We (Olga Nikandrova & Denis Shumakov) have been in the tea business for over 25 years and specialize in solutions related to consumer tea culture. We create tea blends and tea pairings, organize tea-tasting and other tea related events, engage in tea promotion activities, make tea descriptions and generate huge amounts of tea content useful and important for tea professionals.
2021. Expert support for the Sancha brand in Russia.
2021. Tea+ project — tea blends and tea gastronomy.
2021. Expert support for the Floris brand.
2021. Pasta bar “Sherry and Fleur d’Oranger” (Pskov, Russia). Setting up the serving of tea and sherry.
2021. Development of the hotel tea and coffee service for Julius Meinl.
2021. Dynamic tea description for Tea108.ru.
2021 – present. TeaTips English.
2020. Poznański Festiwal Herbaty Festival. Lecture on the health effects of tea and answers to questions (Russian and Polish).
2020. “Black or Green? We ask the expert stupid questions about tea”. YasnoPonyatno radio program, RIA Novosti (Russian).
2020. Training for specialists of the Basilur tea company (“How to brew and serve tea at a tea room”).
2020. Interview for Klyment Matyunin’s channel: one and two (Russian).
2020. MastersTalk Brief Tea Quiz (episodes 1-7).
2020. Coronavirus Experience. A series of comments from tea specialists from different countries (New Zealand, Portugal, Kazakhstan, Spain, Belgium, Uzbekistan, Germany, Georgia, India, Ireland, Thailand, South Korea, Great Britain, Italy, Turkey, Canada, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, USA, Vietnam, Czech Republic, Russia, Belarus, Singapore, Iran, France, Australia, Poland, Latvia, Ukraine), dedicated to the work of tea projects in the pandemic time.
2020. Ceylon Tea Masters Sketch 2020 Video Competition (as part of the Tea Masters Cup team).
2020. Challenge #3personsofacup (as part of the Tea Masters Cup team).
2020 – present. “Tea Clown’s Diary” blog (Russian).
2019. Training for Julius Meinl specialists (“How to Talk About Tea”, “Tea Micro-Trends”).
2019. A series of articles about Vietnamese tea and Vietnamese tea culture in Russian (for Coffee and Tea in Russia magazine) and English (for MastersTalk magazine).
2019 – present. “Tea in the Experience Economy” seminar.
2019. Surveying (Olga Nikandrova, Denis Shumakov) of tea and coffee specialists and writing a report (Tea and Coffee in Russia ## 3-6, 2019) based on its results (Sergey Kalinin) with the identification of professional stereotypes and trends.
2019 – 2020. Coffee and Tea in Russia magazine (issues 150-158). Olga Nikandrova was a content editor, Denis Shumakov was one of the authors and the layout designer.
2018 – 2020. MastersTalk magazine (issues 0, 1, 2) and masterstalk.online website (first version, until July 2020). Olga Nikandrova was its editor-in-chief, Denis Shumakov was one of the authors and the layout designer.
2018 – 2020. Certification trainings for judges of Tea Masters Cup championships held in Iran, USA, Turkey, Russia, Ukraine, Denmark, Ireland, Georgia, Vietnam with the participation of judges (besides representatives of those countries where trainings were held) from Italy, Canada, Sri Lanka, South Korea, Belarus, Great Britain, Spain, Latvia, Australia.
2018. Interview for the Aquaphor company (Russian).
2018. “Teavana, A Distant Analysis”. American Specialty Tea Alliance.
2018. A series of video clips “Tea Master” for FUZETEA Russia.
2018. How to Make Breakfast Less Harmful. Teoriya Zagovora (Conspiracy theory) TV programme. First channel (Russia). Starting at about 32:00 (Russian).
2017 – 2018. “Tea, sherry and some coffee” blog on Yandex.Zen platform (Russian).
2017. Tea and Cheese. An article following the degustation show devoted to pairing Taiwanese tea with French cheeses (Russian).
2017– present. “The Craft of Tea Storytelling” and “Tea Micro-Trends” seminars.
2016. Rejuvenating Foods. Teoriya Zagovora (Conspiracy theory) TV programme. First channel (Russia). Watch from 25:00 (Russian).
2017 – 2018. TeatipsBrief, tea news reviews by Olga Nikandrova in Russian and in English. For the development of this project, Olga Nikandrova was short-listed as a nominant for the title of Person of the Year in the Russian tea industry in 2017.
2016 – 2019. Open air urban tea parties in Pskov.
2016 – 2018. “Actual flavourings”. A series of articles on flavored tea for Tea Express. Co-authored with the Turquoise Tea team (Russian).
2016. “Sherry and Tea” on Sherry.wine.
2016 – 2017. A series of articles on the varieties of the tea plant in Taiwan for Tea Express. Co-authored with the Turquoise Tea team (Russian).
2015. “Why is milk oolong milky?”. The Village (Russian).
2015 – 2016. Tea school and studio of Sergey Khorolskiy and Denis Shumakov. Writing teaching materials and teaching.
2014 – present. Denis Shumakov’s Youtube channel about tea (Russian).
2013. Program about tea on EDA (Food) TV channel (Russian). This series of episodes and participation in the organization of the first Tea Master Cup tournament became the basis for the recognition of Denis Shumakov as the Person of the Year in the Russian tea industry in 2013.
2013 – 2020. Tea Masters Cup system of tea championships. Development of the judging system as well as principles of the tournaments’ organisation. Denis Shumakov was the Head Judge for international TMC championships in 2015 (Turkey), 2016 (South Korea) and 2017 (China) . Creation of presentation materials and website (version 2019 – early 2020). By 2019, 28 countries participated in the work of TMC (Australia, Belarus, Belgium, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Georgia, Indonesia, Iran, Ireland, Italy, Kazakhstan, Latvia, New Zealand, Poland, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sri Lanka, Turkey, UAE, UK, Ukraine, USA, Vietnam).
2011 – 2020. Articles about tea for Coffee and Tea in Russia magazine.
2010 – present. Russian caravan. Consulting, packaging design (laconic pu-erh packs with a strip and numbers on them are our work), tea descriptions for the online store.
2010 – present. A site about sherry aboutsherry.info. Developed and supported by Olga Nikandrova and Denis Shumakov, it includes several materials on tea and sherry pairing.
2009 – present. U Pokrovki guest house. Development of tea menu, tea snacks and author’s tea blends, organizing degustation shows (tea, coffee, alcoholic drinks).
2006 – 2007. A series of articles about tea for the Nashi Dengi (Our Money) magazine (Russian).
2006. A series of articles on tea for the British Style magazine (Russian).
2005 – 2012. A series of articles about tea for the Gastronom magazine (Russian).
2004. Materials from teatips.ru website and columns on the Information Boom project formed the basis of Albert Akopyan’s book “Tea in a Restaurant” (Russian).
2004 – 2006. “Tea on Thursdays with Shumakov” column in the framework of the Information Boom project (Russian). In 2005, with this column, Denis Shumakov took third place in the ROTOR competition in the “Internet journalist of the year” category. In the same 2005, as part of the Information Boom project, Denis Shumakov became the winner of the Golden Site competition in the Information Site nomination.
2004 – 2018. Turquoise Tea. Development of Russian and international websites for the company (copywriting, photography, design and technical support), online store support. Degustation shows (including at diplomatic receptions). Writing, design and prepress of booklets and books.
2004 – 2015. LetoChai (SummerTea). A series of three-to-five-day meetings of tea specialists and tea lovers. The first LetoChai, organized in 2004 by Denis Shumakov and Olga Nikandrova, was, in fact, a long tea party in nature. And in 2013 – 2015, LetoChai became a complex event, combining friendly and family holidays with a rich tasting and educational program.
2003 – present. teatips.ru website’s forum. The community that has formed around the forum had been the most prominent tea community in Russia for several years and had become the main one for the implementation of a number of projects. Currently, the forum is mostly inactive, but it is still functional.
2000 – present. Website teatips.ru. The site was first based on articles written in 1999-2000 by Sergei Kalinin and Denis Shumakov. Then Denis Lesin and Olga Nikandrova joined the work on the project — and it acquired its classic look.
1999 – 2013. Weekly newsletter subscription project Tea. Co-authored with Sergei Kalinin. At its peak, the total number of mailing list subscribers according to the Subscribe.ru and Mail.ru services exceeded 50,000 people.
1995 – 1997. Tasted teas rating. Our first documented project related to tea.
1991. Our first tea collection is compiled. It included Indian, Ceylon and Indonesian teas.