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The nunshen adventure begins in 1938 in Lausanne, Switzerland, when a small shop opens its doors in the district renowned for its tea and coffee merchants from all over the world. Darjeeling, Earl Grey, Ceylon, pu-erh, jasmine, green tea, white tea, infusions, matcha… so many flavours that invite you to travel and build the reputation of this still-confidential little shop. But very quickly, the little tea house becomes the essential address for tea drinkers and great lovers of this ancestral beverage with its many virtues.
Over time, the shop — rich with encounters and exchanges — gains in expertise and know-how, with a growing passion for exceptional teas and infusions. The little establishment refines itself, driven by the ambition to become a benchmark in the world of premium, exclusive tea.
In 2003, Olivier Jardon-El Hiny falls in love with this shop, its philosophy, and of course its refined teas and infusions, opening a new chapter in the story of Maison nunshen.
In 2014, the shop transforms and opens up to new horizons by becoming a brand in its own right: this is the birth of Maison nunshen as we know it today.
New ambitions then emerge for the tea manufacture, which establishes and specialises itself in the world of gastronomy as a tea brand for chefs.
Today, Maison nunshen also wishes to pass on its passion and expertise by making quality tea accessible to all, with the ambition of turning every tea drinker into a true connoisseur.
To this end, Maison nunshen embraces a unique, close-knit positioning, from sourcing to supporting establishments, thanks to the experience and knowledge of our Sourcing and Creation Director, Carine Baudry. With more than twenty years of experience in the world of tea and thirty years of expertise as a nose, Carine Baudry today affirms her role as nunshen tea expert-taster, with a profile unique in the world of tea.
The Fine Tea Manufacture is today present in the heart of Paris with the nunshen Atelier. It is a space dedicated to the discovery of tea, a unique place for meeting, sharing, tasting and training teams. It is also a place of transmission for all tea lovers wishing to become connoisseurs, curious to discover all its secrets through an incredible sensory journey.
Chinese legend tells that the emperor Shen Nung, also known as the divine harvester, had set himself the mission of testing all the plants in nature in order to record the power of each in a great register. One day, after testing several of them, his transparent body turned almost black. Feeling tired, he lay down beneath a tree. His servant brought him a cup of hot water when suddenly a gust of wind blew the leaves of a wild tea tree, which slowly steeped in his bowl, releasing aromas and flavours so incredible that the emperor decided to taste it. He immediately felt its refreshing, invigorating benefits.
Born of the meeting between curiosity and the chances of nature, tea was born. It would go on to become the most widespread drink in the world.
We therefore owe to the emperor Shen Nung and his story the birth of tea, but also the name of Maison nunshen, which very naturally drew inspiration from it and pays tribute to it.
Today a fine tea manufacture, Maison nunshen offers an extraordinary sensory adventure, opening the world of tea to all the curious, with the mission of guiding every enthusiast towards becoming a connoisseur.
Maison nunshen opens the doors to the world of tea for everyone, like a passer of knowledge, through an emotional and sensitive discovery of its experience, its know-how and the many flavours that each tea reveals.
nunshen thus conceives the tasting experience as an encounter, an invitation to travel and to discover this celebrated beverage, whose history is sometimes little known, so rich is it.
The tea plant, or Camellia sinensis, originates in China, more precisely in the region between the province of Yunnan, northern Vietnam and Burma.
The first great tea drinkers were Chinese monks. It was only in the 7th century that tea became an everyday drink and its consumption spread along trade routes across the world.
Sometimes a currency of exchange, sometimes an object of spiritual rituals, tea arrived in Europe in the 17th century and became a key product in trade between East and West, notably via Holland, France and then England.
It was only in the 19th century that the market expanded into several Asian countries such as India and the islands of Ceylon under English rule.
Today it is established all over the world and is the second most consumed drink after water.
While the origin of tea remains a great mystery, its history spans the centuries and tells that of the arts, of spirituality and of ancestral rituals. The history of tea is also that of people and their exchanges, their lands and their cultures, their languages and their roots, their bond with nature.
Far beyond the discovery of taste, nunshen is part of a transmission of the history of this ancestral beverage with its incredible virtues.
Located in Paris, the nunshen Atelier is above all a place of meeting and sharing.
A space dedicated to knowledge and the senses, the nunshen Atelier is an open door onto the world of tea, its history, its rituals.
A place of inspiration and transmission, it is the very heart of the tea manufacture. It is here that nunshen teas are created, that samples are tasted and blended, that the greatest names in gastronomy share their desires and ideas with the team, around Carine Baudry, the Maison’s nose and expert-taster.
Green tea, jasmine tea, Darjeeling, Ceylon, pu-erh or matcha, rooibos and oolong, the nunshen Atelier is an immense sensory library where each tea essence tells its story.
It is also a space of taste discovery, to train the Maison nunshen teams but also to welcome the most curious, eager to become connoisseurs, for whom the world of tea will hold almost no more secrets.
Maison nunshen gives tea a place of choice in the world of fine gastronomy.
By combining all the creativity of great chefs, sommeliers and expert-taster Carine Baudry, nunshen supports establishments in offering bespoke pairings and rituals, establishing itself as the benchmark for premium tea and giving tea a place of choice in the world of gastronomy.
Thanks to its know-how and privileged contacts with the great names of fine gastronomy, tea takes its place at the table. nunshen imagines food-and-tea pairings offering another approach to tasting, through an emotional and sensory journey around new tea rituals, revealing all the personality of the chef, of their cuisine, of the place.
This creative journey showcases all nunshen’s expertise as a fine tea manufacture, through its mastery of pairings, to create exceptional teas and imagine unique rituals.
A t the origin of the shop, each tea bore a simple number to tell them apart, to make ordering and stock management easier without having to list long appellations sometimes difficult to remember.
When the nunshen teas and infusions arrived in the shop, the owner at the time chose to keep these numbers alongside the appellations, customers finding it easier to remember the reference of their favourite tea that way.
Today, nunshen gives the greatest thought to this naming, so that each tea is full of meaning and tied to its story.
Because each nunshen tea is unique, its flavours and aromas like no other, the tradition of this appellation lives on and gives all its grandeur to the very essence of nunshen tea, far beyond its name.
A small tea shop in an alleyway in the 1940s, nunshen has today become a tea manufacture, an essential benchmark for exceptional, premium teas and infusions.
Single-origin or flavoured tea, rooibos or infusions, matcha or white tea — whatever the tea, nunshen selects the finest crus and develops special bonds with each of these producers to offer an extraordinary tea experience.
Maison nunshen also brings all its expertise to offer new sensory experiences, pairing tea and gastronomy, in collaboration with great names of cuisine.
Unique know-how, expertise in production and the art of tasting, creativity to imagine signature teas for fine gastronomy — Maison nunshen opens the doors to the incredible world of tea and passes on all its knowledge to turn the simple tea enthusiast into a connoisseur of this ancestral beverage with its many virtues and its thousand-year history.
Carine, tell us about your first encounter with nunshen and tell us more about your role within Maison nunshen
I started at nunshen as a consultant, as an expert-taster. I met Olivier Jardon-El Hiny and we shared projects with common ideas and a desire to share our passion for tea. At nunshen I felt a genuine respect for the product, with a sensory approach to tea. I was very quickly able to express my creativity within the atelier, and Olivier gave me carte blanche to develop and innovate. My first assignment was to create a signature tea for a luxury hotel, and this collaboration confirmed our shared desire to reveal all the richness of the nunshen range.
Tell us about your profession: what is an expert-taster?
Before being an expert-taster, I am a nose. My approach is above all sensory, owing to this particularity of my background and my experience. The expert-taster must have mastery of tea, of its production and its history. It is also an expert’s profession, to know and understand the client’s expectations. Not to mention a perfect knowledge of the tea market, to buy at the right price in order to understand the brand’s positioning and support the creation of exceptional teas.
What makes nunshen unique and what are the Maison’s great strengths?
nunshen’s first great strength is its expertise in transmission, in mastering the range through the quality of the product, and in teaching too, by opening the doors of the world of tea to all tea drinkers. We are passers of knowledge.
nunshen is unique through its sensitivity, its strength in the emotion that the teas evoke, but also the sobriety and elegance that the brand offers. These are teas that leave a lasting impression, with an identity, a balance. What makes the brand’s DNA is also the closeness with clients, notably with great chefs, and the support we offer.