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  • India Tea Board Weighs Auditor Concerns | Overindulgence and High ABV Tea | Tea Stalwart: India’s Oldest Captive Elephant Dies

    Tea Board Weighs Auditor Concerns: Additional Resources Needed to Market Tea

    | Overindulgence and High ABV Tea
    | Tea Stalwart: India’s Oldest Captive Elephant Dies

    Tea News for the week ending Aug 25
    Hear the Headlines | Seven-Minute Tea News Recap

    Powered by RedCircle

    Tea is intricately woven into India’s cultural tapestry. In its latest marketing campaign, Tata Tea Premium acknowledges and elevates several of the Indian state’s distinctive patterns in fabric and symbols of pride, drawing attention to the tea company’s extensive range of hyperlocal blends. Tata tells the story of extraordinary weavers by digitally enhancing their homespun artistry in an interactive tribute to handlooms. Aravinda Anantharaman reports on this eye-catching effort.

    Listen to the Interview
    Tata’s latest TV for its premium line of tea features a celebrated singer at the heart of great campaigns that evoke nationalistic pride and emotion, which ties in with what Chai means to people across the country.
    NEWS131-G20 Delegates Tea Board India pavilion Experience Zone
    G20 Delegates visit the Tea Board India Pavilion Experience Zone on Aug. 25.

    Limited Resources Restrain Marketing Efforts by Tea Board

    By Dan Bolton

    A Parliamentary committee is reviewing concerns raised in a report by India’s auditor general that identified lapses in enforcing tea industry regulations by the Tea Board of India.

    The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) audit, titled “The Role of Tea Board India in the Development of Tea in India,” reviewed board activities during a five-year period ending in fiscal 2022.

    Auditors drew attention to these concerns:·       

    • The board’s inability to curb smuggled tea and tea untraceable to origin used for blending for sale in domestic markets.·       
    • The lack of a “well-defined strategy” to register growers (large and small). In March 2021, 38% of small growers were unregistered.·       
    • Failure to monitor tea processing facilities by conducting timely inspections and laboratory testing.·       
    • Lack of a database to track yield per hectare, labor productivity, new plantings, aging tree stock, and distribution of cultivars.
    • In addition, a mandate to auction 50% of the country’s tea was not enforced. Auditors found that most registered buyers did not purchase tea at auction.
    Read More

Spotlight

  • THIRST Examines Three Aggregated Tea Production Models that Benefit Smallholders

    Kazi Yetu blending and packaging workers

    THIRST Founder/CEO Sabita Banerji says, “An alternative model of smallholder farmers aggregating is starting to emerge in Tanzania and Kenya. Control distributed amongst its elements makes for a much more powerful, stronger, sustainable, and more efficient entity. I think this model will gradually replace plantations in the long run.”

    Read More

Need To Know News

  • AVPA Teas of the World

    Deadline for AVPA Herbal and Infusion Producers Extended to Sept. 21, 2023

    AVPA is a non-governmental, non-profit organization mainly composed of producers and taste enthusiasts. AVPA’s annual Teas of the World contest offers more value than a medal. Services include tasting workshops, technical support, and distributor staff training. Read more

  • TeaFit Founder Joyti Bharadwaj

    TeaFit: Unsweetened Iced Tea and Herbal Goodness

    There are many herbal recipes from our own Ayurveda. We selected tea as a base to make the blends flavorful and light on the palate and not douse everything with loud flavor and sugar. So that’s where it came from, a very personal place, but I’m glad it found resonance in the larger customer base. -… Read more

  • Horacio Bustos

    English Edition of El Té Gourmet Argentino Released

    Author Horacio Bustos in July 2023 released an English-language version of of El Té Gourmet Argentino, an exhaustive analysis of the origin, customs, and practices of gourmet tea in Argentina. Read more

  • Muthiyangana Raja Maha Vihara

    The Pearl Temple

    The stupa is the heart of the temple. It is a hemispherical structure containing relics of the Buddha placed there by 2,500 years ago by the local chieftain, Indaka Read more

BRU Maker One
Bogdan Krinitchko

Preparation is key to enjoying fine tea. Sequential steeping delivers the best taste possible and unlocks the true value of whole-leaf teas and botanicals. BRU automates the process without using pods or capsules. The simple-to-operate smartphone-controlled device stores steeping profiles to consistently make great tea at the push of a button.

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Nepal Tea Collective
Nepal Tea Collective
Nischal Banskota

Hi, I’m Nish. I grew up on an organic tea farm and founded Nepal Tea Collective in 2016. Tea is not just a beverage for me but a catalyst for social change, sustainably empowering hardworking artisans like my parents for the past 30 years. I’m on a mission to make the whole world aware of the goodness of Nepali teas and the good that comes from supporting growers in this remarkable land.

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Camellia Sinensis
Nepal Tea Collective
World Tea Academy
Young Mountain Tea
Save the Children Sri Lanka

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Tea Biz is a hub of expertise essential for buyers and sellers to thrive in the market.

Dan Bolton | Editor and Host | Tea Biz Podcast | Blog

Features

  • Q&A: Yangdup Lama, India’s Top Bartender

    Q&A: Yangdup Lama, India’s Top Bartender

    Darjeeling native Yangdup Lama is India’s most famous bartender known for his tea cocktails. Aravinda Anantharaman chats with him about his upbringing, bartending and what a cocktail named Darjeeling would be like.

    Read More

  • AVPA Competition Enhances Understanding of Consumer Preferences in Tea

    AVPA Competition Enhances Understanding of Consumer Preferences in Tea

    During the past six years, the Teas of the World Contest has elevated the status of tea and herbal producers, large and small, not only on the global stage but in their local markets. Teas must be traceable from origin and cannot be chemically flavored. A technical jury of professionals evaluates the teas, followed by…

    Read More

  • TeaFit: Unsweetened Iced Tea and Herbal Goodness

    TeaFit: Unsweetened Iced Tea and Herbal Goodness

    There are many herbal recipes from our own Ayurveda. We selected tea as a base to make the blends flavorful and light on the palate and not douse everything with loud flavor and sugar. So that’s where it came from, a very personal place, but I’m glad it found resonance in the larger customer base. -…

    Read More

  • Built on Beneficence

    Built on Beneficence

    Romesh Walpola, CEO of Tea Smallholder Factories in Sri Lanka discusses how investing in smallholder training, wellness, and educational programs, including internships for second-generation farmers, earns the loyalty of thousands of small tea growers and top dollar for teas sold at auction.

    Read More

  • World Tea Academy Celebrates First Decade

    World Tea Academy Celebrates First Decade

    The World Tea Academy is celebrating its 10th anniversary. The online resource offers comprehensive basic and advanced training for tea professionals and enthusiasts. Director Lisa Boalt Richardson joins us for a conversation about the resilience and relevance of the academy: “There’s always a market for good quality tea education,” she says.

    Read More

  • Badulla Tea Harvest Blessing

    Badulla Tea Harvest Blessing

    Accompanied by drummers and dancers, planters and tea pluckers in Sri Lanka’s Uva Province, paraded through the city streets of Badulla to the ancient Muthiyangana Raja Maha Vihara Temple courtyard, where a Buddhist monk blessed their first harvest tea.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Why did you consolidate all content on the Tea Biz Portal?

Tea Biz was a simple WordPress blog when it debuted ten years ago. The successful Kickstarter campaign that funded Tea Journey Magazine in 2015 required a more robust content management system, and the weekly podcast added multimedia content in 2021. The Tea Biz Portal enables professionals and enthusiasts to conveniently access more than 1,000 feature articles, news briefs, videos, recorded interviews, special issues, consumer ‘how to’ guides and price reports.  Zeen101 powers the Leaky Paywall site and Steeped Content managed social media optimization, marketing, and design, working with Vantage IT Solutions to produce the visually stimulating portal’s user interface and automation. 

How are the podcast, magazine, and blog distributed, and what is your reach?

Readership surveys reveal that 56% of our total audience are tea professionals. The remaining 44% identify as tea enthusiasts. Ninety-eight percent say they drink specialty tea. The magazine has the broadest reach, with a base of 16,000 paid and opt-in email subscribers in 76 countries. Geolocation statistics vary by channel, but up to two-thirds of our audience resides outside the US and Canada. Podcast listeners are concentrated in developed countries: 49% in North America, 32% in Europe, 14% in Asia, 3% in Australia, and 2% in Africa. Tea Journey has 25,000 social media followers. The podcast has accumulated 38,421 downloads. The Tea Biz blog circulates to 15,400 WordPress and LinkedIn followers, mainly professionals. In the past 365 days, LinkedIn posts generated 335,202 impressions. A breakdown follows: Owners 9%, Partner & Directors 25%, Senior Executives (MD-CEO) 21%, VPs 14%, C-level (marketing) 11%, Entry-level 14%, and Managers 5.8%.

Question 3

Answer to question 3 here.