I’m Lera, a tea artist. This is the story of how a simple cup became the thing I build my life around, and why I want to share it with you.

Where it started

In 2020, my friends and I got stuck in Indonesia. The pandemic had taken every project we had back home in Ukraine. No work, no plan, no idea what the next month would look like.

So every day we did the one thing we still could. We sat down, looked at the jungle for a long time, and drank tea.

I didn’t know it then, but that was the beginning.

The cup that stayed

Since then, tea has shown up every time life turned upside down.

I met the first days of the full-scale war in Ukraine with a cup of tea in my hands. I read heavy news from home over tea. After long nights of shelling in Kyiv, I got up in the morning and made tea.

And I celebrated with it too. Whenever something wonderful happened, to me or to someone I love, I poured tea and shared it.

On the days when nothing else worked, tea was always the next step. Something small I could still do. My own quiet ritual.

One gesture, everywhere

Around that time I started hosting tea ceremonies and learning from tea masters of different traditions, from northern Thailand, Taiwan and Indonesia. I travelled and moved a lot, often not knowing when I’d go home, or what home even meant anymore.

And everywhere I went, I found the same thing.

• Tea by a fire in the desert with Bedouins, four spoons of sugar.
• Tea at golden tables high up in glass towers.
• Tea with milk, salt and ghee when my feet were freezing on a Himalayan trek.
• Tea in a thin Turkish glass, with herbs from Egypt, or from home.

Every place had its own way. But every place shared the same gesture: make a cup, and offer it to a guest.

What happens between us

Over six years of ceremonies, I noticed something that still surprises me. When tea comes into a room, the room changes. People soften. They open up. They tell me things I never asked about.

Sometimes tea opens more space than I could ever open myself.

That’s where the name comes from. Tea is never just in the cup. It’s what happens between us: between you and the people you share it with, and between you and yourself.

Why tea between us

Today tea is part of how I live. How I work, write and dance. How I go to parties, meet friends for a picnic in the garden, walk into a business meeting, move through a hard feeling.

It’s simple, beautiful, and quietly deep. But in the West it often still feels heavy, traditional, or reserved for experts. I want to change that, and show how easy it is to let good tea into an ordinary day. No ceremony required (unless you want one).

So I gathered the teas I love most, the ones I’ve been sharing with friends for years, and built tea between us around one simple idea: tea is a state.

Instead of choosing by tea type, you choose how you want to feel: Full Power, Clear Focus, Social Butterfly, Deep Exhale, Coming Home or Creative Act. The State Map shows you which tea to reach for.

Whatever you feel, there’s a tea for that.

From my table to yours

This collection is still growing, and so is the community around it. I hope some of these teas find their way into your days: the good ones, the hard ones, and all the ordinary ones in between.

Pour a cup. Share it with someone. See what happens between you.

With warmth,
Lera
Valeriia Donchyk, tea artist & founder