Picker’s Pocket have re-focused tea production on quality over quantity.

Corporate tea companies have long commodified the market, choosing convenience over craft and setting difficult daily quotas for pickers and growers.

Cue Picker’s Pocket, who do good by doing different. Starting as a Sri Lanka focused travel company, they experienced first-hand the struggles of the tea growing community. So, during the global pandemic they pivoted their business focus.

They set about co-creating an equitable venture with the local community, delivering better conditions, better pay, better quality. Encouraging pickers to feel pride in their craft.
We developed a concept that heroes growers and pickers and delivers a premium loose-leaf tea drinking experience to Aotearoa.

Tea was once a shared experience — now it’s out of a mug with a teabag lamely thrown in. But one thing people are willing to slow down for is a good story, which is something every one of these teas facilitates.

We started with the name, inspired by an age-old practice where pickers select the finest ‘tips’ and carefully pocket them. Each day these tips are hand-pressed, brewed and shared (along with the day’s stories) with the people they care for the most.

Inspired by colours of the homes and textiles of their community, we set about telling a warm, vibrant story on each pack to welcome tea drinkers in and invoke a sense of pride for the pickers.

Packaging uses vegetable ink on certified forest friendly stock, with no use of plastic or glue. All packaging is recyclable or biodegradable. Beyond this, our plantations maximise opportunities for wind & sun to create natural drying rooms for the tea as opposed to large factories heavily reliant on power.

Sustainability from the source.