A Life Poured in Tea

A Life Poured in Tea

Why Lorna Owens Is the Tea Expert the World Didn’t Know It Needed

By Contributing Writer

By any standard, Lorna Owens is a woman of many lives. A former registered nurse, midwife, and criminal defense attorney, she has delivered babies in the Caribbean, defended clients in American courtrooms, and lectured on human rights in over 20 countries. But perhaps her most soulful transformation has come in the quiet steam of a teacup.

Today, Lorna Owens is the founder of Desert Sage, a lifestyle wellness company rooted in the ancient and the botanical. And she is, without question, a tea expert.

For Ms. Owens, it’s not simply about identifying notes of jasmine or measuring tannins. It’s about understanding the soul of the leaf. Her expertise is born of scholarship and reverence: she holds a certificate in The Science of Well-Being from Yale University, Mindfulness and Meditation from Rice University, and Everyday Chinese Medicine from the University of Hong Kong.

She has met with women tea farmers on the slopes of Kilimanjaro, listened to their stories, walked the tea fields at sunrise. For Ms. Owens, every cup is a story—political, spiritual, sensual. She champions fair trade, highlights women farmers, and sources only loose-leaf teas—whole, fragrant, and alive with memory.

Her book, Desert Sage: Wonderful World of Tea – From Ancient Leaves to Modern Wellness, is both history and homage. In its pages, tea is not a drink but a ritual, a lineage, a healing. It invites readers to steep in slowness and grace.

“Tea is a kind of remembering,” she says. “It brings you back to yourself. It brings you back to the earth.”

In a world that often forgets to pause, Ms. Owens reminds us how.

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