Tea that travelled to the Black Sea

In 1893, Chinese tea master Lau Jon Jau arrived in Chakvi. He brought tea seedlings and the knowledge of how to turn fresh leaves into tea.

He taught local tea makers when to pick the leaves, how to wither, roll, oxidize and dry them.

The first harvest came in 1896. In 1900, Georgian tea from Chakvi won a gold medal at the Paris World’s Fair.

But there is a continuation to this story that is warmer than any medal.

Tea’s journey always ends at a table, rather than at a factory.

Fresh leaves become a drink, and the drink becomes a reason to invite guests, set out the cups and say:

Gamarjoba. Sit down, let’s have tea.

Today, more than a hundred years later, this story continues in small family tea gardens, part of the legacy of the post-Soviet mechanized industry, and at small, reviving producers where tea is picked by hand and brewed for the people sitting nearby.