By Zia Pia
The flavorful tea blends from Florence’s La Via del Tè arrive in the US for the first time, thanks to boutique Italian foods importer, Zia Pia. The multi-generational, family-owned company creates beautiful, fragrant teas from their private workshop in Florence and has several beautiful retail locations throughout Italy. Every aspect of production, from selecting and importing the best tea harvests from China, Japan, India, and beyond, to creating the brand’s unique blends, is carried out with the beauty and precision of Tuscany’s artisanal tradition.
When Alfredo Carrai founded La Via del Tè in 1961, the world of tea was mostly unknown in Italy. As his fascination with tea and the culture surrounding it grew, his adventures sent him to China in search of fine teas from Yunnan to India for negotiations with Darjeeling plantations, to Japan, where he tried his first Gyokuro. Sixty years later, the company is carried on by Alfredo and his wife Lalla, together with their children and grandchildren. Their teas are blended and packaged in Florence, Italy. They have eliminated all plastic from their packaging, using only recyclable paper and aluminum tins, and their tea bags are 100% biodegradable.
Zia Pia is a boutique importer specializing in fine, authentic, regional Italian foods from non-industrial, family-owned producers. Founder and owner Victoria Custodi, who is half Italian, has long appreciated La Via del Tè’s products, and is thrilled to be the first to distribute them in the US.
There are currently two La Via del Tè collections available via Zia Pia: the Firenze collection, a tribute to Florence’s art, personalities, food, and legends of the Renaissance, and the Le Signore delle Camelie collection, which celebrates women who have marked their era, swimming against the tide. Il Sogno di Michelangelo is an oolong tea from the Firenze collection, inspired by Michelangeo’s David, and features flavors of sweet chestnut and cream. Emma is a black tea from the Signore delle Camelie collection, a tribute to Emma Hamilton who married into the aristocracy but insisted on living by her own rules, and is flavored with lemon, ginger, and lychee.
Explore their loose leaf teas in beautiful tins, their individually-wrapped tea bags, or their exquisitely packaged gift sets on Zia Pia’s website: www.ziapia.com
