• Michael Menashy
  • Jane Pettigrew
  • Ariella Menashy
  • Zeta Newis
  • Jenny Dent

Co-Founder

Growing up in an Indian family, tea was always a popular drink in Michael’s home. But once he learned about certain allergies he had to artificial flavours and preservatives, this ruled out a lot of teas and made it nearly impossible to feel confident in what he was drinking. Cut to 2010 on a trip to the World Tea Expo to receive an award for his ceramic pottery design work, and where he discovered loose-leaf tea. Not only were these some of the best teas he’d ever tried, he loved that he could see all the ingredients! He sampled them all, ordered his favourite blends and invited his family over to try them when he arrived home. He got so excited watching their eyes light up as they took the teas out of the box. Then as they opened the bags their excitement was explosive. It was then and there that he knew he wanted to share his passion for all-natural, high-quality loose-leaf tea with the world, and so Tea Sparrow was launched.

International Tea Sommelier

One of Tea Sparrow’s original founding members, Jane is now an avid supporter of our cause, occasionally cheering us on from the sidelines and offering tea-related wisdom. She has written 13 books on tea and works closely with hotels like the Four Seasons and the Dorchester in London as well as a number of tea companies such as Twinings to train staff and run tasting sessions. Jane gives Tea Masterclasses in the UK and the USA and appears regularly on television and radio to discuss the various aspects of tea, including tea history, cooking with tea and of course brewing tea. Jane also lectures and speaks at conferences around the world. Over the past few years she has worked in Brazil, Japan, Italy, France, Spain, Holland, Austria, Switzerland, Russia, Georgia, the US and the UK.  She is also a regular speaker and trainer at World Tea Expo in Las Vegas which takes place once a year. We are honoured to have her as part of our team of supporters.

Tea Chef and Writer

Ariella is the brains behind all our writing, social media, tea recipes and newsletter. She likes her black tea black and prefers to drink it in her pyjamas and slippers. She worked hard to foster a palate for flavour in our child and has now resigned herself to the reality that she will never enjoy a cup of tea all to herself.

Co-Founder

Zeta is our professional team culinary critic. She brings the most highly-trained and broadest taste palate to the team. A successful caterer and established chef, she and her husband also own the Vancouver restaurant Baru Latino. Zeta is our flavour savant and team connoisseur.

Tea Connoisseur

Ms. Dent is a bitter chocolate, salty licorice loving foodie. Liquid stimulants keep the pep in Ms. Dent’s very active step – thus her addiction to tea. Passions include organic, fair trade tea, farmers markets, sunshine on icy days and turquoise water. Languages spoken: French, Spanish and Delicious (a new tongue concocted in the Pacific North West.

 

This is us, the family behind Tea Sparrow.
We share a deep love for black tea, challah, dance parties and the ocean.
We feel incredibly lucky to live in a city that allows us to blend all our teas just down the road from our house!
We are a vegan family and are passionate about our health and the health of our planet. We use only organic ingredients in all our own blends and all our teas are 100% vegan.

We are learning every day how to be a more sustainable company and we work hard to limit our environmental footprint. We are one of the only tea companies using fully compostable teabags (made from sustainably grown, non-GMO sugarcane). We want you to drink our teas and feel good tossing the bags into the compost when you’re done!
We are the only company using solely compostable or biodegradable pouches for our teas and recently began switching out our sticker labels for stamps, making the tea pouches even more eco-friendly. We want our customers to feel good about the planet when purchasing from Tea Sparrow. We’re very excited about these shifts and hope other businesses will do the same.

Thank you so much for choosing Tea Sparrow!
With love from Michael, Ariella, Etta, Ellie and Jacob