A government rehabilitation program financed 70% to 90% of costs, expanding active tea production from 800 hectares in 2014 to 1,900 hectares by 2019.
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"We had situations where people had tea bushes in their garden, but they didn't know how to make tea with their hands," said Giorgi Bitadze, Shota's son.
While traditional buyers in former Soviet bloc nations remain active, boutique organic brands are penetrating Western retail spaces.
Specialized shops like Palais des Thés in Paris have increased Georgian tea orders 12-fold since 2019.
"Getting past the Iron Curtain is a struggle," said Timothy Merkel, an American tour guide in Tbilisi who created the Georgian Tea Makers website and previously aimed to sell Georgian tea in the UK.
New local enterprises are adopting innovative production methods to appeal to younger global tea drinkers.
Some startups use traditional clay wine vessels called qvevri to ferment tea leaves, creating new flavor profiles.
"The first step and first thing when we started the business was not to export to Russia," said Nika Sioridze, co-founder of growers GreenGold with Baka Babunashvili in 2017.
"It's not a stable market."
During an experimental green tea drying process, Sioridze accidentally created a unique roasted blend after noticing unexpected smoke in the facility.
"And then we realised that we have not burnt the tea, we have roasted it," he said, speaking of the Phoenix tea in GreenGold's catalog.
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"I'm burning it and it's alive again, a new life."
