About Teafy
Teafy is a Melbourne tea company that is the largest shareholder in the Shizuoka farm its tea comes from, grades and blends in house, tests every batch in Victoria, and packs from a cool room in Clayton South. More than 600 cafés pour it.
Shaded rows before the spring harvestFarm to kitchen
Six steps, one chain, nothing outsourced that we cannot see.
The farm
The family has farmed this part of Shizuoka since the 1800s. In 2021 Teafy bought into the farm and is now its largest shareholder, which is why the leaf is grown to our standard and not bought from a broker. No synthetic pesticides or fertilisers, weeds pulled by hand, pest pressure managed by intercropping, and every batch handled in a facility that works only with organic tea.
What we actually do
Sencha steam testing
Asamushi, chumushi or fukamushi is decided in the cup, not on paper. Each lot is brewed side by side at set weights and temperatures and judged on clarity, body and finish before it goes anywhere near a pack. The depth we land on is what you see on the label.
Quality control
Every matcha batch is checked for colour, grind, aroma, foam and taste against a reference sample kept in the cool room, the method Chris learned under a fifth generation tea master. Anything that drifts is held back. The loose leaf gets the same treatment: leaf shape, moisture, roast level and the cup.
In house blending
Genmaicha is built from the farm's sencha and roasted rice from Kagoshima and Miyazaki at a ratio we set. Hojicha is roasted stem forward to the level we want. The culinary matcha is blended across three regions for a cup that holds in milk. Nobody sells us a finished blend to relabel.
Packaging
Both carry an aluminium liner that keeps light and air out, and both are fully recyclable. The can is airtight for the bench. The pouch holds the same tea for a little less and uses less material, which is why regulars move to five pouch refills. Filling and sealing is done by machine, on a continuous band sealer, so no hand touches the tea. Some teas are sealed at the mill in Japan, the rest at Clayton South. People only pack the sealed pouches into cartons.
Clayton South, Victoria
Clayton South is Teafy's manufacturing facility. It already runs the cold chain: every batch frozen at minus 22 degrees on arrival, brought up to 0 to 4 degrees before packing, out the door the day it ships. An ISO 9001 certified clean room is being built on the same site with state of the art machinery, so tea is blended and packed with no human touch from the hopper to the sealed pouch. A new warehouse goes up alongside it. Once construction is complete the facility is to be certified for organic packing in Australia, so the tea stays under one organic chain from the farm to your door.
The cool room. Construction photos follow as the build progresses.Certified and tested
Organic certification on the farm in four jurisdictions, and an ISO 17025 laboratory in Victoria on every batch for lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury. The full report, per tea, lives on the testing page so you only read it once.
See the latest resultsThe people
Founder
Chris's first tea was bought from China and Sri Lanka in 2012 and put on Gumtree. Nobody wanted it, and 10 kilograms ended up given away. He then trained under a fifth generation tea master and national champion in Kyoto, learning tea from the ground up, and stayed on to help run the business and look after its foreign clients. Short courses at Makaibari tea estate in Darjeeling covered black tea, rolling and processing in depth. Tea Space opened in Kollam, Kerala in 2019 and its direct export to the United States failed at a severe loss. He went back to Japan, took a stake in the company, rebranded it as Teafy while he was there, and Teafy Australia launched in 2022. The failures are why the quality control is strict.
Chris's profile
The Teafy team
The team runs the cool room and the sealing line, grades and blends, cartons the sealed pouches and packs every order, answers the phone on weekdays from 9.30 am to 5.30 pm Melbourne time, and trains the cafés that serve Teafy. Tea questions get answered by people who drink it.
Timeline
Check us
Every claim on this page can be checked somewhere we do not control.
Questions we get asked
Teafy is the largest shareholder in a sixth generation family farm in Shizuoka, Japan, and has held a stake since 2021. The family runs the farm. Teafy sets the standard for its own leaf and works with them on every harvest.
Yes. The farm and its processing are certified JAS Organic in Japan, EU Organic, USDA Organic, Canada Organic and UK Organic. No synthetic pesticides or fertilisers at any stage.
Every batch goes to Agrifood Technology in Werribee, Victoria, an ISO 17025 accredited laboratory, for lead, arsenic, cadmium and mercury. The latest results are on the testing guide, linked below.
Some teas are packed at the mill in Japan and shipped sealed. The rest are packed at our facility in Clayton South, Victoria, where every batch is frozen at minus 22 degrees on arrival, brought up to 0 to 4 degrees before packing, and leaves the cold the day it ships.
Founder Chris Pillai, who trained under a fifth generation tea master and national champion in Kyoto and helped run that business and its overseas clients, and a team in Clayton South, Victoria, that grades, blends, packs and answers the phone.
Uji, Kyoto, sourced separately from the Shizuoka farm and milled to the same standard. The culinary matcha is blended from three organic farms in Shizuoka, Kagoshima and Miyazaki.
Taste it