Les Jardins de Gaïa is participating in Tea Studio, a visionary project in the world of tea

Creating a custom Mao Feng, Bai Mu Dan, Kukicha, or even Sheng Pu-erh tea that closely matches one’s vision is undoubtedly the dream of every tea house.

For many years, this idea lingered in the back of our minds. It was a sometimes frustrating ambition: the inability to fully realize a vision while relying solely on teas already available on the market.

Our meeting with Kevin Gascoyne, founder of the Quebec-based tea house Camellia Sinensis, during a trip to India on the tea route, marked a turning point. Through the Tea Studio project, he offered us the exceptional opportunity to participate in a unique adventure: becoming active participants in the creation of our own organic teas.

By joining this project in 2023 alongside passionate and committed partners, we have taken a major step forward. We can now design teas from their very origins, envision their flavor profiles, select processing methods, and build a range that is freer, more demanding, and more faithful to our vision of organic tea.

This adventure comes to life in the Nilgiri Mountains, in southern India. A terroir that resonates with our history, since it was in India, over thirty years ago, that a producer from the Selimbong tea garden in Darjeeling allowed us to offer some of the first organic teas in France.

A Tea Studio in the heart of the unspoiled Nilgiri Mountains

Opened in 2017, the Tea Studio’s micro-factory is located at an altitude of 1,850 meters in the Nilgiri Mountains, a mountainous region in southern India also known as the “Blue Mountains.”

Surrounding the building, small organic tea gardens stretch across the surrounding slopes. These plots, often less than half a hectare in size, belong to families who have been growing tea for several generations, far from large industrial plantations.

The environment is exceptionally well-preserved. The absence of industry, low human impact, abundant biodiversity, fertile soils, and a tropical high-altitude climate provide ideal conditions for producing teas of great aromatic richness.

The Tea Studio itself was designed with sustainability in mind. Part of the energy used comes from solar power, and another part from liquefied gas to limit air pollution, and the facilities blend harmoniously into their natural surroundings.

Because a great tea is born, above all, from a great terroir. Every tea leaf produced here bears the imprint of this unique landscape, its altitude, and its preserved ecosystem where local wildlife can truly thrive.

Creating bespoke teas: a collective and international endeavor

The Tea Studio is first and foremost a place of creation and experimentation within a shared international project that brings together Muskan Khanna, CEO of the Tea Studio; her father Indi Khanna, a tea expert and CEO of “Tea’n’Teas”; the Quebec-based tea house “Camellia Sinensis”; the Czech tea house “Oxalis,” and Les Jardins de Gaïa. Each tea is the result of research, collaboration, and sometimes multiple trials.

The leaves are selected from small local producers, then processed according to a shared and well-defined vision in a spirit of collaboration and under the guidance of various tea experts. Professionals from three different continents contribute their perspectives, expertise, and, of course, their own passion. We compare approaches, refine our choices, and learn from one another.

It is this collective richness that allows us today to create unique teas, capable of capturing the distinctive profiles of their regions of origin while asserting their own distinct identity.

Behind every creation lies precision, experimentation, and a genuine passion for tea, shared by many.

A new way of producing organic tea

What we are building with the Tea Studio’s micro-factory goes far beyond the production of new teas.

It is a different way of thinking about our craft and finally engaging as a tea producer, knowing the origin of every tea leaf produced, all within a respected environment, alongside people who share our core values.

It is also a deeply human adventure, built on encounters, shared strengths, and mutual commitments, at the crossroads of several tea cultures.

In the years to come, this adventure will allow Les Jardins de Gaïa to go further. Always with the intention of offering organic teas that are demanding, but above all, sincere. Teas crafted with care, in a sustainably designed setting, brought to life by those who make them, and capable of conveying that special something from their origin with every sip.

And this is just the beginning…