Chás Amaya

The Amaya family arrived in Brazil in 1919 — Shutekishi and Nao Amaya, with sons Jorge, Hélio and Antonio — and settled in Registro, São Paulo, in the Bamburral district, where the family's factory and residence still stand today, the residence now listed as a heritage site by Brazil's national historic preservation institute (IPHAN). In the 1930s the family began growing and processing tea, black tea first, under the name Irmãos Amaya; the company took the name Hélio Amaya Cia Ltda in 1957 and has stayed in family hands ever since.

Registro is not a typical tea address — it's a small city in the Ribeira Valley that Japanese immigrant families turned into Brazil's only real tea-growing region over the past century. Amaya's own plantation runs 87 hectares of Camellia sinensis, producing around 90 tons of tea a year, with output spanning black tea, green tea processed in a non-orthodox style, powdered green tea and oolong. In 2019 the company released what it markets as Brazil's first national oolong, half-oxidized for naturally sweet, fruity flavors with woody notes and hints of honey and toast.

More than a century after the family stepped off the boat, their tea still grows and gets processed on the same Registro land — one of a small handful of families anywhere in South America actually farming Camellia sinensis rather than importing it.