Dan Bolton
Founder | Publisher | Podcast Host
A veteran publishing executive and consultant, Dan frequently speaks at industry seminars and conferences. He is a regular contributor whose work is featured in STiR Coffee and Tea. He edits the Tea Biz Blog and hosts the weekly Tea Biz Podcast. He previously worked as managing editor of STiR. In 2010, he was named editor and publisher at World Tea News. Dan is the former editor/publisher of Tea Magazine, the former editor-in-chief of Specialty Coffee Retailer, and a co-founder and editor of Natural Food magazine. Dan has been a magazine executive since 1995 and previously worked as a newspaper reporter and editor for 20 years. He lives in Winnipeg, Canada. | Muck Rack Portfolio | See short bio | See full resume
Aravinda Anantharaman
Partner | Editor
Nan Cui
Partner | Associate Publisher
An experienced cultural consultant, Nan co-founded Tea & Chan Commune, a private traditional tea and meditation club in Beijing. He is the former Deputy Director of Marketing for the Americas and Europe of the China National Tourism Administration. See full bio
Si Chen
Partner | Senior Editor | China
Si is a certified tea sommelier (Canada) and tea artist (China) and contributes to tea research, particularly related to Chinese tea origins, offering consultation to Chinese tea businesses. Si is a philosophy graduate specializing in Philosophy of Mind. See full bio
Ellen Kanner
Content Strategy & Design
Ellen and her husband, Ray Marcotte, owned and operated the Dobrá Tea teahouse in Portland, Maine, for 12 years before switching to online tea purveyors at Teafarers.com. She feels fortunate to couple her design, photography, web development, and video experience with her love of tea in working with Tea Journey. She is a loose-leaf tea enthusiast and has traveled to Origin.
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Kevin Gascoyne
Partner | Tea Journey Taster
British taster Kevin Gascoyne was weaned on tea and has been buying it in Asia since 1989. Since 1993, every Spring has found him up in the Himalayas, obsessively sourcing the finest seasonal leaves of the region. In Canada, he co-owns, runs, and shop-keeps the award-winning Camellia Sinensis teahouses and Tea Schools of Montréal and Québec City. He and his fellow tasters travel to the tea gardens of Asia every year to source their internationally renowned catalog of rare and collectibles. www.camellia-sinensis.com . He is also a founding partner of the Tea Studio project in Nilgiri, India.
Kevin, having written for publications all over the World, still pops up in various publications and has co-authored a couple of prize-winning tea books, including ‘Tea, History, Terroirs, Varieties’ voted World’s Best Tea Book 2014 by the industry at the World Tea Awards and published in 5 languages. He is a founding partner of Tea Journey magazine.
Frank Miller
Advisor/Tea Journey Taster
Frank is a pioneer in specialty tea retail who established the Teahouse Kuan Yin and the Blue Willow Tea Company in 1989. He worked as an importer, blender, package designer, marketing retailer, and wholesale, in fact, in every sector of the tea industry except planting manufacture.
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John Smagula
Contributor
John is the Assistant Dean for Graduate and International Programs at Temple University School of Law in Philadelphia. He is a certified tea specialist in the United States and China. Prior to his work with Temple, John taught at Tsinghua, Zhongshan, and Sichuan University law schools, and he worked in the corporate law practice of the New York and Hong Kong offices of Paul Weiss. He earned a B.A. in International Relations in 1992 from Pomona College, a J.D. in 1995 from Washington University in St. Louis School of Law, and an M.S. in Education (focusing on Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) in 2007 from Temple. See full bio
Keith Hutjens
Contributor
Keith Hutjens is the retired director of tea procurement for Starbucks. He now works as a consultant, photographer, and writer. Hutjens lives in Switzerland and spends much of his time traveling continental traveling. During his 13 years at Starbucks, he managed a global tea sourcing department responsible for procuring tea and botanicals for 22,000 retail stores in 65 countries for the company’s $1.3 billion tea business. His work included formulating strategies to allow for cost improvements, quality enhancements, and supply chain integrity for raw materials and support for R&D on all tea products, including input on new recipes, flavor profile descriptions, and quality specifications.
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Horacio Bustos
Contributor
Horacio is the director of Gyokuro Circulo Argentino de Té, where the careers of Tea Sommelier, Tea Master, and Water Workshop are studied. The Tea School is officially recognized as an organization promoting cultural interest by the Ministry of Culture of the Argentine Nation and by the state of Obera, Misiones. Horacio has been an Honorary Member of the Circle of Water Tasters (Hidrocatadores) of the European Tasters of Waters since 2012. In June 2017, he was appointed a member of the Associazione Degustatori Acque Minerali.
James Norwood Pratt
Contributor | Advisor
James Norwood Pratt is widely acknowledged as an instigator and prophet of America’s present tea renaissance. The Ultimate Tea Lover’s Treasury remains the most comprehensive compendium on tea in English.
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Suzette Hammond
Education Director
With over a decade of tea education experience, Suzette is now an independent Executive Consultant on tea programs and training. She works with both private companies and industry trade groups in America and Europe.
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Austin Hodge
Contributor | Advisor
Austin Hodge owns Seven Cups Fine Chinese Teas based in Tucson, Arizona. He is a Chinese government liaison with experience in e-commerce, retail/wholesale, and databases. As the first American to be published in the Chinese International Tea Culture Institute’s Journal, he served two terms as the Honorary Director of the Chinese International Tea Culture Institute. See full bio
Jeff Fuchs
Contributor | Taster
Award-winning Himalayan explorer Fuchs has traced some of the most remote tea routes on the planet, tracing teas back to their original sources and original caretakers. He also acts as procurer and co-founder of JalamTeas, which promotes hand-sourcing Puerhs in southern Yunnan. See full bio
Tony Gebely
Advisor
Tony founded Tea Epicure, a global producer-focused tea assessment platform. He has built a strong presence in the tea world, has consulted on many tea projects, and helped spread tea culture with his tea tastings and writings. See full bio
Nathalia Leter
Contributor
Tea sommelier, blogger, and vocal performer, gathering in my background many sorts of body studies and experiences with arts and somatic techniques. Apart from tea courses and tasting sessions, I’ve been designing multi-sensory food and tea esthetic experiences in an attempt to develop our tea culture… Creating a suitable environment for a poetic introduction to the tea world, thus opening minds and palates for fine teas. We are working on multidisciplinary things here in Brazil, thinking about sustainability, improvement of small producers, and food education. My website (www.saladecha.com) has some of the projects and events I’ve designed and promoted in partnership with great chefs, institutions, artists, and thinkers. See full bio
Dan Robertson
Contributing Editor | Taster
Founder and owner of the International Tea Cuppers Club, The Tea House, World Tea Tours, and Robertson Tea. He serves a variety of roles as an importer, wholesaler, blender, and purveyor of premium teas and accessories.
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Cynthia Gold
Contributing Editor
A central figure of “Tea Cuisine,” where she has been actively combining teas with food via pairings or within dishes for the last twelve years. Author of Culinary Tea and a new book on Tea Cocktails.
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Andrew McNeill
Contributor | Advisor | Taster
Andrew began working in tea in 2005. At Seven Cups Fine Chinese Teas, he serves a variety of roles, including operations management, quality assurance, copywriting, and translation.
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Jaq James
Contributor | Taster
Jaq is an Australian and co-founder at The Artisan Tea House who became a Chinese tea enthusiast after moving to Mount Wuyi, Fujian, in 2016. She was kindly taken under the wings of several lecturers of Wuyi University’s School of Tea Science for private tutorage. She has since traveled to different tea-producing provinces across China to learn more about Chinese tea culture. In 2018, she published a novella called The Found One about Mount Wuyi’s tea culture. She hopes to introduce many fellow Australians to the benefits of drinking fine teas.
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Ian Chun
Contributing Editor | Japan
Ian Chun is the founder of Yunomi. He believes that tea is a focal point of a lifestyle that enables the Japanese to live longer than anyone else in the world.
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Roopak Goswami
Contributor
Roopak lives in Assam, India, and worked the past 25 years as a newspaper journalist in Northeast India. He says that he is always on the lookout for something exciting and new. “I love my tea and look around for new wildlife species!!!” he says.
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Jennifer Sauer
Videographer
Jennifer Sauer has worked as a freelance photographer since 1990 and, more recently as a video producer. She is also the Author of the book The Way to Tea: Your Adventure Guide to San Francisco Tea Culture and the blog Bon Teavant on American tea culture.
François Marchand
Contributor | Taster
Québecois tea taster François Marchand has been in the tea business for almost 20 years. Specialist in some of the classic artisanal green teas of China, he spends every Spring in the central provinces selecting rare batches of green tea and the aged teas of Liu Bao.
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Shiuwen Tai
Contributor
Shiuwen was born and raised in Taiwan and steeped in tea culture from a very young age. Being separated from Taiwan by her many travels, she was inspired to re-discover her own roots, and as her love of tea grew, she and Rob began exploring the entire world of Chinese tea together. See full bio
Rita Fong
Contributor
Rita Fong has been a certified Tea Sommelier since 2009. She’s continued her tea studies through travels and tastings, readings, and festivals. She’s also certified in Digital Media Strategy, which she employs for various companies and festivals. She loves writing and photography and meeting tea people everywhere. She’s been an organizer of the Toronto Tea Festival since its inception and is on the board of the Tea Guild of Canada. See full bio
In Memorium
Peter Keen (Deceased)
Former Contributor
Peter passed in October 2021 at 79. His bylined articles remain some of the most valued. A senior professor at leading business and technology universities worldwide, including Harvard, MIT, Stanford, and Oxford. He authored 40 books and was a noted international consultant and public speaker. Tea writing and education were his avocations, with a focus on helping tea lovers find the teas that fit their personal tastes at the best value. He is strongly interested in the offbeat stories and social and cultural aspects of tea history. His latest book is Tea Tips. See full obituary