Wissotzky Tea

Kalman Ze'ev Wissotzky founded his tea trading company in Moscow in 1849, building it within decades into the largest tea firm in the Russian Empire. The 1917 Revolution ended those operations and scattered the family; in 1936, with the situation in Europe darkening, family member Simon (Shimon) Seidler moved to Mandatory Palestine and opened a packing plant there, selling tea to British soldiers stationed in the territory — the start of what would become Wissotzky's Israeli business. His widow, Ida Seidler, later modernized the operation and, in the 1950s, bought the Tel Aviv building on Hashmonaim Street that still serves as company headquarters.

That same building now houses T-LAB, Wissotzky's flagship tea bar, its walls papered in vintage tea-box designs pulled from the company's own factory archive, serving a tea-based drinks menu — iced matcha lavender latte, an Earl Grey "Tiger Boba," a green-tea mojito — that has since expanded to a second branch at Tel Aviv's Azrieli Mall. In June 2023, Israel's Competition Authority formally declared Wissotzky a monopoly, citing over 70 percent market share in green and herbal tea sold to retailers nationally.

Now five generations from its Moscow founding, Wissotzky remains family-owned, running roughly 200 tea blends out of Tel Aviv headquarters and a Galilee factory — Israel's dominant tea house by any regulator's own measure.