Tea Journey Magazine was funded at dawn by more than 560 backers who contributed $128,000 during the past 60 days…

To our backers around the world:

Those who know me well, know that I’m never at a loss for words… until now.

Tea Journey was funded at dawn — fittingly by donations from tea lovers on the other side of the world in China and Australia as their day was winding down.

I fell asleep at 5am and awakened to the news with tears of joy…. and relief.

Today is DAY ONE. We can now get on with the joyous task of producing the world’s first truly global, truly collaborative magazine for tea lovers. Its creation demonstrates a rare ability to bridge borders and cultures, to share the stories of the tea lands that introduce growers and artisans to the millions who cherish their labor of love.

You can expect the inaugural issue and both the iOS and Android apps to be ready by the end of the month.

On behalf of the Tea Journey partners and advisors, writers and editors.

Thank you.

WINNIPEG, Canada

Where do the most recent Tea Journey backers live? Here are their names and the home countries of some of the final 50 donors who contributed to the campaign:

Gordon Zhang, China | Margaret Cusak, Australia |Roquen Lómë, Prague Czech Republic | Marc-André Rivet, Montreal, Canada | Richard Tao, US | Jesse Örö, Finland | Debbie Forlanski, Canada | Goh Cheng Fai, Hong Kong | Danny Moortgat, Belgium | Scott Svihula, Florida | Nancy Cocianchi, Argentina | Nigel Melican, UK | Sabine Jürgenmeier, Germany | Wouter Verelst, Malawi | Ernestas Klevas, Frederiksberg, Denmark | Stefano Grassi, Italy |

There is power in this venture that speaks to community more than cash…

The other day, inspired by Jennifer English, the @urbanmommies hosted an online fundraiser for Tea Journey that resulted in nearly 300,000 direct contacts and 5 million social impressions on Twitter and greatest single-day tally of subscribers during the campaign.

The entire world is thirsty for tea knowledge. While the US is home to the largest number of backers, Canada, I’m proud to say, has the largest concentration of subscribers. Tea drinking UK is exploring more diverse teas as are India and Australia. Those in China and Taiwan and Asian tea lands are next, not for lack of knowledge but out of a desire to better understand the markets where they send their precious tea. Gourmands in Western Europe (Germany-France-Benelux) placed their countries high on the list. There are South American fans from seven countries (Argentina tops the list followed by Brazil where out of the goodness of their hearts tea lovers Victoria Bosogno (Spanish) and Kelly Stein (Portuguese) translated and then forwarded the Tea Journey message). Those from tea lands in Africa (including the Middle East) follow. Backers hail from CIS and the Czech Republic, from Mexico and the Caribbean islands and even Iceland where Frank Woolny was the ninth backer to contribute.

The first? That was Peter Wilson, who inspired us with these words:

“…with every tea I taste, and every word I read, I sink deeper into such a joyful state of being that I want to keep going and going. It’s a bit challenging sometimes to find good information about tea in the west, so when I learned of this magazine, not only did I decide that I would contribute, I set my alarm for 12am the morning that the Kickstarter campaign opened, in the hope that I could say I was first to contribute! I’ve told all of my friends, and I’ve also sent letters to all of my favorite tea suppliers (like Harney, DAVIDsTEA, Tea Trekker, and Tea Source), asking them to consider supporting and encouraging more people to become enthusiasts like me. Thank you for all that you do, and best of luck with your magazine! I’m privileged to say that I support it, and I look forward to continuing my own tea journey.”

Backers believe passionately in our mission: Listed below are some of those who donated in the past week to put us over the top.

Mehmet Emin Akyuz, Stephan Baudet, Lorraine Collins, Shawn Geitner, Christopher Day, Peter Ericson, Amethyst Bussey, Nathan Hevenstone, John Alfone, Jaime Chartrand, Eva Lee, Mark O’Deady, Faye Lang, Guy Sirkes, Barbara Broido, Shari Bayer, Jen Piccotti, Joyce Maio, Najat Abdou, Pamela Tucker, Ruth Tobias, Laurence Wooding, Glen Knauer, Dominik Wittenberg, Sean Mates, Rick Ha, Margo Sparto, Raelene Gannon, Kaiting Zhou, David Bess, Brett Holmes, Ellie Chu, Rick Doten, Lisa Braithwaite, Cindy Beeman, Samantha Molineaux, Barb Goldstein, Linda Gaylard, Geena Matuson, Mark Nicholls, Dawn Hoffman, Jeffrey Lorien, Sophia Nadur, Michelle Rabin, Matt Jaffe, Bob Krul, Noah Van der Laan, Andre Gauthier, Rona Tison, Manuel Legault-Roy…

What powered this extraordinary event?

The generosity of Founding Sponsors:

Camellia Sinensis | Seven Cups Fine Chinese Teas | Young Mountain Tea | Craftea | Mad Monk | Misty Peak Teas | Jalam Teas| Tea Squared | Tealet | Australian Tea Masters | Adagio Teas | Nothing But Tea | Teatrade | Yunomi Tea | Firsd Tea | Smacha Tea Company | Hong China Tea | Teatulia | Lochan Tea Company | Mighty Leaf Tea Company | International Tea Importers | International Tea Masters Association | Rolling Leaf | El Club del Te | Rishi Tea | Tea Total | Teatrade Mart | TeaLula | The Green Teaist | World Tea Podcast | Tea Lifestyle | World Tea Academy | P&T – Paper & Tea GmbH | The Daily Tea | Wild Qi Tea | Tea Vivre | Conundrum Tea | Tea Cosmos | The Tea Emporium | Teas Etc | UK Tea Academy | Mary Cotterman | Royal Tea New York | ITO EN | JoJo Tea | G.S. Haly Co. | Hawaiian Rainforest Tea | 4 Track Tea | Ocha & Co | Hankook Tea | Eco-Cha |

(This is a partial list with more signing on daily through the end of World Tea Expo, June 15-17 in Las Vegas, drop by and see us at Booth 251. If your company is interested in becoming a Founding Sponsor email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] or [email protected]):

It’s an astronomical, gratifying, amazingly large number of people around the globe.

Google Analytics shows that TeaJourney.pub has attracted visitors from 104 countries. Literally, every country in Western Europe where subscribers from UK and Germany lead; seven countries in South America, twelve countries in Africa, the Middle East, Turkey, Iran. India is home to the third-largest number of subscribers. There is great support for Tea Journey in Nepal and Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

There are only four countries in all of Asia where tea lovers have not visited the website… Iceland and the Caribbean Islands are represented. We love island people from the Azores and Madagascar and the Philippines to Indonesia, Malaysia, Australia, and New Zealand. Frank Miller paved the way in Thailand and Vietnam. A special shout to Kevin Gascoyne and Jeff Fuchs in my beloved Canada. There are now 2000+ paid subscribers and more than 18,000 names on our free newsletter list.

Our launch campaign lasted only 30 days…. that is now 1,500 days ago.

Let me share a quick story: On Thursday during the final week of the Kickstarter campaign Tea Journey was invited to attend a blazingly fast and fun #TwitterParty hosted by @urbanmommies, an online community of mothers founded by Jill Amery. A Twitter Party is a moment-in-time chat room that afforded us an opportunity to share our love for tea and trivia with @urbanmommies. Jill made a special appeal to support our Kickstarter project in the closing days of the campaign.

Together the Tea Journey team generated hundreds of tweets that led to hundreds of re-tweets that encouraged thousands of tea lovers to echo their support — which mushroomed into hundreds of thousands of individual contacts.

That single one-hour event brought us to the attention of almost 300,000 individual members of the @urbanmommies online community and their friends and it generated 5 million impressions globally. It was the GENIUS-INSPIRED work of Jennifer English… executed with precision by the Tea Journey partners, writers, and marketing staff.

Early in the week, Jennifer English sent out a call that mobilized her friends to organize an online contest with prizes for participants. Marketing director Ashley Sostaric-Finkes and her marvelous social media assistant Alexandra Enns joined the stream with the help of contributing editors Nicole Martin, Dan Robertson and Jennifer Quail, and bloggers Rachael Carter and Geoffrey Norman; and contributors Elyse Petersen and tea companies including Seven Cups and A Gift of Tea, Scandalous Tea, and Tea Wagon.

Together we shot a single bright beam in the night typing so fast we got lost in the moment. The resulting surge made Friday our single biggest day for paid subscribers.

Backers contributed more than $10,000 in the last 10 days of May to successfully fund the magazine with more than $128,000 in donations.

For this display of support, I am forever grateful,

Postscript: Four years later our journey continues.