Our history began nearly 10 years ago when Hadong County, South Korea became sister cities with Yakima, Washington. Few know Hadong County has been growing tea in “the Alps of Korea” for 1200 years. It is also a little-known that Yakima Valley Region produces roughly 75% of all U.S. grown hops.
At a 2019 “Sister City Summit” in Yakima, Washington, we were introduced to the efforts of John Segal (Segal Ranch) to create a unique hop breed that was low in alpha properties to reduce hops bitterness. The intent was to create a blend of hops favorable to tea drinkers. What we found was an under-discovered tea strain known as “Teamaker” and it is the base hops we use in all our hops tea blends.
In 2020, we created our first trial of Teamaker hops simply using packaged hops cones as most hops producers had attempted in the past. Then, we leveraged more traditional Korean methods for milling and fermenting tea that amplified tastes and presented a base for true hops tea blending.
In 2021, we delivered our first commercial release of our private “K-Tea” brand of 7 unique hops-based tea blends that represent our product line today but the traditions of 1200 years of experience.