About

FIVE MOUNTAINS are San Francisco-based tea importers, specializing in authentic, traditional organic teas and original teaware design.

Origins:
The original tea mountains stood in the mist of ancient Southeast Asia, prehistoric tea forests stretching across river valleys from mountains to lowlands. As temples began to thrive here, monastics embraced tea and found that its nature, taste and medicinal effects harmonized with their lifestyle. They soon became legendary for growing and crafting tea, and promoting tea culture from their mountain hermitages and on long sojourns.

Living in Asia’s mountain monasteries was our first taste of this sacred tea tradition. As monks, drinking tea became an integral part of our lives. The great appreciation we gained for this remarkable craft during our years of study and practice developed into close relationships with tea farmers, artisans, monks, scholars and other specialists in the tea tradition. In the early 1990's the idea for a liaison to the West was first conceived to provide heirloom tea to those living outside of Asia. The common goal is to share our pure, authentic tea and evolving teaware designs so that more people will appreciate the health and enjoyment they bring. We offer our accumulated knowledge to enlighten the tea novice and enthusiast alike.

Internationally Certified Organic:
Five Mountains’ whole leaf teas are certified organic in the USA, the EU and Japan. The teas are virgin rainforest heirloom varietals, biodiversely grown and sustainably harvested from the oldest tea-producing mountains in the world, along the legendary 30-degree parallel in the heart of Southeast Asia. They are renowned for their distinctive flavors and heightened health benefits resulting from their broader limbs, deeper-reaching roots and fertile, native soil. The teas are hand harvested, crafted with ultra-traditional techniques and vacuum-sealed at the source, maximizing freshness, so they may fully express the nuanced characteristics of their terroir.

Greenest Tea Company on Earth:
Environmental sustainability is a very serious priority for us. We're very proud to have co-created and be the first company to use 100% biodegradable and home-compostable sustainable wood pulp whole leaf tea packaging. Fine teas require delicate eco-systems to yield their legendary qualities. An eco-friendly company is the only solution. Our tea-ware is packed with minimal, recyclable and biodegradable materials. Our design studio and North American warehouse are ideally located in California’s Bay Area, only miles from rail, air and seaports. This allows us to ship directly from where our tea arrives, thereby reducing greenhouse gasses and simultaneously preserve the tea’s freshness. Our organic teas are sustainably grown and harvested in biodiverse virgin rainforests with the strictest ecological regenerative forestry practices. Using traditional biodiverse growing methods helps preserve over 10,000 acres of Southeast Asian rainforest, whose trees act as nature’s “carbon sink.” Drinking Five Mountains tea directly offsets existing carbon emissions, reducing your personal carbon footprint.