Hello, I’m Seo Hyuck Jae, head of OSULLOC, which is Amorepacific’s premium tea brand. I’ve been working for the tea brand since I joined the company, having been in charge of almost all aspects of the brand, including product development, sales, and even marketing. My current responsibilities as an executive officer are designing sustainable ways of growth for the brand and drawing the roadmap for the future direction of business.

First, I would like to begin by explaining what the name of the brand means. OSULLOC is a combined word, describing the green tea fields (Loc, 綠) against the backdrop of the snow-covered peak (Sul, 雪) of Halla mountain, as seen from the farm in Jeju. The letter ‘O’ is both the exclamation as we know it, as well as the first letter of ‘Origin,’ referring to the brand Sulloc, OSULLOC’s ancestor brand.

We have been loved by customers across generations ever since we first started as a premium brand of Sulloc Tea. OSULLOC’s teas are the outcome of extensive research and experience in growing green tea in our very own tea fields. Our products have been recognized for their organically grown properties, having received USDA-NOP certification as well as EU-Organic certification. We make high-quality Matcha through shadow-growing, a technique designed to enhance the smoothness of the tea and maximize its green hue by blocking light for a certain period. In addition, we have been committed to developing new varieties of tea exclusive to Korea, so that we can make available the benefits of tea to a larger group of customers.

OSULLOC’s product portfolio includes our Master’s line products, such as Jeju Young Leaf Tea, as well as blended tea products that are well-received by younger customers. The products are available through OSULLOC’s tea museums, tea houses, department stores, retail stores, online malls, and some shop-in-shop stores.

OSULLOC’s beginning can be traced back to 1979, when Suh Sung-whan, former president of Amorepacific, started developing wasteland in Dosoon, the area located to the southwest of Halla mountain in Jeju, with the goal of reviving the Korean tradition of drinking tea. He visited the site more than a hundred times, reviewed thousands of papers, and committed time and effort to rid the land of rocks and scrub in order to transform the land into one million pyeong (approximately 817 acres) of rich green tea fields. Not only is the site one of the most well-known green tea production fields in Korea, but it is also one of the most frequently visited, contributing to the growth of the Jeju community.

OSULLOC is now a world-renowned premium Korean tea brand, whose organic green-tea ingredients are also being used in Amorepacific’s beauty products.

What differentiates us from other brands is that we cultivate our own tea fields. Our brand image was not something that was built synthetically overnight. Customers appreciate our history and philosophy, which we have constructed over a long period of time around quality tea products sourced from our very own tea fields. We’ve also been devoted to offering delicious, healthy tea to our customers using the data we have accumulated from growing and processing tea ourselves.

We wanted to transform how younger generations associate tea with tradition by adding a modern twist to our products, which are now available in premium channels only, such as department stores, tea houses, and online stores. This is a shift from how they used to be more readily available, in retail stores and superstores. In particular, we started focusing on digital channels from early on, reinforcing our talents around e-commerce and strategizing products and events to suit the needs of each channel, which led to substantial growth in our online sales. We also regularly conduct trend and on-site analyses through various in-house initiatives, on top of customizing our products to blend in with the local heritage of the area where our tea houses are located, so that we can revolutionize the way customers experience tea. As a result, OSULLOC has now become a contemporary premium brand that harmonizes traditional tastes with modern ones.

As the highest quality tea brand with 40 years of expertise, OSULLOC will continue to deliver an unforgettable tea experience, sourced from the rich earth of Jeju. We are also currently expanding our global business with a focus on the U.S. market, and we hope to continue this endeavor so that we can extend the scope of our brand experience for a wider number of global customers going forward.