Hello, my name is Thomas Langnickel-Stiegler. Since 2011, I have been working primarily in the area of what is sometimes called the “renaissance of specialty tea in the western world”. My mission is to inspire people about the world of loose tea – and to help them to anchor tea as an individual ritual in their everyday lives.
To achieve this, I conduct tea workshops and seminars – under my own name or in cooperation with local tea retailers. A particular focus of my work is team events for companies, with which I want to make a contribution to anchoring tea even more as a valuable drink on the one hand and as a small ritual for more mindfulness in all of our everyday (working) lives.
Within the tea industry, I also support companies and individuals with my experience in product development, sales and brand strategy. A large part of my work today is still based on my original profession: following my degree courses in Language and Communication, I worked for many years in copywriting, public relations and brand strategy – most recently from 2020 to 2023 as Head of Copy, creative strategist and employer branding consultant.
But how did I actually get into tea – or rather Thomas Talks Tea? Well, tea has been with me in one way or another for as long as I can remember. Both the pot of East Frisian black tea blend that my mother always kept ready and the preference of a certain Starfleet captain for “Tea. Earl Grey. Hot.” may have influenced me on my later vocation as a professional tea lover. Almost 25 years ago, I finally began to delve deeper into the enjoyment of the many different forms of Camellia sinenis. There were certainly some strange excursions: for example, my brief preference for strongly flavored rooibos “teas” (preferably peach or vanilla) during my time at university.
My passion for tea became a profession in 2011, after I was able to expand my theoretical knowledge and also gain practical experience in the tea trade in one of the most renowned tea shops in Berlin at the time, Runge & Graf Teeimport OHG: I learned how to open the wooden import boxes for tea (which were still common at the time) and pack the tea for sale, how to taste and evaluate tea samples, and how to make homemade blends, flavor tea with natural essential oils (finally making Earl Grey myself, yay!) and create recipes for a wide variety of tea and herbal blends.
From 2012 onwards, things suddenly moved very quickly: In 2012, I became a founding partner and Chief Teaist of Paper & Tea GmbH in Berlin. In addition to the original tea range, I was also responsible for sales in the Bleibtreustrasse flagship store – as well as for training new employees and conducting our tea seminars. The latter would prove to be one of my great passions – so in 2015 I decided to leave the company to devote myself entirely to knowledge transfer, industry consulting – and organizing tea workshops and seminars under my own name.
In 2017, I moved from Berlin to Wuppertal on a very special mission: As a tea specialist at Vorwerk Temial GmbH, I was able to make my modest professional contribution to the market launch of an automated tea device for Vorwerk – the Temial tea machine – over three years.
Since May 2024, I have been devoting myself again to the skillful preparation of tea by hand – and since January 2025, I can even be found selling tea again at a local tea store in Cologne three times a week.
Wherever we end up meeting over a cup of tea: I am happy to be able to continue working on my mission together with other passionate tea people!