Saint Petersburg — 2026-06-25
Saint Petersburg — 2026-06-25 — MafiaTea, the anti-brand within the THE TEA constellation, today releases its Family Rules: a public proclamation of everything it refuses to sell. The statement arrives not as a negotiation, but as a directive — direct, theatrical, and absolute.
THE RULES
• NO TEA BAGS. No pyramids, no sachets, no paper prisons. If it steeps inside a bleached envelope, it is not our tea.
• NO BLENDS. We do not disguise origin behind a name you can’t trace. Every lot stands alone — single-village, single-harvest, single-cultivar.
• NO ARTIFICIAL FLAVOR. Oil of bergamot, jasmine essence sprayed on, “vanilla rooibos” — these are not tea. They are confectionery.
• NO UNWITNESSED HARVESTS. Before any leaf enters our inventory, a member of this family has walked the garden, watched the picking, and smelled the withering trough. In the 2025–2026 season alone, founders personally witnessed 47 harvests across 12 villages in Yunnan.
• NO NON-CHINESE TEA. This is not a global tea house. MafiaTea is built entirely on the shēng pǔ’ěr (生普洱) and shú pǔ’ěr (熟普洱) of Menghai, the rock oolongs of Wuyi, the Mí Lán Xiāng (蜜兰香) dancong of Fenghuang, and the Lóngjǐng (龙井) of Xihu. If it doesn’t carry a GB/T 22111-2008 or GB/T 18650-2008 stamp, it doesn’t belong here.
THE ONLY WAY
The rules are not marketing. Every cake, brick, and tong is verified on the teamotea.com credentialing platform, which timestamps origin, processing, and custody. The only legitimate purchase channel is shop.thetea.app. For those who want to understand the science behind fermentation and aging, puerh.app remains the constellation’s most authoritative resource — free, and open.
STATEMENT
Evgeniy Smoley, CEO and Co-Founder of MafiaTea, issued the following:
“We are not a tea company. We are a family. And in this family, you drink real tea — tea that we have touched, smelled, and tasted before it ever reaches your hands. If you want a tea bag, go somewhere else. We are not that. This line was drawn the day we started, and it will never move.”
ABOUT MAFIATEA
MafiaTea is the anti-brand inside the THE TEA constellation. It produces limited-edition, single-origin Chinese tea packaged with cinematic excess and sold exclusively through numbered drops. Every lot is witnessed from garden to pressing, and every sale supports the teamotea.com transparency standard.
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Media contact
Evgeniy Smoley