About LockCha

Widely Rated as the Gems of Hong Kong

LockCha has been rated by local and international media for years as the gems of Hong Kong, an urban oasis, and a must-visit attraction in the city. We are highly recommended by, including but not limited to, <<American Express Essentials>> as One of the World’s Best Vegetarian Restaurants (Hong Kong Park location), <<Cathay Pacific Discovery>> as one of the Best Places to Try and Buy Chinese Tea in Hong Kong, and <<Lonely Planet>>, <<Louis Vuitton City Guide>> and 50+ national travel books.

Delight through Thoughtfully Curated Tea

In Chinese, “Lock” (樂) means happiness, enjoyment, and fortune while “Cha” (茶) and tea share the same pronunciation. Essentially, LockCha wants our customers to enjoy good tea breezily and delightfully. Our interpretation of good tea is: 1. Delicious; 2. Healthy; 3. Value-worth; 4. Good-hearted.

LockCha was incepted by Mr. Wing-Chi Ip in 1991, a mom-and-pop store selling loose tea leaves in Hong Kong. Back then Chinese Chaozhounese ran the vast majority of conventional Chinese tea shops. After importing different grades of tea leaves from China, the Chaozhounese assorted and re-roasted the leaves in Hong Kong before making sales. This was the Chinese tea accessible to most people at that time. Realizing blended tea was far from satisfaction for tea lovers and connoisseurs, Mr. Ip took his best shot in sourcing and selling single-species, pure, and single-harvest (collectively known as “single-harvest”) Chinese tea. Mr. Ip’s experimentation and revolutionary single-harvest concept soon gained customer buy-in. Since then, LockCha has been rapidly growing into a sizable and reputable tea shop from an insignificant little store.

Until today, LockCha has been supplying tea leaves and tea wares to markets including but not limited to Hong Kong, China, Japan, the U.S., the U.K., and Taiwan. Meanwhile, our retail business has gone online to bring quality Chinese tea and tea wares to tea lovers around the world.

Integrating the Art of Tea Serving, Personal Wellness, and Contemporary Chic Life

In 2003, LockCha debuted its tea house at Hong Kong Park in Admiralty, furthering tea culture in the hustle and bustle of Hongkongers’ life. This flagship location integrates the art of tea serving, personal wellness, and contemporary chic of life for all to enjoy. Our tea house organizes tea music programmes regularly, providing the public a respectable platform for tea appreciation, tea cultural exchange, and tea arts education. So far 1000+ sessions have been rolled out with promising feedbacks, and that makes our programmes into the most long-standing tea cultural shows in Hong Kong ever.

LockCha took our business to the next level in 2018 with the opening of our second tea house at Tai Kwun in Central. This tea house brings the nostalgia of the east-meets-west old Hong Kong back to life by inheriting Tai Kwun’s cultural characteristics. Also, tea cocktails and tea beers are specially developed to embark patrons on a brand-new tea journey.

Apart from procuring quality tea leaves and fostering tea appreciation culture, we have established a studio to produce novel tea wares in embracing the ever-changing tea tasting trend, further growing tea consumption worldwide. LockCha has been going all out to market Chinese tea and impart tea-drinking culture to the younger generation, through previously rolling out Hello Kitty themed tea merchandise with Sanrio—a globally-known Japanese brand—and developing LockCha tea beers jointly with a local craft brewery.

LockCha stays true to our belief in bringing people delight through drinking tea while making breakthrough innovations. We host private tea appreciation sessions by appointment, where our professional tea masters will be showcasing techniques in brewing and tasting tea.

Thriving with Small Tea Farmers 30+ Years

Following in our founder Mr. Ip’s footsteps in practising fair trade, LockCha has been purchasing first-rate tea leaves from small tea farmers since our inception. For decades, Mr. Ip and his veteran sourcing specialists have been traversing China and Taiwan, including remote areas, in search of the finest tea. They pay annual visits to the small tea farmers, inspect tea leaves quality in-person, and encourage and educate tea farmers to maintain tea trees and develop and produce high-standard authentic tea leaves with sustainable mentalities and approaches.

To further control our tea quality, we send third-party laboratories all our items for assessment before making sales. Besides, we optimize cost by adopting simple and neat packaging, ensuring people can enjoy first-class tea leaves at the best price.