Our Story

Chalu was not born in a boardroom. It began in the mountains, over tea, poured and re-poured through long Yunnan afternoons.

In 2019, Mia and Fraser left Shanghai and moved west, drawn by a shared curiosity and a sense that something profound was waiting. She brought a lifelong love of tea. He brought a brewer’s instinct — honed through years in the brewhouse, including his time as Brewmaster at Goose Island, where the two had met. 

In Yunnan, they found something deeper. The teas were wild, earthy, and unapologetic — rich with the scent of forest rain and volcanic soil. And unlike the individualistic experience of tea in Shanghai, here, tea was shared: brewed slowly, poured communally, and steeped in rhythm and ritual.

Mia immersed herself in the tea traditions of the region. Fraser focused on structure and balance. Mia’s passion for tea and Fraser’s technical expertise became the perfect complement of intuition and precision - together, they tasted over 100 teas, cold brewing each batch, and aging them on native Yunnan oak — a technique borrowed from winemaking, adapted for tea.

The result was something entirely new. They called it Chalu — a sparkling tea shaped by the land, culture, and people of Yunnan - designed to toast to the ideal that celebration should be for everyone. 

A drink without compromise. A ritual without rules.