Thomas M. Groemer

Thomas M. Groemer is Europe’s only fully-trained expert for Japanese teas. Vienna-born Groemer heads European commercial operations at Japan’s traditional family-owned business AIYA – and thus is the only none-Japanese to occupy an executive position at the global market leader for Matcha green tea.

Thomas M. Groemer wasted no time in discovering his passion for the multi-faceted cultures of East Asia and began to study Japanese Studies and economics. He graduated in Paris with a distinguished thesis on “Green tea production in Shizuoka”.

During the course of a two-year research scholarship period in Shizuoka, the centre of Japanese tea production, Groemer studied virtually everything to do with Japanese teas: from cultivation to harvest, production methods, processing and blending to tasting and sales. In addition, he gained valuable insight into the sale and the culture as well as the traditional preparation of tea, which in Japan is heavily influenced by the philosophy of Buddhist monks.

Once trained as a tea taster, Thomas M. Groemer, expert for Japanese teas, returned to Vienna, where he helped build European business operations for AIYA. From 2003 onwards he was in charge of the first European branch of a Japanese tea-producing company.

In 2008 he took charge of AIYA’s newly established European headquarters in Hamburg.