Dhara is a woman born with tea. Her father escaped Mao, from Yunnan into Thailand and found that tea was growing all over these mountains in the forest. As a businessman, he acquired a large plot of land, and as a tea maker he started to produce tea in the same way as he was used to in Yunnan, which of course included clearing out the forest to make space for the tea plants. He also started to plant more tea plants around the area and grew his tea business. His best friend that he moved with from Yunnan made himself at home in Chiang Mai to sell the tea, and Dhara’s father was up in the mountains to produce it. 

In this environment, Dhara was born, with tea production all around her since her first steps. She learns from her father and eventually takes over the tea factory in the mountains. Our founder Kenneth met her in 2014 and fell in love with her teas. Kenneth started to collaborate with her to make new types of tea that would fit his brand’s requirements. Dhara also owned a big plot of land in the forest with tea where we started to source the tea leaves. After learning about the concept of Forest Friendly Tea Dhara stopped clearing more areas and started to let forest and biodiversity come back. Luckily, Thailand is a tropical area where nature can return quickly if it’s given an opportunity. It’s in this area we found and described a new species of insect last year that was named after Kenneth. 

We often use Dhara’s skills and knowledge when we want to make more high end teas, such as Dhara White and Dhara Artisanal Green and we hope to continue our collaboration of getting the highest quality tea at the same time as we are protecting biodiversity for many years to come.