RESEARCH & TEACHING
Olivier Schneider is an independent researcher. Since 2007, he has conducted multidisciplinary research into tea cultures and practices, with a particular focus on puerh teas and the cultures of the Golden Triangle: Yunnan, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam. He shares the results of this work through articles, training programs, lectures and public tastings.
Research
Olivier Schneider’s work brings together different disciplines and approaches, allowing tea to be explored in all its complexity:
Field Research
Since 2009, Olivier Schneider has conducted extensive field research throughout the mountains of the Golden Triangle, from Yunnan to Myanmar, through Thailand, Laos and Vietnam, as well as in other places where distinctive tea cultures have developed, including Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia.
These studies approach tea as a phenomenon in its entirety, drawing on fields such as geography, botany, ethnology and sociology. Over the years, they have documented the diversity of tea practices and the ways in which they evolve over time: from the tending of tea gardens to the consumption of the leaves, through their processing and maturation, as well as the social and cultural contexts in which these practices take place.
Historical Research
For many years, Olivier Schneider has been pursuing an extensive research program devoted to the history of tea, with a particular focus on the Golden Triangle.
This work seeks to move beyond national perspectives and narratives shaped by the contemporary borders of the countries that now divide the region. Instead, it examines the circulation, connections and influences between territories, allowing sometimes contradictory realities to coexist as inseparable fragments of a plural history.
Research on Tea Compounds
Since 2016, Olivier Schneider and Carine Baudry have been studying the compounds that determine the organoleptic character of puerh teas, in relation to multiple factors such as terroir, leaf-processing methods and maturation.
This work has led to the identification of more than one hundred sensory markers and to a better understanding of how these different factors influence the character of puerh teas produced both today and in the past. It has also led to the development of specific educational tools based on sensory references particular to this family of teas, which Olivier Schneider and Carine Baudry now use in their training programs.
Since 2024, Olivier Schneider has also been conducting an in-depth study of the biochemical phenomena involved in puerh maturation. This research examines how the origin of the leaves, their transformation into tea and the conditions in which they mature progressively reorganise the compounds within the leaf, leading over time to different organoleptic profiles.
This research aims to deepen our understanding of the mechanisms involved in puerh maturation, while also making it possible to reconsider, in light of these new findings, how teas intended for long-term evolution could be produced.
Research on the Terroirs of the Golden Triangle
Since 2017, Olivier Schneider has conducted a research program devoted to the terroirs of Yunnan and, more broadly, the Southeast Asian mountain ranges that form the Golden Triangle.
While the notion of terroir has become central over the past twenty years to the way tea is presented and marketed, the actual nature of these terroirs, their boundaries and their organoleptic identities, remains largely unknown.
Drawing on field studies conducted throughout Yunnan as well as across extensive areas of Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand, Olivier Schneider seeks to identify and define these terroirs both in their geographical reality and in their sensory expression.
Writing
Olivier Schneider has published numerous articles on tea, its history and its cultures. In 2007, he founded puerh.fr, the first French-language website devoted entirely to puerh tea culture, where for nearly ten years he published numerous articles drawn from his research and fieldwork.
He is currently writing a reference book devoted to puerh and the tea cultures of the Golden Triangle.
To follow the progress of this project and be informed when the book is published: Subscribe to the newsletter
Teaching
Olivier Schneider regularly shares his expertise through training programs, workshops, lectures and public tastings that have been presented in around twenty countries, primarily in Europe and Asia.
Ranging from short sessions of a few hours to intensive courses and multi-day field programs, his teaching covers both the theoretical understanding of tea, history, terroirs, cultural contexts, processing and more, and its practices, from the transformation of the leaves to their tasting, including the ways in which they are brewed.
Two days Intensive Puerh Training: Focus on Terroir and Maturation
October 22–23, 2026, in Paris.
This advanced two-day course, developed by Olivier Schneider and Carine Baudry, brings the approach and level of depth of their one-week intensive training into a shorter format. It focuses on two key concepts that are central to understanding sheng (raw) puerh today: terroir and natural maturation.*
Through a demanding approach combining theoretical knowledge with sensory practice, this intensive training provides advanced knowledge of puerh teas, their origins, terroirs, maturation and tasting.
For further information or to register: Contact me!
Seven days Intensive Training in Puerh and Dark Teas
October 26 to November 1, 2026, in Paris.
This advanced one-week course, developed by Olivier Schneider and Carine Baudry, is part of a two-course cycle. The two programs can be taken independently or combined to approach this family of teas in its entirety.
Through a demanding approach combining theoretical knowledge with sensory practice, this intensive training makes it possible, in just one week, to acquire advanced knowledge of puerh and dark teas, together with rigorous methods and solid skills in analytical tea tasting.
For further information or to register: Contact me!
Premiere of the documentary "The Tea Alchemist"
November 6, 2026 at 20h30 in Berlin
For several months, Luca Dylan Hartleib followed me in my studio, in the heart of the Golden Triangle mountains, to make a feature-length documentary about my artistic work. Through 95 minutes of majestic and sensitive images, in which everyday life, failures and moments of satisfaction intertwine, a personality emerges, along with a singular approach to creation and a particular relationship with the tea leaf.
Premiere in Berlin, November 6, 2026 at 8:30 pm
Kino Toni, as part of the Berlin Tea Festival
Watch the trailer /
Buy Tickets Online
Exploring the Teas of the Golden Triangle
November 16–22, 2026, departing from Thailand
This travelling one-week workshop through the mountains of the Golden Triangle offers an immersion in the extraordinary diversity of the region’s tea cultures: wild tea trees, old plantations, ethnic tea practices, teas eaten as food inherited from the former Lanna Kingdom, puerh, roasted teas, Taiwanese-influenced wulong teas, and many other forms.
The journey progresses from one area to another, with each stage revealing a different facet of these cultures through the study of tea gardens, encounters with producers and direct participation in leaf processing. Particular emphasis is placed on gesture and practice: the aim is not simply to observe, but to take part in the processes that give rise to these different teas and to understand their underlying logic from within.
For further information or to register: Contact me!
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