Born in Vietnam, Master Le grew up in Montreal. He is owner of the Salon de Thé Oasis since 2003 and Guru Teas in addition to being the founder of “The Association of Masters of Tea and Ancestral Knowledge”. Culinary chef by profession, passionate about everything related to gastronomy and taste pleasure, Master Le embraced his origins by specializing in the field of tea. He studied tea in China and Japan with great masters, and has been working as a tea master following authentic and ancestral traditions for over 17 years. Master Le is considered an ambassador of tea from Japan. An innovator, he works with tea in all its forms and is also a master tea roaster and master maker of mixed teas. His passion for sharing his culture and his knowledge led him to become a teacher and lecturer in the field of tea training the next generation of tea masters/tea sommeliers.

Kayo Yasuhara has studied drama at Tamagawa University in Tokyo. She has also studied traditional song and Kabuki dance, and worked in Japanese theatre. Kayo eventually moved to Ontario where she found language a barrier and used her artistic practice to express herself. She continues to study music, in particular, the shamisen, a plucked stringed instrument similar to the guitar and banjo, and Japanese drums once reserved for men only. In her works, Kayo combines a mistrust of rules in general with a mistrust of keeping artistic disciplines and cultural differences separate. Kayo has now settled in Quebec, once again encountering another linguistic question. She has begun to perform Japanese folk dance and offer dance classes to Montrealers with the Komachi troupe (komachimontreal.com).