Steaming tea poured into a cup in low light
The field guide /Que - ko/ noun

A world you can steep.

Queko began in the Adelaide Hills in 2021: seven folklore creatures, seven blends, drawn and brewed by one maker.

Founded 2021 Creatures seven Teabags none

It started with petals in a cup.

Long before Queko had a name, its maker, Jenna, was a kid in the garden steeping petal-and-leaf concoctions that nobody was brave enough to drink. The habit stuck. The recipes improved.

The switch to loose leaf came the way it comes for most tea people: reading the side of a supermarket box. Chemical flavourings where the fruit should be; plastic in the teabag where the tea should be. Loose leaf meant whole ingredients you can see, and a pouch that could go back to the earth when it was done.

Queko launched from the Adelaide Hills in 2021 with seven blends, each named for a creature from a world Jenna had been drawing for years. The tea is blended to taste the way the story reads.

Tea leaves spilling from a jar beside a candle and dark teapot
Chapter two · why creatures?
"Because a flavour is easier to remember when it has footprints."
Meet all seven

The world behind the labels.

Every Queko blend is numbered and named for an original folklore creature: Denflo the sapling, Gerra the messenger, Erca the night prowler, Rista the berry-horned, Ribi the night bird, Leli the lantern bearer, Teo the carrier. Each one has a story, an ink drawing, and a flavour built to match.

A brisk citrus black tea runs like a messenger. A caffeine-free berry infusion glows like a night bird. The creature is not a mascot stuck on afterwards; it is the brief the blend was made to.

The illustrations live on the pouch labels, on the Tea Creatures prints, and in the journal, where the world grows one entry at a time.

i. The pouch goes back to the earth.

Biodegradable packaging on every blend, by construction, not as an afterthought.

ii. Loose leaf, no plastic teabags.

Whole ingredients you can see, free of the plastic particles in commercial teabags.

iii. Compost the leaves.

Spent leaves feed the garden, your citrus will thank you. No leftover, no wastage.

Poured in person.

Queko trades at South Australian markets and events through the year; Winterfest has hosted the stall. Market dates land in the newsletter first.

Stockists and markets
The subscription register

Join the world. New creatures first.

One letter when a new blend hatches. A creature wallpaper for your phone with your first order.