Honoring connection through tea and craftsmanship

Tea has a beautiful way of bringing people together, inviting guests into our home, calming, and warming the heart. It has found its way into every corner of the world and infused itself in almost every culture. At Woven Roots, we have found tea to be unique in its ability to cultivate a connection with others, the self, and the natural world around us.

Our main focus with Woven Roots is the tea practice called Gong Fu Cha. It is a Chinese tea practice and art form dating back to the Sung Dynasty (960 – 1279 c.e). “Gong Fu” means the “skill achieved through hard work and dedication”, and “Cha” is Tea in Chinese. We view Gong Fu Cha as a path of craftsmanship, a dedicated practice to brew the best cup of tea we are capable of and craft a wonderful experience. We believe that brewing tea with this intention honors all of the generations of knowledge, craft, culture, and work that went into producing the tea we brew.

We are grateful to be working with a few carefully selected tea producers and curators who themselves are on a path of craftsmanship. These professionals have dedicated their careers and much of their lives to this beautiful world of tea. We also work with and look for skilled craftspeople in other mediums who make teaware like ceramics, metalworking, and woodworking, to name a few.

The spark for Woven Roots Teacrafts came from a piece of driftwood on the shores of Vashon Island, Washington. Our founder, Shawn, stumbled across it during the standstill of 2020, envisioning this piece of wood as a tea tray. With the help and encouragement of his brother, Shawn started down the path of woodworking. After moving back to Boulder, Colorado, he dove into this new vocation, focusing on making teaware from wood.

Shawn had been practicing Gong Fu Cha since 2013 but now on this new life path of craftsmanship, he strove to grow his knowledge and skills in the area of tea. Through many samples from dozens of tea companies, he honed in on a refined selection of people to source tea from who hold similar high standards for craftsmanship and building relationships through business.

The name “Woven Roots” describes a weaving together of different ideologies, traditions, philosophies, and artistic talent from all over the world. It also offers a simple descriptor for the Irish-Celtic Dara Knot (our symbol/logo), a representation of the roots of an Oak tree, one of the most revered trees to the ancient Celts. The interconnectedness of this Irish knot symbolizes our efforts to “honor connection through tea and craftsmanship”, building and strengthening our connections with people, nature, and our heart through tea.