Alexis Kaae is from the UK and currently resides in Denmark. She used to be a mechanical technician and now runs a physical and online tea shop, Simply Tea, providing educational services. She is also developing a tea plantation. In 2007, Alexis traveled to tea regions in China to study tea. In 2014, she co founded the Danish Tea Association with several outstanding ladies from the Danish tea industry. In 2017, she became the Vice President of the European Specialty Tea Association, and in recent years, she has also joined the European Tea Association and other organizations. Alexis is active in the European tea industry, frequently invited to participate in tea events in China.
Alexis grew up in the UK and left at the age of 20 to travel. She worked as a machine technician specializing in logistics in Denmark, specializing in train machinery parts. After learning of her father’s serious illness, Alexis decided to resign and return to the UK to take care of him. Growing up in the British afternoon tea culture, she naturally bought tea in the UK and drank tea with her father. Alexis was surprised to find that her father, who had lost his ability to concentrate due to a brain metastasis, could actually engage with her during tea drinking. This sparked Alexis’ interest in tea, so she conducted some related research reading searches. Over the course of six or seven months, she studied extensive research on tea and cancer at Zhejiang University. She learned that high levels of theanine, as a neurotransmitter, can help alleviate symptoms, which is why her father was able to restore cognition. After her father’s death, Alexis returned to Denmark and her previous job position was no longer available, so she decided to continue her interest in tea that she had accumulated over the past few months. She traveled to China to learn tea, and under the guidance of Chinese tea experts, she visited tea producing provinces such as Zhejiang, Yunnan, Sichuan, Fujian, and Shandong.
The tea products on the Danish mass market are mostly processed, packaged, and transported from Hamburg Port in Germany, mainly consisting of blended tea and tea bags. Alexis now has its own tea shop, specializing in Chinese tea, rock tea, and aged Pu’er tea, which are popular among customers. Alexis also operated a physical tea room in Denmark for five years, which later transformed into the current form of physical and online tea shops. Tea imported from China must be selected from the tea gardens she personally visited. High quality handmade tea is her first choice, as well as high-quality tea with high theanine content harvested in early spring. She emphasizes the importance of EU tea standard testing for tea.
Alexis then opened a tea training school, mainly focused on teaching Chinese tea to meet the educational needs of individuals and companies in Denmark. She also found that many young Danish people showed curiosity and love for Chinese tea, such as a university teacher learning Chaozhou Gongfu tea from her. Alexis was once employed by a tea company to provide six months of tea training for its employees, and she felt that oolong tea was very suitable for pairing with food. In several years of teaching experience, she has developed her own tea courses.
Alexis is active in the activities of the European tea associations. In 2014, she led the creation of the Danish Tea Association along with several other outstanding women in the Danish tea industry. In 2017, she became the Vice President of the European Specialty Tea Association, mainly responsible for education. She hopes that the association can help tea farmers in various countries, making it more convenient for them to enter the European market. During the pandemic, Alexis had a new idea and discovered that the soil conditions in Ebeltoft Denmark were very suitable for growing tea trees, with the main challenges being summer drought and cold winters. Since 2021, she has planted about 1500 tea trees on 5 hectares of land and joined the European Grown Tea Association to exchange experiences with other European tea farmers.
As a European tea sommelier, Alexis has been invited to China multiple times to participate in events, such as the international tea event organized by the Institute of Quality Standard and Testing Technology for Agro-products of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. She represents Europe and provides Western tea tasting perspectives. Recently, in July 2024, Alexis once again participated in the activities of the Tea Industry Committee of China Association for the Promotion of International Agricultural Cooperation. She highly praised China’s tea evaluation system, which is more comprehensive and systematic compared to other evaluation methods. Alexis noticed that the characteristic of Chinese tea farmers is their exquisite tea making skills, and they are very proud of the tea they process, which is rare in other tea producing countries. Chinese tea production pursues craftsmanship rather than just emphasizing the industrial aspect of the production chain. Alexis believes that it is very difficult for Chinese tea brands to enter the European market, as they will encounter competition issues with large European distributors, and also need to pay attention to the transaction policies between China and Europe. Through her observation, European tea consumers are more concerned about the health value of tea and their interest in innovative tea drinks. In short, Europe does not produce tea, so there will always be a market for tea.
