On a sunny autumn Friday we visited one of our most inspiring clients – Botanical. It’s a family run company with more than 25 years of experience in the herbs and spices production business. Today the company sells high-quality herbal teas both on Bulgarian market and abroad, including countries well known for their tea traditions like Japan and India. Yep, a Bulgarian company poduces and sells tea in Japan 🙂

Most of the people here in Bulgaria drink tea only in winter or when they’re sick. In fact tea can be consumed at any time and depending on the herbal mix the hot drink can help you a lot with fighting everyday stress. It’s not without reason that ancient Chinese say “better three days without food than one without tea”. In short, tea business is very interesting, and thanks to our client Botanical we’ve learned a lot about it.

To learn more come for a visit with us at Botanical’s head quarter in Cheshnegirovo village.

That story starts on a sunny autumn Friday when we head to the village of Cheshnegirovo. According to Wikipedia, it is one of the oldest villages in Sadovo municipality, founded in the second half of the 16th century. There’s the production base of Botanical. We’re warmly welcomed by the “Queen of flowers” itself and the incredible aroma of herbs.

Ilko Petrov, Botanical’s Manager, and his colleagues says the’re the first company in Bulgarian which makes tea entirely from rose petals. The product appeared to be very successful when first showed on a specialised fair in Poland some years ago. Botanical’s rose tea and (one of our favourites) the Chill Out one are Japan’s favourites despite the fact that the asian island is world famous with its teas like sencha and matcha.

While still greeting each other, we naturally direct our attention to the long shelves with lots of glass jars full of dried herbs, fruits and spices from all around the world. It’s essential that all names on the jars are in Latin so not to confuse any plant when translating it to other language, explains the main technologist of the company.

This aromatic  laboratory plays a major role in the company’s Private Label programme and in particular in the preparation of new tea mixes for various labels on the Bulgarian and foreign markets. Check out the success stories on their website, where you can read some of the tea brands stories created with the care, experience and quality ingredients of Botanical. While we were tasting some of Botanical’s best teas our hosts unveiled the challenges of this business what is a “Ferrari” tea and tea culture in different countries.

Much of the ingredients – herbs and dried fruits – come from Bulgaria, some of them are organic certified. Custom orders sometimes require the delivery of limited or special products such as ginger from Nigeria. Or a matcha tea from small family farm in Japan that is also among the favorites of the Emperor of the Land of the Rising Sun. For instance, a specific order they had required the import of a special tea paper made of 100% corn.

Saffron, one of the most expensive spice in the world.

Finishing the meeting we went back to Sofia full of inspiration by the new projects and challenges we were planning together. And do not forget to jump to Botanical online store for a dose of quality herbal tea.