Meet your local tea supplier, Pure Tea (Perth, Bibra Lake).
Pure Tea is a small tea supplier located in Perth, supplying to many popular cafes in WA, as well as tea lovers Australia-wide.
Pure Tea (@puretea_australia) has been offering its high-grade and ethically sourced products for 10 years now. Their education, transparency and passion for tea goes above and beyond. When you sit down to have a chat with the owners Brad and Fleur, it’s impressive the knowledge they hold. Ultimately, for the husband and wife duo, it’s about curating a product that’s of utmost quality and at an affordable price whilst respecting the environment, the farmers and you, the drinker.
Taking a sip of Pure Tea, you can experience Brad and Fleur’s devotion firsthand. There are only natural and real ingredients blended together with fresh and healthy tea leaves.
Pure Tea offers a thoughtful selection of teas, designed to appeal to various taste preferences. There are green and black teas, floral blends, iced tea options as well as tisanes. They can be purchased either as loose-leaf tea or, in biodegradable tea bags.
We meet with Pure Tea curators Brad and Fleur to uncover the beauty behind each tea they supply.
How is Pure Tea different from other tea suppliers?
“Each tea we offer has been carefully and thoughtfully selected, tested and blended. Every single tea offers not only a great flavour experience but, a story that considers where it’s been sourced, the process the leaves have gone through and the person that will be enjoying that end brew. It’s this connection with the product that differentiates Pure Tea from more massproduced businesses” (Brad).
“Tea is a personal experience. Often, it’s the first beverage drunk in the morning, it’s the pick-me-up at noon or the way to unwind in the evening. Tea often accompanies the drinker at moments of peace. Because of this, we find it even more important to make sure each product is designed to hold and look after the drinker. A cup of Pure Tea offers not only a delicious experience but one that creates a moment” (Fleur).
Where do you source your tea leaves from?
“Our tea leaves come from a selection of countries and farms depending on what kind of leaf we’re looking for. For example, most of our green tea leaves are organic and come from China. China is renowned for producing incredible white and green tea leaves. The country has a long history growing and producing green tea at a very high quality, so the farms are great to work with and the leaves are always delicious” (Brad).
“Sri-Lanka is another country we work closely with to source our tea leaves from. When we visited in 2015 we saw the stunning area in person, it was breathtaking. So much lush greenery with elevated land. Most of our black teas come from Sri Lanka, from a farm that prides itself in worker relations, ensuring their workforce has a good standard of living and proactive health and safety regime.” (Fleur).
How do you select your tea leaves?
“This is both a fun and timely process. There are so many choices on where to purchase tea from, with farms that come in many shapes and sizes. We like to work as closely as possible to our supply chain, which lengthens the process, however, definitely makes it worth it” (Brad).
“When choosing tea farms to work with, it’s crucial you’ve done your research, you form good relationships and you’re interested in the entire process from the tea bud to the cup. When we choose our tea leaves, we consider 3 main points:
1. The quality of the tea leaves.
This considers a long list of factors but to put it simply – we analyse the climate, terrain and expertise of the particular region, the farm’s processes, the freshness when the tea leaves arrive and the flavour experience when the leaves are brewed. There’s a lot of steps involved in growing, processing and producing tea, we want to make sure that the tea leaves we choose have been treated with care every step of the way.
2. The ethos of the farm.
We consider the working conditions of the farmers, their practices, and the farm’s ethics and treatment of the land. Sometimes farms can be ambiguous in their operations. When operations are grey, we choose organic teas and tisanes to ensure certified high standards. For example, Egypt can be difficult to obtain transparency with therefor, we only select organic when working with that origin.
We don’t select organic teas for all of our teas. This is because many farms uphold organic farming, however, don’t have the industry recognised USDA-accredited certification because it’s very expensive. This is a bit of a problem in the industry that has caused much debate between the farm owners and their government regulations.
3. The experience for the customer.
For our tea blends, we consider which flavours will work well together. We blend together a selection of different teas and then do a blind taste test. We have some very talented people in our team who have certifications on identifying taste, aroma and quality for beverages. We all taste the teas, write down our notes and then share at the end. This is definitely a fun and delicious step in the tea process” (Fleur).
“When you break down the tea process, there’s certainly a lot of work that goes into it. But, when you’re passionate about the product you’re creating, it’s the most exciting part” (Brad).
What are the main Pure Tea teas?
“We have 12 teas that we offer all year through. We also have limited edition teas that we put together for special events such as Christmas” (Fleur).
“We’re currently working on adding a few more teas to our family. We’ll be doing the second round of tasting shortly to perfect the ratios. We won’t reveal what they are just yet… but you can expect to see them on our website in the next month” (Brad).
What are the most popular loose-leaf teas you supply?
“We find that favourites differ between people. Whilst many will stick to the classics such as English Breakfast or Gunpowder Green. Others, will enjoy the more floral blends such as Morning Dew or, something more fruity such as Passionfruit and Orange or, Chamomile, Apple and Cinnamon. Each tea holds an important place in our business with a strong following of customers after that particular flavour experience” (Fleur).
“I do love Passionfruit and Orange though, that’s got to be up there for me” (Brad).
Are there any exciting plans coming up?
“We have some very exciting news coming out for Christmas! We’ll be releasing a range of limited-edition teas, perfect as gifts for Christmas. There will be teas designed for both warm brews and iced teas so they can be drunk all the way through the Australian Summer” (Fleur).
“We’ve also been working with an amazing Melbourne artist Octavia Tomyn to create a line of gifts and sustainable packaging options to be paired with your chosen teas. Octavia has created an incredible piece of work just for us, which embraces well-being and self care through the calming act of enjoying tea. Something I think we all need during the hectic-ness of Christmas” (Brad).
