: The tea growing process
56:40 - White tea, green tea, oolong, black tea, pu-erh
62:20 - Why organic certification is complex for small farmers
67:10 - Temperature, timing, and the art of making tea
71:45 - The 90-second rule for flavor extraction
75:30 - L-theanine: Why tea gives calm energy vs. coffee's crash
79:15 - Bed tea as morning meditation
82:40 - Tea cocktails: Quick extractions with alcohol
86:20 - The nun who made tea as meditation
90:15 - Favorite food memory: Rhubarb fool in Scotland
93:45 - Healthy soil, healthy communities
Episode 5
