ABOUT US

The Founder

Spilled Tea was founded by Yasuko, who grew up as the daughter of a dietitian in Osaka, Japan. Her family lived by the belief that food is medicine — minimally processed, honestly sourced, and eaten with intention. Tea was never just a drink. It was a daily ritual, a cultural inheritance, a quiet act of care for herself and the people around her.

When Yasuko moved to the United States at 17, she found that the Japanese teas available here were a far cry from what she knew at home. Most were blended from anonymous sources, stripped of origin, and sold without any transparency about how or where they were grown. She knew she could do better.

So she went back to Japan — not to import tea, but to find the people growing it. She traveled to estates across the country, sat with farmers, learned their practices, and tasted tea in the fields where it was grown. She brought cases home. Her friends asked where they could get it. Spilled Tea was born.

Organic

We carry only organic tea because we believe what goes into your body matters — and you deserve to know exactly what that is. All of our teas are grown without synthetic pesticides, herbicides, or chemical fertilizers. That's better for your health, better for the farmers tending the land, and better for the soil that will grow next year's harvest.

Single Origin

Most Japanese tea on the market is blended — a mix of leaves from multiple farms, selected for consistency and cost. Blending hides the source. We do the opposite.

Every tea we carry comes from a single estate, a single cultivar, and a single harvest. That means no two batches are identical — because no two harvests ever are. What you taste in the cup reflects a specific field, a specific season, and the hands of a specific farmer. That's not a limitation. That's the whole point.

The Farmer

We feature the name of every farmer on every product we sell, because we think you should know who grew your tea. We visit the farms. We stay in touch throughout the year — through the growing season, the harvest, and everything in between. When a farmer can tell us the exact field and date a tea was picked, we pass that on to you.

This isn't a supply chain. It's a relationship. And we think that's worth something.