Founded 2016 · Davis, California

Preserving tea diversity.
Engineering its propagation.

SIP‑T, Inc. (Sustainable Innovations in the Production of Tea) is building the scientific and commercial infrastructure to conserve valuable Camellia sinensis cultivars, predict how they can be reliably propagated, and convert that capability into planting material, production systems, and differentiated tea products.

Our approach Meet the team

Mission

A scientific foundation for tea's future

Helping the tea community preserve culturally and economically important cultivars — and making them more accessible for research, breeding, climate adaptation, and responsible production.

Tea is one of the world's most widely consumed and culturally significant crops, yet the propagation of its most valuable cultivars remains largely empirical, slow, and difficult to scale. Genetically distinct plants that carry unique flavor, chemistry, and resilience traits are at risk of being lost as growing regions face climate pressure and generational knowledge fades.

SIP‑T, Inc. applies controlled-environment plant science, chemical analysis, and predictive modeling to close that gap — giving breeders, growers, and researchers reliable tools to conserve and reproduce the cultivars that matter most.

Approach

From conserved germplasm to differentiated product

Four connected capabilities move a valuable tea cultivar from the field into a documented, reproducible production pipeline.

Tea shoot culture growing in a dish of liquid media — Tuning plant chemistry through tissue culture

Preserve

Hydroponic, tissue-culture, and cell-culture systems maintain and characterize culturally and economically important Camellia sinensis cultivars under controlled conditions.

Predict

Chemical and microbial analysis identifies which cultivars can be propagated successfully, and under what conditions, before committing production resources.

Produce

Predictive results are converted into reliable planting material and scalable production systems suited to growers and controlled-environment facilities.

Differentiate

Precise control over growing conditions lets us tune desirable compounds — like theanine and catechins — supporting traceable, consistent, and distinctive tea, food, cosmetic, and pharmaceutical products.

Products & Services

From cultivar to cup, and everything growers need in between

Alongside our research platform, SIP‑T, Inc. offers finished tea products and grower-facing services that put our science to work today.

Products

Leaflow Tea Bricks

Compressed tea bricks from our partner Leaflow, rooted in Pinglin, Taiwan.

Premium Taiwan Tea

Loose-leaf premium tea sourced through our Taiwan producer partnership.

Services

Test Plot Design & Cultivar Siting

We help growers design test plots to maximize production and identify site‑specific cultivars for successful expansion of a tea‑growing enterprise.

Leaf & Soil Analysis

Standard operating procedures for tea leaf and soil analyses that support high‑quality tea production.

Propagation & Tissue Culture SOPs

Documented protocols for tea propagation and tissue culture, developed and refined in our lab.

Custom Media Formulations

Proprietary nutrient formulations — per our patent‑pending AcTEAvator System — to maximize biomass production during propagation.

Get Involved

Join our citizen scientist network

We're recruiting at‑home tea enthusiasts to grow tea in tissue culture and share their results — building a shared dataset that will help train the machine‑learning models at the heart of our SBIR research.

Get involved

Market Opportunity

A $20 billion U.S. market built almost entirely on imports

Over 100 customer discovery interviews across the tea supply chain — from farmer to retailer, nationally and internationally — confirmed a market ready for a domestic, controlled-environment alternative.

$20B

Annual U.S. tea market, almost entirely dependent on imports

<100 acres

Of tea currently under cultivation in the entire United States

No. 1

Most‑consumed flavored beverage in the world

The current import-based model is under mounting pressure from international currency fluctuations, shipping irregularities, workforce disruptions, and extreme weather events. Excessive time inside shipping containers also diminishes tea quality. Japan has proposed a maritime carbon tax to the International Maritime Organization starting at $56 per ton and rising to $135 per ton by 2030 — a further threat to the economics of an export-dependent supply chain.

Building a U.S. tea industry through conventional propagation and field cultivation would take five or more years. Our customer discovery confirmed that tea retailers want high-quality, U.S.-grown tea but cannot currently source it at scale. SIP‑T, Inc.’s controlled-environment platform is built to close that gap — shortening the path to domestic production while improving supply stability, reducing carbon footprint, and reducing exposure to weather-related risk.

Patent-Pending Technology

The AcTEAvator™ System

Our propagation platform is protected by a patent application invented in the Gervay‑Hague laboratory and filed by the University of California. The underlying tissue‑culture technology originated with an EAGER Award from the Chemistry Division of the National Science Foundation, and early development of the propagation system was also supported by NSF. SIP‑T, Inc. is currently negotiating a licensing agreement with the University of California for exclusive commercial rights to this technology.

Established tea plantlet culture growing in a sealed tissue-culture vessel — A tea shoot culture established via the AcTEAvator System

Patent Pending Licensing in Progress

“AcTEAvator System” — PCT/WO 2024/145233 A1

Applicant: The Regents of the University of California Inventors: J. Gervay‑Hague & D. Tri‑Coli Published 4 Jul 2024 Developed under NSF Grant No. 1758530

7 yrs → 5 mo

Time to harvestable planting material

Figure 3: scatter plot of shoot length versus number of shoots across 12 tea varieties, showing no correlation between the two traits

Fig. 3

Why prediction matters

Shoot length and shoot number show no correlation across studied varieties — propagation success is variety‑specific, not a single formula. This is the problem SIP‑T, Inc.’s predictive models are built to solve.

Figure 4: circular phylogenetic dendrogram of 68 tea cultivars including UC-K03 and UC-K04

Fig. 4

Mapping cultivar diversity

A neighbor‑joining dendrogram of 68 tea cultivars — including UC‑K03 and UC‑K04 — the kind of genetic characterization that underlies SIP‑T, Inc.’s conservation and breeding pipeline.

Figure 5E: line chart of biomass weight increase over 12 weeks under two bioreactor treatments

Fig. 5E

Measured propagation gains

Biomass weight of Benikoori tea over 12 weeks in a RITA® bioreactor under two optimized media treatments — the reproducible, quantified growth that replaces years of field propagation.

Source: PCT Publication WO 2024/145233 A1, “AcTEAvator System,” The Regents of the University of California.

Peer-Reviewed Publication

United States tea: A synopsis of ongoing tea research and solutions to United States tea production issues

D’Auria, J.C., Cohen, S.P., Leung, J., Glockzin, K.M., Glockzin, K., Gervay‑Hague, J., Zhang, D., & Meinhardt, L.W. (2022)

Frontiers in Plant Science 13:934651. A comprehensive review, co‑authored by our CSO, of the genetics, chemistry, and production constraints limiting domestic tea cultivation — and of the research directions, including controlled‑environment propagation, needed to establish a scientifically grounded U.S. tea industry.

Read the paper · doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.934651 →

Customer‑discovery validated through NSF I‑Corps

SIP‑T, Inc.’s founding team has completed both stages of the NSF I‑Corps program, conducting 100 customer discovery interviews (51 in person, 49 by phone or video) with retailers, growers, and industry stakeholders to pressure‑test the venture's technology and business model ahead of SBIR submission.

Fall 2021Regional I‑Corps, UC Berkeley

Feb 2022NSF National I‑Corps (7‑week program)

100 interviews51 in person · 49 phone / video

What we heard · retailers

Urgent need for a continuous, fresh supply of high‑quality tea

Tea drinkers demand consistency in taste and availability.
International shipping delays are associated with mold and salmonella, cause higher prices, and delay meeting customer demand.
Specialty tea sales are on the increase in the U.S.
Supermarkets are the gateway to specialty tea vendors and consumers.
Packaging attracts customers; quality keeps them.
Educating tea drinkers on value and quality is critical.

What retailers want

Sustainability
Continuous and fresh supply
High‑quality tea
U.S.‑grown tea

SIP‑T, Inc.’s deep technology has the potential to deliver this product at a marketable price.

Press & Media

Recognized by researchers, media, and industry

SIP‑T, Inc.’s founding science has drawn attention from national media, the broader tea research community, and University of California Cooperative Extension programs.

Video

Tea Day 2026 at Kearney REC

UC Agriculture & Natural Resources (UC ANR)

Coverage of UC ANR's Tea Day at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center (KAREC), where SIP‑T, Inc.’s CSO participated alongside California's tea research and extension community.

Watch on YouTube →

Radio

The Science of Tea

CapRadio · Insight with Vicki Gonzalez · July 11, 2017

Jacquelyn Gervay‑Hague discusses tea research findings, including work conducted in Taiwan, and California's emerging tea industry.

Listen at capradio.org →

Press

Genomic focus brings tea research to the boil

Nature · Elie Dolgin · February 6, 2019

This Nature Outlook feature profiles our CSO's early field research: “a team led by Jacquelyn Gervay‑Hague… is planting 30 varieties of tea at 7 sites across coastal, flat agricultural and mountainous regions” of California to link growth conditions to tea‑plant quality.

Read at nature.com →

Partners

Built with research institutions and tea growers

SIP‑T, Inc. works alongside university research and extension programs and with tea growers and producers to keep our science grounded in real growing and production conditions.

Research & Extension

UC ANR Kearney Agricultural Research & Extension Center (KAREC)

Field research and extension collaboration, including participation in KAREC's annual Tea Day.

ucanr.edu →

GTI

UC Davis Global Tea Institute

Collaboration with UC Davis's center for the study of tea culture and science.

globaltea.ucdavis.edu →

Growers & Producers

RTE

Redwood Tea Estate

U.S. tea grower and production partner supporting field validation of SIP‑T, Inc.’s propagation technology.

redwoodteaestate.com →

Leaflow

Premium Taiwanese tea brand rooted in Pinglin, Taiwan, connecting SIP‑T, Inc. to international tea craft and quality standards.

leaflow‑tea.com →

Featured Partnership

The KAREC test plot

Established by the Gervay‑Hague laboratory at UC Davis with support from an NSF EAGER grant, this working test plot at UC ANR's Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center is where SIP‑T, Inc.'s partnership with KAREC comes to life today: Genetically defined plants are propagated at the plot and made available to farmers, new leaf is harvested from the planting and sold to partner Redwood Tea Estate for processing and commercialization.

Rows of established tea plants under drip irrigation at the KAREC test plot — Established rows under drip irrigation

Freshly harvested tea leaf spread out to be sorted — Fresh harvest, ready for sorting

Bowls of harvested tea leaf destined for Redwood Tea Estate — Harvested leaf bound for Redwood Tea Estate

Leadership

Science and operating experience, together

SIP‑T, Inc. pairs a founding scientific program built over two decades with the commercialization discipline needed to scale it.

Jacquelyn Gervay Hague, Ph.D.

Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer

Professor Emerita of Chemistry at UC Davis, where she built an internationally recognized career in organic chemistry, chemical biology, and natural products research. B.S. and Ph.D. from UCLA; NIH postdoctoral fellow at Yale; faculty positions at the University of Arizona and UC Davis (full professor, 2001).

Formerly Associate Vice Provost for Outreach and Engagement and Chair of the UC Davis Department of Chemistry, and Division Director of Chemistry at the U.S. National Science Foundation. Author of more than 100 scientific publications and book chapters.

Her laboratory pioneered hydroponic, tissue-culture, and cell-culture methods for growing Camellia sinensis under controlled conditions, enabling reproducible study of the plant and microbial metabolites that determine tea quality, flavor, health benefits, and sustainability — work aimed at establishing a scientifically based tea industry in the United States.

ACS Fellow AAAS Fellow Sloan Fellow ACS Horace S. Isbell Award Former NSF Division Director Frontiers in Plant Science, 2022

jgh@SIPTInc.com

Alex Lai

Chief Executive Officer

B.S. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, UC Davis. Vice Chairman of Layana, a manufacturing company operating across Taiwan, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States, serving 18 automotive OEMs, producing more than 332 million components, and delivering 36% year-over-year growth.

Since 2016, has worked with Tesla teams in the U.S., Germany, and Shanghai on Cybercab high-voltage systems, EV Supercharging Stations, Powerwall, and Megapack assemblies — applying data-driven decision-making, Design for Manufacturability, and a “safe-to-try, fast-to-validate” framework to move demanding products from experimentation into controlled production.

Brings the quality systems, scaling discipline, and international market development needed to convert SIP‑T, Inc.’s propagation science into reproducible commercial services, informed by firsthand study of tea cultivation and processing in China and India.

Certified Quality Manager Six Sigma MBB PMP Certified Quality Engineer

Alexlai@siptinc.com

Long-term position

A trusted tea‑biotechnology company

SIP‑T, Inc. is working toward a 21st-century tea economy in which precision agriculture, chemical analysis, and biotechnology enable domestic production of high-value tea products with reproducible chemical composition and documented health benefits — technologies broadly applicable to controlled-environment agriculture in urban settings, resource-limited regions, and future extraterrestrial habitats.

We preserve the diversity of tea, improve the reliability of its propagation, and enable producers to create traceable, consistent, and distinctive products — without replacing the traditions and regional identities that give tea its value.

Contact

Get in touch

SIP‑T, Inc. is a Delaware corporation headquartered in Davis, California, at the center of U.S. tea research and viticulture science. We welcome inquiries from research partners, cultivar owners, growers, and funding agencies.

General Inquiriesinfo@siptinc.com

Chief Scientific Officerjgh@SIPTInc.com

Chief Executive OfficerAlexlai@siptinc.com

Phone+1 530 757 1921

Address417 Mace Blvd., Suite J298
Davis, CA 95618

Websiptinc.com

Preserving tea diversity.Engineering its propagation.