Jon Cooper spent a ton of his free time in local teahouses during his time at
Soon though, he wanted nothing more than to open his own tea shop right in Edinburgh.
He had an idea to import as many teas from sources as possible. Because of this, he hopped a plane to China in search of the perfect suppliers.
In December 2005 Chai Teahouse opened. It was Edinburgh's first teashop to have a range of directly imported
Moving Forward
In 2006, Chai Teahouse branched out and opened Edinburgh's first licensed teahouse.
This was a completely new concept at the time serving a wide range of loose teas and alcoholic drinks.
Chai Teahouse worked on pioneering alcoholic tea cocktails and cold tea infusions - something that has become more standard today.
In 2008, the tea market just could not handle what Chai Teahouse was offering so they closed their doors.
The Beginning of Pekoe Tea
They decided to regroup and rebrand as PekoeTea and started again with more focus on their range of teas, provenance, and quality.
They decided to sell at local markets and fairs and continued to do this for two years.
In 2010 they decided to try again and opened Pekoe Tea's first retail store in Leven Street, Edinburgh.
Because of their first experience with Chai Teahouse, they were really unsure of opening another dedicated tea shop in Edinburgh.
Because of this, they decided to run their wholesale and mail order from the store as well.
The office space was a small desk behind some shelving at the back and all the tea was stored in the basement.
Over the course of the next few years, their tea business began booming and their little shop could not contain it all.
They had to start importing more tea to satisfy demand so they decided to expand to a warehouse in Leith. To this day, they are still there, but because of how popular their business has grown, they are once again bursting at the seams with the possibility of expansion on the horizon.
Pekoe Tea is still booming to this day with more exciting things on the horizon! Pekoe Tea has gone from a small market stall and online order business to where they are today, importing teas directly from around the world and creating our own blends in-house.
Finally
To learn more about Pekoe Tea, be sure and visit their website. You can also follow along with them on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter, to keep up with all the new blends they will be creating over the year.
To see which teas we are featuring this month from Pekoe Teas, be sure and visit this post.
