“Unchallenged world champion tea-drinkers.“
Tea is more than just tea. Particularly in Ostfriesland. Here, tea belongs to the cultural heritage and is part of the way of life. UNESCO has even included Ostfriesland’s traditional tea ceremony in the Intangible Cultural Heritage List. The company Thiele & Freese in Emden has been a cornerstone of this culture for 150 years.
How can someone who still hasn’t discovered their passion for tea be encouraged to give it a try? “Nothing could be simpler”; says Franz Thiele, carefully pouring a cup. “Don’t talk about it, just get them to try”, is his solution. Keeping a totally straight face, he asks with just a hint of irony whether there are even people that don’t drink tea.
Cleverly said. Statistically speaking, he’s probably right. According to the Tea Report issued by the German Tea Association, in 2021 roughly 95,000 cups of tea were drunk in Germany – per minute. In other words, the average German drinks around 30 litres per year. Current trend? On the increase, of course. But 30 litres? The statistics say it’s only 30 litres? People from Ostfriesland will just grin at that. They must drink about ten times that amount here. “When it comes to drinking tea, we are the unchallenged world champions”, declares Franz Thiele with pride. And he’s the one to know: for about 40 years now, the man born in 1957 has been steering the course of one of the last remaining tea producers in Northwest Germany, which is run as a family business.
From grocer’s shop to tea empire
Let’s take a brief look at the company history. It all began with a grocer’s shop founded on 1 May 1873 in Emden by the two businessmen Carl Thiele and Peter H. Freese. Carl’s brother Franz joined them two years later. He gradually shifted the emphasis to importing and retailing tea. When Freese left the company in 1901,
it belonged completely to the Thiele family. Carl and Franz, his daughter Magdalene and his sons Fritz and Franz and their cousin Gebhardt skilfully steered the firm through the turbulent first half of the 20th century.
After the Second World War, Franz Snr. – son of the founder – took the helm. The company’s headquarters were bombed out, like most of Emden town centre, but despite the disaster, the Thiele brand survived. Franz Thiele organised the reconstruction, managed the purchasing side of the business and even took personal charge of designing the characteristic company logo that is still used today. The whole region is featured in his self-confident slogan: “In Ostfriesland, people drink Thiele tea”. His son, another Franz, adds with emphasis: “and at any time of day and at every opportunity”.
He joined the management team in 1983 aged just 26 years, but christened with tea, you could say, during his specialist training in Hamburg’s Speicherstadt. He thus confirmed the two principles of tradition and quality in the year the company celebrated its 100th anniversary. Principles still practised today. With deep conviction.
Change in generation
Business succession issues are frequently a particular challenge in many companies, including those run by families. Differing expectations can make getting in just as difficult as getting out. That doesn’t apply to the Thieles. “I simply grew into it bit by bit”, says Franz Thiele. Other options were available, but he deliberately opted to continue the tradition – although as a schoolchild he would have liked to become a doctor or lawyer, he adds. “I’ve only just realised that I’ve always looked for jobs with plenty of
responsibility.”
He sees the transition from one generation to the next as an exciting phase and a continuous process. “You come with an outsider’s view and see structures and workflows possibly in a different light to your predecessor”, clarifies Franz Thiele. He thinks modernisation is important to keep the brand alive. “But it won’t happen overnight”. What matters is preserving the heart of the company and its guiding principle. “Customers and staff must be able to rely on this.”
His son Lennart agrees. He has taken on a number of tasks in the company. Besides digitalisation, administration and human resources, he’s also responsible for online trading. Purchaser orders regularly arrive in Emden via the internet from all corners of the world. He’s never felt pressure from his parents, says Lennart, born in 1988. “They gave me total freedom in my choice of career.” They just had one mutual agreement: he should announce whether he would take over running the company in the fourth generation, at latest by the age of 30. “We wanted to give him time to work out what he really wanted and not to make a premature, rash decision based on gut feelings”, emphasises his mother Celine.
Respect for Ostfriesland’s tea culture
Celine Thiele comes from Hamburg. Moving from the city on the river Elbe to Ostfriesland was a challenge, she remembers with a laugh. But she’s long since felt at home in Emden. She has earned her position as CEO in the company, despite initial difficulties with a purely male management team in the early days. “But I managed to assert myself”, she says cheerfully.
Today her main passion is for their tea shop: the “Thiele Tee Kontor,” just a stone’s throw from company headquarters. It’s an ideal place to relax from the stress of shopping over a “Koppke” (“cuppa”) and find out all sorts of information about Ostfriesland’s traditional tea ceremony, as well as choosing the right blend to take home afterwards. Celine is particularly taken with the tea culture so deeply rooted in the region. “I’m full of respect for the deep bond that people here have with their tea.”
Her husband Franz Thiele knows where this comes from. Tea stands for values: for cultivated togetherness and the art of enjoying the experience, for composure and conviviality.
“For chilling, as young people say today.”
A good opportunity for their son Lennart to speak up: “Of course it’s all based on the quality of the product. That has to be assured at all times.” To uphold the quality promise, for example for traditional Thiele products such as the strong, aromatic “Broken Silber” (broken silver), the company has worked right from the very start with tea plantations in the valley of the Brahmaputra River in the North Indian province of Assam. This is the world’s largest tea-growing region. The contacts established with the owners of the tea plantations are handed down in trust from one generation to the next. Franz Thiele is glad: “This kind of business is still done by handshake.”
Soloists for a well-sounding orchestra
From mid-May, Franz and Lennart Thiele can be found on the first floor of their small manufactory on Emden’s Falderndelft harbour, waiting for the first samples of the new tea harvest. In the tasting room, they test the smell, appearance and flavour of the freshly arrived tea leaves. They taste up to 600 samples a day. The tea sommeliers are absolutely in their element here and totally uncompromising in their verdict! Often it’s a case of tiny nuances in flavour, but this is exactly the secret behind the success of Ostfriesland’s genuine blends.
It takes experience as well as sensitivity and meticulous care to achieve the right mixture in the blend. The professionals have no more than six weeks to do their job during the main purchasing period in May and June. The best lots are in great demand and the competition never sleeps. So they have to be quick.
Thiele likes describing his work in terms of music: “I see myself as the conductor and imagine I’m working with a large number of soloists, in other words, the different varieties of tea. It’s up to me to see which will go well together and work in perfect harmony with the orchestra”. In other words, guaranteeing a consistently perfect flavour. In the end, that is all that matters, says Franz Thiele.
THIELE & FREESE GmbH
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