Petr Sič is an international tea processing instructor, a tea scout for major companies, and the co-owner of a tea garden in Georgia, where he works with his partner to craft small-batch specialty teas. His work takes him from remote mountain villages to forgotten tea factories, always looking for new producers and new possibilities.
We first met Petr online, in a tea forum discussion about oxidation and fermentation. His posts stood out: clear and grounded in real experience, combined with deep knowledge of theory. Petr has spent years studying tea, making it, teaching it, and guiding others into the reality of tea production.
One of the regions where he has invested time and energy is Georgia. Today, when people think of tea-producing countries, Georgia isn't usually at the top of the list. But Petr saw both history and opportunity there. His involvement has grown from trading tea to restoring overgrown gardens, setting up a tea project, and introducing both locals and visitors to the full range of what Georgian tea can be.
We've asked Petr to share his own story of how he became involved in Georgia's tea industry – its people, challenges, and unexpected turns. It's a mix of history, travelogue, and firsthand insight into a tea culture in transition.
Welcome to Georgia!
Who would think to put tea into used wine amphorae for fermentation? – Welcome to Georgia!
"If you had extended that final roast a bit, you'd bring out the caramel in the aftertaste. That would really be something," says Tomáš about my tea after completing the workshop. That's when I realized that once people understand tea from a production perspective, I can offer them a whole new level of insight. It opens unexpected dimensions in how they approach tasting, their inner experience, and their relationship with tea itself. It even lets them "read" the signature of the tea producer, and that's a real thrill. Recognizing flavors and structure, then putting them into words, is a big step beyond the simple "I like it / I don't like it." With this shift, I invite participants into the "kitchen." I only launched these hands-on courses last year, but let's start from the beginning.
Fifteen years ago, I first came to Georgia to trade tea. The country was in recession: cows wandered through abandoned halls with collapsed roofs, vast tea gardens had become overgrown, and rail lines led to nowhere after once serving huge cooperatives. You could feel the past in everyone's mindset. When I asked locals about tea, I often heard, "Young man, we used to send thirty trucks of tea from here every day. But now no one makes tea." The few factories still operating focused solely on quantity and cheap tea.
A secretary led me down a cold corridor with flickering lights into a boardroom. A large, sturdy table sat there, with the director at the head. That table probably remembers times when shift supervisors squeezed in side by side. Today, all the employees could fit comfortably, with half the chairs empty. I said, "I've tried your tea; I'm interested in that large-leaf black tea and would like twenty." The director's eyes lit up: "Twenty wagons?" It took me a moment: "No." "Twenty tons?" he asked, less enthusiastically. "Um, twenty kilos," I clarified, ruining his excitement. He stood, poured himself a brandy, and knocked it back. "The secretary will handle the details with you." For a moment, I realized, he saw me as an angel, a savior he'd been waiting for ten years. A Westerner who'd wander in, buy the entire year's production… and bring back the good old days! (Kobuleti, June 15, 2010)
That fertile strip, squeezed by the Caucasus Mountains to the north and south, is ideal for tea. The sea softens harsh winters; the subtropical climate favors warm temperatures; the mountains trap rain clouds, releasing steady precipitation. The slightly acidic soil pH suits Camellia plants, including the tea bush. So it's no surprise that although the tea plant arrived only in the 1850s under the tsar, by the 1980s, this region was the Eastern Bloc's tea garden. What the tsar planted, the soviets multiplied. From scattered gardens around Batumi in the 1920s, by the 1980s, a monoculture stretched from the Turkish border up to Svaneti. Georgia produced a quarter of India's tea and regularly ranked among the world's top five producers. Many still remember the tin of quality black tea that carried the reputation of Georgian tea. [Note from Misha: As someone who grew up in the USSR, Georgian tea was never considered a high-quality tea. We remember Georgian tea mainly for being basic tea, often the only tea available in soviet stores].
But the fall of the Soviet Union dealt a plague blow to the tea industry. Trade ties snapped, major markets passed to India and China, and agile international retailers squeezed local producers out. Within three years, exports plunged by 95%. Overgrown gardens, crumbling factories, disappearing tea villages, and unemployment rates of 70–80%, with only a few factories exporting cheap tea to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
"Ours is the best!"
Cultural attitudes also held progress back. In Ozurgeti's largest plant (second in Georgia at the time), ten samples of black tea lay before me, each differing only in leaf size. When I tasted them, I could hardly tell them apart. I pulled out world-tea samples from my backpack to illustrate the differences: "This Darjeeling has a nice fruitiness. And this one from Korea. Do you taste the chocolate?" The head technologist brushed aside my leaves: "Pfft, they don't even ferment properly. Look how pale the Darjeeling is. And Koreans make tea? Interesting, but they over-bake it." He turned proudly to the director: "Ours is the best." I tried to explain that customers now prefer fruity notes over heavy teas, but tensions flared. "Ours is the best!" the technologist insisted, and the director ended the discussion: "Ours is the best." I'd seen the same reaction in Chakvi four days earlier and in Tkibuli two days before that. (Ozurgeti, May 23, 2014)
That rigid attitude isn't unique to Georgia. Two years later, I encountered the same mantra among tribes in Kenya and with the Hmong in Vietnam: "Ours is the best!". Once a method of making tea works, people cling to it, even as the world moves on.
A few years later, as security and regulations improved, Georgia became attractive to investors: cheap land, an available and inexpensive workforce, and proximity to European markets. Foreign capital flowed in, and it's these innovative new projects, unburdened by old thinking, that are lifting Georgian tea again. They build on existing structures while tapping attractive markets.
Renegate Tea Estate is one such example. In 2018, I visited their farm above Kutaisi, run by young managers from Lithuania and Estonia. They'd optioned 20 hectares of overgrown gardens and a half-built factory – "crazy", I thought, "given the time and cost of fencing in the free-roaming cows!". Yet they launched a witty crowdfunding campaign to win both funds and future customers. They bypassed the traditional producer-wholesaler-retailer-consumer chain and went direct to consumer. Customers embraced them as a "love brand," even buying experimental batches. Unlike most, they don't stick to black tea but offer a full "Chinese" palette: white, green, oolong, and black, and they keep customers engaged, inviting them to adopt a tea bush or subscribe.
From farther afield came "Green Gold", backed by Moscow tea clubs. After the 1990s economic collapse, many Georgians migrated for work to Russia, establishing connections there. Thanks to such connections, Moscow tea enthusiasts would come to Georgia, rent local factories for a few weeks, buy up leaves, and apply world-tea techniques with fearless creativity. With them, I first saw tea fermented in wine amphorae: yeast-soaked walls plus the amphora's shape impart a unique flavor.
It's a method that, for Georgians, who are making wine in buried qvevri amphorae, should be right at the surface, yet Georgian tea technologists never even thought in this direction. Only a handful of older technologists can part with the "Ours is the best" kind of attitude. Last year, "Palais des Thés" bought nearby gardens, and investor interest remains high, even as this window closes.
Our Tea Footprint in Georgia
In 2017, I launched "Sičaj – Shared Tea Garden" in the village of Kvenobani with my Georgian partner Avto, who had been selling cheap tea eastward. Buying land "the Georgian way" meant surprises. At the notary: "Did you know this plot is entangled in inheritance proceedings?". "How long does it take to resolve it?" I asked. "Maybe two months, maybe three." "I can wait three months," I said. "Maybe two years, maybe three," she replied. I walked away.
On the way home, a storm knocked out the village transformer. "Avto, no power means no water. What do we drink?" "Relax, Petr: five liters of water, five liters of compote, twenty liters of homemade wine, and twenty liters of chacha." Chacha, a local brandy at 60%, opened more than one metaphorical window for me. Over the next two days, I examined whether it's better to brush your teeth with wine or with chacha and met half the village who kept the party going. That's how I learned of a plot by the main road, and before the lights came back on, we signed a deal. (Kvenobani, January 2017)
We cleared scrub, planted bushes, and we still battle with blackberry vines. Crowdfunding helped early on, but lasting change required a strong partner: UNDP development funds. Without them, I'm not sure how we'd have survived COVID, let alone buying new machines and innovating our processing.
It took time to launch specialty teas. Breaking "Ours is the best" meant changing long-standing work habits. "Mamuko, where are you?" I called the new manager three days after he started. "A relative died. I must attend the funeral." The next day was the same. On Friday, I found him painting a fence. "I'll finish and come to the garden," he said. (Kvenobani, June 5, 2018) In this region, thirty years of subsistence farming meant people only worked for cash when they needed a dentist. It's hard to ask them for an eight-hour day when they "get by" on their own.
Despite all the troubles, the Garden became an experimental space, a laboratory, and an incubator for ideas. In 2019, with friends from the Czech "Teatenders", we created "Tea Spirit", a liqueur marrying Chilean pisco, our tea, and Czech honey. Months of maceration lent color and tannins to the distillate, giving it barrel-aged depth. Grape sweetness and floral tea notes harmonized with honey, balancing the astringency. It deserves a moment of attention.
During COVID, we added white, green, and experimental oolong teas and started packaging teas for hotels and resorts in Batumi. But what I cherish most are the tea courses. A week-long workshop lets participants harvest in the morning, process at noon, and explore mountains or the sea in the evenings. Few know that black, green, and white teas all come from the same bush, and the difference lies in processing. Withering turns grassy leaves into herbal notes, then meadow aromas, then fruitiness; oxidation brings fruit intensity, and final roasting brings chocolate tones. Hands-on experience lets you reverse-engineer these steps in any tea, opening a new dimension of tasting.
The doors of "Sičaj – Shared Tea Garden" are open to every curious gourmet. Georgian tea offers endless possibilities. Organically grown with unforgettable stories behind them, each season brings unexpected flavors thanks to a young generation of innovators. It's long been more than just black tea. The palette and diversity are expanding, and I can't wait to see what surprises the next season will bring.