The beginning of Ono Teas is a story of serendipity – One that commenced with an understanding of the ethos of Japanese culture and ended with the tryst to blend tasteful teas like none other.
One wintry evening, the brand’s founder had a chance interaction with a respectable Japanese tea connoisseur. The consequent tête-à-tête led to our founder taking a fine understanding of Japanese aesthetics and the tea ritual in that country. He was acquainted with the concept of wabi-sabi – the Japanese world view of the beauty of simplicity and harmony in everyday life. This philosophy is intricately connected to Japanese tea ceremony. Tea is not simply a beverage to be consumed as a habit or matter of practice. There’s more to it. As per the Japanese culture, tea drinking is a ceremony that harmonizes the principles of respect, purity and tranquility. It aims to purify the soul by becoming one with nature. It is these very ideas that eventually became the cornerstone of the brand’s ideology.
Ono is a beautiful Japanese name for both people and places. It stands for farms (small and large depending upon the pronunciation) or beautiful towns in Japan. It also represents an Axe. While it was mostly used for agricultural purposes, it was also used by warriors (sohei -monk warriors) or Yambushi. These are Japanese mountain hermits who studied nature and religious/spiritual texts along with a variety of martial arts for serving self and community in various forms over the course of history. With the collective references towards people, places, nature, emotions, society and everything in between it became a word we could associate ourselves with. When the brand was born after a laborious period of learning, we chose Ono as the banner we stand before.