Nargiza Ghvinjilia (Okros Kvirti)
Location
Tsalenjikha city, Samegrelo region
Contact Information
The best way to contact Nargiza as an international customer is through the Instagram page @nargizas.tea. This page is run by some students and friends of Nargiza's who helps her ship her teas to international customers, under the name Okros Kvirti (Golden Bud). Nargiza speaks Georgian and Russian, so people who are in Georgia can also visit her at the central tea factory in Tsalenjikha.
Types of Tea
Long-Jin style green
Flat, vibrant green leaves. Very lightly processed by simultaneous fixation and drying by pressing leaves on a
heated pan. The bushes are derived from Chinese varieties, mostly from Qimen. This adaptation of the method to these leaves and terroir led to this tea winning the Grand Prize of the Georgian Tea Festival 2022.
Fresh, citric flavours. Bright, yellow-green brew.
Tippy black tea (spring or summer)
One of our favourite black tea in Georgia. Oxidised naturally in wicker baskets in very small batches, this is a culmination of Nargiza’s 68 years of teamaking expertise. Rich, deep black tea. Low in tannic feel with a woody, caramel flavour that just keeps developing. Good for at least three infusions and highly resistant to overbrewing. Lots of silver tips visible in the dry leaves.
“Emperor's” Red Oolong
Very close to a red/black tea, this oolong is part-fixed by wok frying after a gentle rolling. It is returned to baskets for
further oxidation before a second oven fixing and drying. Rich yellow/red colour, this is like a red tea but with the refreshing sparkle of greenery brightening up the flavour.
Nargiza's Story
Nargiza is over 80 years old and still runs her little factory and tea plantation. She's also the head tea technologist of the bigger factory next door and she does indeed know a thing or two about tea.
Nargiza started working in tea when she was 12 years old. In school holidays, Soviet children would help with harvests and in Samegrelo this meant tea. Georgia was the first country to develop mechanical harvesting technology, but in the early days of the 1950s, they were still hand picking teas of excellent quality.
Nargiza studied tea technology for six years before moving to Tbilisi to work in a tea laboratory for another two. Back then, it was a well paid job to be a tea scientist. Georgian tea science was some of the most advanced in the world as the teams at Anaseuli developed cultivars and methods suited to the Georgian climate, quality requirements and then, later, mass production techniques. She continued on in her career as a tea technologist – combining her scientific training with deep knowledge of the craft of tea production.
Today, Nargiza creates some of the most exclusive teas in Georgia in her small side room off of the main Tsalenjikha tea factory. Her products are true marvels of the palate, meticulously handcrafted and lavished with the care only decades of wisdom can provide. Long the subject of legend and winning many a first prize in Georgian tea festivals, she recently got some help from some younger tea makers who studied with her with packaging, marketing, and distribution, and her teas are now being sent around the world and in popular demand at upscale Tbilisi cafes. Her four-hectare plantation is located at an altitude of 295 meters altitude, on a hill just outside of town. She is helped in her factory by Mzia, who is also pictured here.
Above: Nargiza and Mzia working in the factory.
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