Tea and Coffee Empire

Private entrepreneur Andrey V. Pichugov

Andrey Pichugov is the Kamchaka’s famous local business representative and the founder of the trading company Tea and Coffee Empire. His ‘empire’ is a chain of ‘teahouses’ – small cozy tea and coffee stores located in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky and its satellite city Elizovo.

Today teahouses offer a wide choice of tea harvested in Russia: Altai, Krasnodar krai, the Republic of Crimea and other territories of the Russian Federation. Worthy of particular attention is Magic Kamchatka, special herbal tea based on willowherb (well known as Ivan-tea in Russia).

Willowherb, which is a basic raw material for Magic Kamchatka, grows in Sobolevo, an ecologically pure area of the Kamchatka peninsula with the average population density of 0.2 people per square km. Willowherb is harvested by hand by the Itelmens from the indigenous small-group community Khanchkeh (Up the River). After the manufacturing of Magic Kamchatka is over dried wild berries are blended with willowherb. Rosehip, blueberry, lingonberry, cranberry, rowan are among them. No synthetic dyes, or flavours, or preservatives are used.

Moreover, Andrey Pichugov owns a brand Zavarkin. (Zavarkin is word play on Russian zavarka, tea leaves, and -in, a common ending for Russian surnames. “Mr. Tea Brewing” would be the closest in meaning). Under this brand he runs a wholesale business and plans to go exports in the near future.