Opening your own room — six-month founder cohort

How the cohort works

Opening a Chinese tea room is a deeply personal and practical undertaking. This six-month founder cohort is designed for members who are ready to move from intention to action — guided by senior tea expert Mei Yang and a network of working room owners. Over 26 weeks, you will move through every phase of tea room creation: clarifying your vision, securing a location, designing the space, curating the tea selection, building community, and finally welcoming your first guests.

The cohort blends structured weekly sessions with self-paced projects and peer feedback. Each week, you’ll gather for a live online session with Mei Yang, who brings decades of experience in oolong and black tea varieties from Guangdong. These sessions are complemented by one-on-one mentorship calls, where you can discuss your specific challenges. The group size is intentionally limited to eight seats to ensure deep, meaningful exchange.

You won’t be learning in isolation. Participants are granted full access to tea.community, where you can connect with over 200 room owners, tea masters, and enthusiasts — ask questions, share progress, and build relationships that last well beyond the cohort. Foundational tea knowledge is supported by tea.school, where you can deepen your understanding of tea types, brewing techniques, and traditions. For those who wish to study successful tea rooms in context, tea.travel offers recorded walks and interviews from tea spaces across China and Europe.

The curriculum unfolds in phases. Early weeks focus on the inner work of a founder: articulating your why, naming your room, and understanding the emotional landscape of hosting. By week six, you’ll move into the tangible — location criteria, lease negotiation, and interior design principles that honour the quiet, contemplative nature of Chinese tea. Weeks ten to sixteen dive into operations: sourcing tea directly from gardens and trusted suppliers, selecting teaware from tea.equipment, and designing a service flow that feels effortless. Later weeks address financial sustainability, marketing without urgency, and building a loyal community — including how to list your room on tea.place once it’s open.

The program is not a certificate course; it is a hands-on, real-world pathway. Between sessions, you will apply each lesson — drafting floorplans, sourcing tea lots, testing pour-over routines — and bring your work back for collective critique. This iterative process mirrors the slow, deliberate craft of tea itself, where mastery emerges through repeated practice and reflection.

Throughout the cohort, you’ll receive curated tea tasting kits featuring key Chinese teas such as Mí Lán Xiāng (蜜兰香), Zhèng Shān Xiǎo Zhǒng (正山小种), and Yīng Dé Hóng Chá (英德红茶). Tasting together deepens your sensory vocabulary and becomes a shared ritual that anchors each week’s discussion.

By the end of the six months, you will have a detailed launch plan, a curated tea menu, a branded identity, and — for those ready — the first bookings. More importantly, you will have a community of fellow founders and mentors who understand the quiet joy of pouring tea for another person.

Week by week

Each phase below is grounded in the founder’s actual sequence of decisions — not a themed tasting menu. The teas in your monthly kit (see below) rotate independently, so the room you’re building stays the focus.

• Week 1 — Articulating your tea room’s core vision: why this room, why now, and who it is for.

• Week 2 — The power of naming and brand identity — testing a name against a shopfront sign and a search bar.

• Week 3 — Finding the right location: footfall, rent per square metre, and a structured site-visit checklist.

• Week 4 — Financial modelling and budgeting for your first year, including the real cost of water, heat, and waste.

• Week 5 — Legal structures, permits, and insurance for a hospitality space that serves tea, not alcohol.

• Week 6 — Interior design that honours Chinese tea traditions — light, acoustics, and materials that hold warmth.

• Week 7 — Curating your tea menu: balancing oolongs, blacks, whites, and pu-erh into a list you can actually source and store.

• Week 8 — Sourcing directly — fieldwork with tea gardens, cooperatives, and trusted brokers.

• Week 9 — Selecting teaware: gongfu tools, tables, and Yixing craftsmanship for daily service, not display.

• Week 10 — Service flow design — the choreography of a session from greeting to final infusion.

• Week 11 — Building your team: hiring and training staff for a contemplative, unhurried room.

• Week 12 — Creating a sensory journey: scent, light, and sound as deliberate design choices, not decoration.

• Week 13 — Marketing your room without urgency — slow storytelling in place of discounts and countdowns.

• Week 14 — Community building before opening day: pre-launch tastings and neighbourhood relationships.

• Week 15 — Pricing and packaging your tea offerings — per gram, per session, or a considered hybrid.

• Week 16 — Managing daily operations and inventory, from aged cakes to fragile porcelain.

• Week 17 — Financial sustainability and revenue diversification beyond the pour.

• Week 18 — Hosting private sessions and events without disrupting daily service.

• Week 19 — Deepening your own tea practice — the founder’s discipline behind the counter.

• Week 20 — Launch countdown: pre-opening logistics, supplier confirmations, and staff rehearsals.

• Week 21 — Soft opening: inviting your first guests with care and gathering honest feedback.

• Week 22 — Gathering feedback and refining the experience after the first weeks of service.

• Week 23 — Storytelling and building regulars — the slow work of a room becoming a habit.

• Week 24 — Creating a loyal community and membership models that reward attention, not spend.

• Week 25 — The art of daily operations: morning rituals that set the tone before the first guest arrives.

• Week 26 — Graduation: launch day and beyond — sustaining the room once the cohort ends.

What’s included

• Weekly live cohort sessions with Mei Yang (90 min)

• One-on-one mentorship call each month

• Full-year access to tea.community and its founder network

• Curated tasting kits delivered each month (3–5 teas)

• Guest workshops from active tea room owners and tea.school instructors

• Design templates: floorplan guides, menu templates, financial spreadsheets

• Priority invitation to tea.events gatherings and field trips

• Your room featured on tea.place upon launch

• Lifetime access to cohort recordings and resources