Our Story

How OHN tea bean

The Start

In 2017, I sat in my favorite local coffee shop in De Pere, Wisconsin, and ordered a beautiful cup of Longjing tea. It came in a large shallow cup with a saucer, but the bag was large, over-filled, and knotted. As you'd expect, the tea was soon cold, bitter, and starting to drip down the side onto my saucer.

 

So many things about that experience told me that there had to be a better way. I started experimenting with existing loose leaf strainers to only be disappointed. I listed all the features I would like in my ideal steeper, and after a little research and product development, I created Ohn tea bags.

The Tea

Soon after importing our first batch of tea bags, we started looking to other products we could add, loose-leaf tea, teacups, and other accessories. We searched and researched teas from all around the world. We found terrific plantations that have been organic for decades and have organic certification from 3 different organizations and also family-owned.

The Packaging

Besides looking for the best kind of tea, we also are working tirelessly to find the best type of packaging that is most eco-friendly. The packaging is tricky because you want it to do 3 things:

  1. Protect the product inside from moisture and other critters.
  2. Keep very fresh.
  3. It is eco-friendly when you're ready to throw it out.

And we did. We found the best kind of packaging possible. We found a kraft paper bag that is FDA approved for food products and is biodegradable and compostable according to commercial and residential industry standards.

The second issue - labels, stickers, and cards. How could we have these awesome bags but then totally fail on the other things? So we searched again. We found the one person in the whole of the United States that prints on the same compostable and biodegradable material, with plant-based inks and plant-based glue. How awesome was it when they were willing to print our stuff? Very! Now we know we can provide you the best kind of packaging out there, no compromise!

A little background

The Row Home is a design agency that is now located in Fairfield, Connecticut. Founded in 2014, The Row Home is a full-service design studio started in Green Bay, WI. Over the last few years, we've made a reputation for creating brands and building websites that look great and are easy-to-use. 

With our history in product design and development, we provide brands a roadmap from design thru development. We have resources and connections to manufacturers in Asia and Europe, and develop go-to-market strategies for products in FMCG, Fashion, Home - Hard-lines, and Soft-lines.