• India’s Holistic Tea Sustainability Code

    Trustea was launched in 2013 by tea industry stakeholders and producers determined to elevate the quality of India’s domestic tea. Today 65% of the tea produced in India adheres to the trustea Code. This month, trustea celebrates ten years of service, improving the competitiveness of tea gardens by positively influencing the practices and scale of production, farm organization, processing, new technologies, and supply chain development. We invited Rajesh Bhuyan, Director of the trustea Sustainable Tea Foundation, to describe’s trustea’s impact and plans for the decade ahead, including a Seal on Pack label to inform consumers of brand compliance with the code.

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    Rajesh Bhuyan, trustea
    Rajesh Bhuyan, Director trustea Code, India
    Rajesh Bhuyan, Director, trustea, India

    Sustainability Assured

    By Aravinda Anantharaman

    Rajesh Bhuyan is the founding director of trustea, a sustainability code and verification system for Indian tea. The program is advised by an inclusive multi-stakeholder council that formulates and approves long-term strategies. The collaborative nature of the trustea “helps us when we go out and meet the tea community when we propagate our program because it has come out through the approval of the larger tea fraternity,” says Bhuyan.

    Aravinda Anantharaman: Can you take us through what trustea does?

    Rajesh Bhuyan: Globally, sustainability has been one of the major emerging challenges for all agro-commodity supply chains. India is the second largest tea producer in the world. So producing tea in a sustainable way is also critical from a global point of view. The trustea program was launched ten years ago, and it is unique in that it was a program that was conceived, developed, and completely launched in India itself. So it’s the “Make in India” program if you’d like to call it that. There is widespread acceptance because the industry launched it, and the acceptance levels are better. The program has elements that are specifically designed to address the Indian context for tea manufacturing. So that is another very important reason why we think that the producers and the buyers are finding value in the trustea program. Having completed ten years and come to a coverage of 65% of tea produced in India, I think that speaks volumes for the program’s progress and how the industry works with us.

    Aravinda: So trustea is not about whether it’s CTC or Orthodox. It’s also agnostic in terms of the segment, right? How does trustea view and approach the industry?

    Rajesh: So trustea is a sustainability program for tea. We cover the supply chain from the fields where the tea is picked up through manufacturing and the dispatch from the factory. So that is the ambit of the program. Everything within that falls under the trustea code. And within that – because we look at sustainability in a holistic way, we think that environment, livelihood, and safety go hand in hand. We cannot have one without the other. So the activities we deem sustainable, which we would like people to follow, cover these three pillars from, as I said, from the field up to the factory gate. So we cover all the operations, all the people, all the processes that come in this part of the supply chain.

    Sr. Manager Assurance, Anandita Ray Mukherjee
    trustea Sr. Manager (System Assurance) Anandita Ray Mukherjee, listens to women workers at our member tea garden.

    Aravinda: And where would you say you’ve seen the most challenge in the last ten years regarding the interventions you’ve needed to bring in?

    Rajesh: Indian tea is celebrating 200 years of tea in Assam, so it’s been around for a long time, which means that there must be elements of sustainability built into the DNA of the industry; otherwise, the industry would not be working for so many years. But we needed to bring a sharper focus and method into the actions and fill the gaps where more could be done to address these three pillars. So that was the transitional change, which we found a challenge, and the industry was very willing to adopt that. So the transition from the practices that we’re doing to bring them into focus, to put them into a method and to bring an element of continuous improvement into their activities, and also opening the thought process that business sustainability – all of these come together. So we need to have a very, very, focused approach, understanding that all these elements come together to create a successful business, and successful people, happy people, and a prospering environment all contribute to each other.

    Aravinda: And that’s part of what makes it complex, right, the fact that we have the small growers, bought leaf factories, and the large estates, and each comes with its own set of challenges, potential, and opportunity. How, then, can you address this sort of complexity across India? It’s vast in volume and complex in regions and terrain. How can you bring these varying factors into a single umbrella?

    Rajesh: From a larger perspective, the small tea grower community and the larger gardens complement each other. We are seeing an increasing trend where many tea gardens are processing tea from the neighboring small tea growers and their own tea. So this is a testimony to the fact that these two segments of the business are able to merge their interests for a common goal. And in a way, the challenges of sustainability are similar, but I would say it is more pronounced for the small tea growers because they have a very limited bandwidth to respond to critical challenges or very sudden adverse impacts because of their smaller area and smaller production and their financial abilities. So while we find that we have a common template for sustainability in both segments, the small tea growers need a different approach and a different hand-holding and learning atmosphere. So we have actually developed, within the trustea code, the small tea growers sustainability portion, which addresses specifically the requirements of the small tea growers. But overall, all of this contributes to the larger Indian tea industry. So I think, in spite of the differences, both of them will be able to work well when they work within the ambit of trust.

    Aravinda: And that’s probably what will be the strength of the industry, right? To be able to bring these two segments together? And if you look back at the last ten years, where would you say trustea has had the most impact?

    Rajesh: I think one of the areas where we have been able to bring in is a structure and system in operation. The other one focuses on the legal compliances which have a direct bearing on individual’s human rights, on mandated wages, on mandated benefits, because the trustea program, as I said, is being prepared in India. We have all the Indian legal requirements as a part of the compliance. When we engage with an entity, we can have a structured approach to ensure full compliance with the legal requirements, or if something is missed, that is covered. So in a way, while we benefit the workers, we can also provide a security and business continuity guarantee to the business. So, it’s ensuring we have a very structured, systematic way of looking at the compliances if there are any gaps in the compliances. Now, these compliances ensure that the business is also run without any interruption from a legal point of view and simultaneously deliver benefits to the employees. So it’s a win-win for both sides when we look at it. So I would say that’s an area where I think a systematic approach is helping all of us.

    Aravinda: One of the things with certification that always comes up is how it translates to prices. Is that also something you’ve had to address with trustea? Does it come up and or have conversations now about sustainability moved beyond that?

    Rajesh: So, if you look at the trustea program, this is because it is anchored to the law of the land. We do not have any requirements which are not what the law of the land requires. So in terms of compliance costs, per se, that’s the terminology many people use – the trustea program does not ask for compliance beyond the Indian law. And Indian laws, which are applicable to the food sector or the tea industry in particular, are what the industry is following. The other part about the benefit of being trustea is that it definitely provides access. A large segment of buyers would prefer to buy tea from sustainably-produced farms, farms that follow sustainable agriculture practices, and sustainable holistic practices. Now, being part of the trustea certification system provides them the access to that market. So in a way, it benefits businesses that they have the option of supplying to the sustainable section, and we think the most important thing is that small tea growers today, by way of the trustea-certified bought leaf factories, can offer their tea to the sustainable buyers. That’s a very important thing. Because they are covered in the trustea umbrella, small tea growers are getting access to that part of the market where they prefer sustainably produced tea. But at the same time, we would like to say that we are not part of the business side of the equation, we do not get into pricing, and our standard is anchored on sustainability and market access.

    Aravinda: And looking ahead, where do you see the need for the most intervention for the industry?

    Rajesh: I think now the time has come to look at climate-smart agriculture, look at practices which can be gradually changed so that we are able to adapt – and more than adapt, become resilient. So we have these very extreme weather events, and most of the tea planters tell me that their understanding of how the seasons operate is actually not translating into what they see on the ground. There are certain practices that our revised code – which we launched on July 11 –  that prescribes practices that help smallholder farmers, as well as tea gardens, to kind of safeguard against the severe impact of any climate change events. So, I think slowly moving our practices from what we have been doing earlier, gradually moving to climate-resilient practices, will bring long-term benefits that they will be able to find protection against the adverse impacts of these events. And these events are happening, even as we speak, everywhere across India. And we have to remember that for an industry that is 200 years old, we have to move in a very structured and gradual way, but we have to begin those practices to be able to bulletproof ourselves against these adverse climate impacts.

    Aravinda: What comes under sustainability? Now it’s climate change. But in the last ten years, as you’ve seen the sustainability journey evolve, what is your take on how it’s evolving? And how do you stay relevant and keep up with the demands of what is defined as sustainability?

    Rajesh: Ten years ago, the challenge of the impact of climate change was not as pronounced as it was today. And therefore, when the stakeholders formulated the Code, these elements were not in as sharp focus as they need to be today. And now, with the revised Code, we are focusing on two very key things which will give them the ability to manage climate change the right way. One is what we are calling regenerative agriculture, practicing regenerative agriculture, which is agriculture that is friendly to the soil and the planet. And the other one is managing energy in such a way that it reduces greenhouse gas emissions and benefits the garden overall. In fact, reducing carbon emissions has a financially beneficial spinoff that if we are able to demonstrate in a structured way, of course, there are protocols and processes, and there is actually a financial gain that can be had from the reduction of carbon emission. And there are a lot of people who will be able to help the industry to benefit from that if their processes which we are proposing through the revised code, actually can be demonstrated to have reduced their carbon emissions. So there’s, there’s, in fact, another avenue for them to get financial gains out of their climate-friendly work.

    Adherence to the trustea Code promotes factory and supply-chain best practices.

    Aravinda: So, is the vocabulary changing on what constitutes sustainability? Is that evolving with the changes that are coming up?

    Rajesh: One major change in the thought process, which the trustea code was one of the first to address, is that sustainability is not a stand-alone event. Sustainability comes in an approach where the community, the environment, the people, and the business all come together to deliver the goal. So, in isolation, it cannot be achieved; it has to be a holistic approach. More and more people and more and more businesses and supply chains are realizing that that is the fundamental connection that has to come into what is being done every day to be able to deliver so that the people who make up the supply chain, the people at the bottom of the pyramid have to be equal stakeholders in what is happening, have to benefit equally, then only the benefits of sustainability can be delivered all across the supply chain.

    Aravinda: And that comes through when you look at the trustea Council, with representation from every segment and everybody.

    Rajesh: When the trustea organization was set up, it was with much thought that a multi-stakeholder council was put in place. Because even at the inception of the program, way back in 2013, it was done through a lot of industry-wide consultation. So that spirit of multi-stakeholder input was always there in the program. When we became a registered company, we thought that the stakeholder Council had to be created with a legal role in giving input to the philosophy and the direction of the program. So that voice of the Indian tea fraternity is not lost when we go ahead. So we gave it a formal role which was a multi-stakeholder Council, and all our decisions and all our long-term strategies are formulated and approved by the Council, which helps us when we go out and meet the tea community when we propagate our program because it has come out through the approval of the larger tea fraternity.

    Aravinda: And now that 65% of the production is trustea verified, when do you think 100% can be achieved?

    Rajesh: I would say 100% is not our goal and never has been our goal. trustea is a voluntary system to standard. And as long as it meets the business philosophy of the organizations who opt for the program, we are there to help and support. So it has never been a goal and will not be a goal because we think the basic voluntary nature and the beneficiaries should find some value in what we do. And there are various types of businesses and various segments that do business in various ways. So trustea is one of the options for them to carry on their business. So, I would say we are happy that we are growing, but we have no ambition of being 100%.

    Aravinda: What can we expect to see in the near future from trustea? Is there anything in the pipeline that you’d like to share?

    Rajesh: Three very important focus areas that we will look at when we go ahead into the next ten years, so to speak. One is regenerative agriculture, and we would like to be the people who bring these practices onto the ground. trustea is building up the capability to deliver this to the industry.

    The other one is on technology. We are investing heavily in technology, we’re investing heavily in IT, to be able to bring these benefits to people like the smallholder farmers, and some of it is already now being seen.

    The third focus area is the safety of the workforce, especially the women. Now women, as we know, constitute more than 50% of the workforce in the tea garden. And there is legal protection for them through the POSH Act. But on the ground, we find that there’s a lot to be done in terms of sensitizing all the women workforce, even the management, about their duties, women about their rights, and what constitutes harassment. So that’s going to be a very important focus area. In fact, we are partnering with an organization called the Women’s Safety Accelerator Fund with the intention of getting a deeper impact on our work in the tea garden. So that’s an indication of how important this facet of women’s safety is for us because a safe and secure women’s workforce, I think, is very, very important for the industry to progress.

    Aravinda: That sounds like another busy decade ahead. How can consumers how can tea drinkers access the benefits of what trustea brings to the industry? How will you link back to the consumers?

    Rajesh: So far, the trustea certification was limited to the wholesale trade so that tea producers would be certified. And the buyers of tea in bulk would prefer sustainable products; therefore, the consumer was not part of the sustainability dialogue. But it was always the goal of trustea that we have to reach the consumer because the end beneficiary of everything we do is the consumer, who is always important to us.

    So trustea has launched a program called the Seal on Pack, which means retail packets of tea will have the trustee seat so producers who retail, packeteers who buy trustea verified tea, and then pack trustea verified tea will be able to put the trustea seal on their pack and the consumer who buys this pack will be able to understand and feel the fact that they are they’re buying a tea which promotes safety, livelihood, and environment across the supply chain.

    So there are a lot of consumers today who would like to contribute to the well-being of the supply chain company, especially the lower end and also do good for the planet. So we are also running a campaign educating the consumers about what trustea is and what it means to buy a pack of sustainable tea. And we will have this connection, and this campaign is going forward in a larger way. And we are very excited to give the end consumer an opportunity to have a say in and understand what trustea is all about.

    And I think globally, there is a very clear trend of increasing demand for sustainably produced products by consumers. And this trend I’m sure will also be in India. And those people who sell products with the trustea seal and therefore encourage the trustea program to deliver on its goals, I’m sure, will find it connects with the right consumer.

    Aravinda: When will the seal on the pack be seen in the markets, in the packets?

    Rajesh: Certain retailers have already started putting the seal on the pack. More and more such packs will be available on the shelf. And trustea has this process by which there are rules and regulations which have to be followed for a retailer to be able to claim to be trusted verified. And organizations that meet these and work with us, and we have this two-way commitment, are the ones who put that seal on the back. More and more will be there. We are seeing some on the shelf. And I expect in the coming years; consumers will have more choices.

    Aravinda: I think it’s something for people to look for when they shop.

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    Aravinda Anantharaman

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  • TeaFit: Unsweetened Iced Tea and Herbal Goodness

    Jyoti Bharadwaj launched TeaFit in 2021, offering a range of unsweetened iced tea and herbal blends. She has since added unsweetened premixes to the portfolio. For India, a country with a large population suffering from diabetes, she says, unsweetened beverages were needed, and tea offered the perfect vehicle. More recently, Jyoti was featured on Shark Tank India, where celebrity entrepreneurs agreed to invest INRs 50,00,000 rupees (USD $60,000) in the brand. Jyoti talks about functional, condition-specific, and ready-to-drink tea and how her brand is helping tea shed its fussy image. 

    TeaFit founder Jyoti Bharadwaj
    Joyti Bharadwaj, TeaFit, Shark Tank
    Joyti Bharadwaj and family pitch TeaFit on the Shark Tank TV program

    Aravinda Anantharaman: Will you share the story of how TeaFit came to be?

    Jyoti Bharadwaj: I have had a rather longer route to entrepreneurship. I wasn’t born to be an entrepreneur, nor do I come from a family of business people. We are the typical service-class Indian family that focuses on education and grades, and you become an engineer, get into consulting, and do an MBA, so that’s the route I had for myself as well. So, I am an engineer. And then, I did my MBA from the Indian School of Business. Somewhere in the middle, for a couple of years. I did work in a large IT company. But I think that taught me what I don’t enjoy or am not cut out to do. And thankfully, I learned that fairly early in life. After that, I did my MBA and have been building startups. So, after two successful startups, I was honestly beginning to get a bit bored. Liabilities were taken care of, I had paid off my huge education loan, and I had a nice house in Bombay. And that was pretty much it. I was taken care of in that sense. So that itch to do something meaningful beyond the next job, I think, was gnawing at me a little bit. And also, my kids were really young. I was not enjoying staying away from my young ones for so long every day. 

    I have traveled to Japan quite a few times. And I really enjoyed the unsweetened beverage space of Japan. And just the pride the Japanese folks, have in traditional cuisines that somehow pick up or resonate from their traditional teas, herbs, and botanicals. And so for every Cola or sugary beverage, you will find in vending machines 20 different types of teas that are made from greens, from oolong tea to matcha, you name it. And I was blown away by the kind of selection there and the access people had to good products or products that are good for you.

    When I visited the beverage aisle here back home, there were just three broad categories: Cola, fruit-based/sugar-based beverages, and energy drinks, and somewhere in the middle is where you have to make a choice. The whole game is pinned on the idea the Indian consumer wants things sweet. When you look at the options, they are so limited that you can’t really blame the typical consumer for picking what they do.

    Aravinda: So, what is TeaFit all about?

    Jyoti: I come from a diabetic family. My parents are diabetic, and I am borderline diabetic. India now has ten crore (100 million) diagnosed diabetics. It’s a serious number, and somewhere I felt that the responsibility lies with irresponsible brands in pushing such products. Mainstream marketing and kind of, making it cool to have this ten times a day, and associating it with aspiration, with happiness, and with, you know, all of the other strokes of marketing. So, like, the seed was there in a way to build something responsible, to build something intentional, where it’s not just less bad for you, things that are good for you that can be bottled up. 

    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. 

    I would also like to say that with all the destruction that COVID caused, I think a small glimmer of hope that it gave everybody was that people got conscious of what they were consuming overnight, and label awareness grew. They wanted to read the back of the label slightly more than they did previously. So if earlier you saw a product that says ‘Good for you,’ or ‘Increases height,’ or ‘Loses weight,’ they would pick it up, but today, they flip the bottle around and see what’s actually there in the nutritional panel. So that’s, in a rather big nutshell, my journey. I’m glad that I’m representing responsible brands in the space, and it’s an absolute privilege to do what I do and to survive the early days of difficult days of the business to be here to be talking to you today.

    Aravinda: How difficult was TeaFit to formulate and produce? And what did you have to do to achieve healthful flavor? In India, I also feel that we have become so used to things being slightly exaggerated in flavors, right? More spice, more sweet, deep fried, and we tend to associate those with better taste. I think that’s sort of what we’ve been given. So, on the production side, what did you have to do to ensure you still retain the integrity of what you wanted the product to have without compromising on flavor?

    Jyoti: I would like to take a minute to highlight that I was clueless. I was as clueless about the business as the next person on the street. So it did take me longer to figure out. I literally Googled on day one of quitting my job, ‘How do you make iced tea at scale’? Everything started with Google. And then, very soon realized there was no way I could do this myself; I needed to find people who knew more than me playing Einstein. So I would say that whatever success I’ve achieved, I think that’s more to do with the kind of talent I have been able to convince to come on board than being able to solve things quickly myself. 

    So I researched the top leaders in Ayurveda, who are the product heads of large companies like Himalaya Herbal, and then I went and knocked on their door and begged them to come on board and work on this idea with me. My broad stroke problem statement was that the product we want is a healthy beverage with no sugar and a base in tea. It features herbs blended in combinations that help you fight the stresses of modern life. You’re always on the go; you’re always ordering in food, something that would, you know, that could help you with digestion, that could help you feel light, energizing, that doesn’t add to the sleepiness. 

    The initial journey was difficult until I found the right people to work with. I feel that when you start out with the right intention, you find good people to work with. So, I would like to highlight a pharma company in the Ayurvedic space they are based in Nashik called Rev Pharma. I was a one-woman army, they could just shut the door in my face, but they didn’t; they respected the idea. And they allowed me and my team to utilize the facility to do the entire product development, do the tinkering on Ayurvedic formulation, and see what kind of extracts we would need. Would we need powdered extracts, liquid extracts, or spray-dried extracts? But we did struggle to come to the right flavor initially in the absence of sugar because first, you take out sugar, then you add, you know, a blend of 15 herbs.

    Some herbs are as bitter as noni fruit. I’m not sure how aware you are, but it’s really bitter. You can’t really take even a spoonful of it. We wanted the benefits. We didn’t want the bitterness. That took a lot of time to get right. It did taste bitter for, I think first three productions. And I knew if it didn’t taste great or how good for you it is, nobody’s going to drink it. We added licorice to it, and we added cinnamon to it, which kind of fools your mouth into making the flavor palate a little more rounded, with a faint hint of sweetness. A lot of iterations are what it took for us to get to the product. 

    We also didn’t want to lose the delicate flavor, the notes of the tea. We use our tea from a single-origin farm in Assam called Zendai Tea Estate and another similar state in Kerala for green tea. Initially, the tea would be too strong, and it would just be very astringent. It would have lost its finer top notes. So then we redid the entire fabrication of the brewing process. The manufacturing plants in India are typically made for either carbonated beverages or they’re made for fruit-based beverages. So for our tea brewing and herb brewing, we had to set up a whole different line wherein you do it outside the filling line at the temperature you want and then introduce the brew into the main filling line. So it did take a while for us to figure it out. Lots of failed experiments where an entire batch was on the floor because the filter got choked. So we’ve also had a journey where because we have done things from the ground up, seen every possible thing that could go wrong, and therefore, you know, we are now doing it right.

    Aravinda: So how long did it take from you know the point when you started the R&D and to, say the first batch that you said, Okay, I think we’ve cracked it?

    Joyti: Fourteen months is what it took, from the sketch of the product. And I also was a little bit ziddii*, in the sense that I didn’t want to take shortcuts, so I didn’t want a bottle that existed. So this bottle, you see, was designed by the Indian School of Design and Innovation, so it did take me some time to figure out who would do the bottles for us. And when you’re new, you don’t know the limitations of the industry. So I didn’t know that if you have a bottle like this, it’s hard for you to do hot fill because the bottle collapses so I also figured out a lot of things along the way like I said, I’ve made every mistake I could have made, and I am still alive.

    Aravinda: That itself calls for congratulations. Why tea? Why was your starting point tea?

    Joyti: I felt the kind of products I wanted to make was hard to do in a fruit-based beverage, and power drinks I didn’t want to touch in the beginning because, like I was anti-everything that carbonated drinks stood for. And also like I’m a tea person. I like tea. So it started as a pet project of mine, I used to do it in the kitchen, you know, hibiscus tea, and all sorts of tea, barley tea when I came back from Japan, and people started liking it. So I was like, this is one thing I know how to do. And let me work on this. I also felt like it allowed for the botanicals to find a good home for being effective and finding a synergized flavor. If you put the same thing in juices, it just tastes very off.

    My Nanaji (maternal grandfather) used to make black lemon black tea, which is legendary in our whole locality. He’s no more; God bless his soul. But I think I was hooked on that. So the first two or three things I wanted: I wanted his lemon black tea. And also, Aravinda, from a business perspective, the drink itself was alien to the Indian consumer. There was no unsweetened drink per se like there was an odd water or a couple of other drinks like that, but there was no drink with a personality of its own and was unsweetened. So there was a bit of unfamiliarity to begin with. And we didn’t want to make it further unfamiliar, like adding two steps of alienation by creating a flavor that’s not mainstream. We wanted to go with the two most mainstream flavors which are lemon and peach in iced tea, and give that to customers saying, “Look, your lemon and peach iced tea could be this.” So that’s what we wanted to go ahead with, just making it less complex as an introduction or making it less complex to decide on the first purchase, the first trial.

    As a business owner, your holy grail is trials and then eventually the beats. So for a bootstrapped brand, if you have to pursue trials, either your packaging has to be phenomenal, the brand has to be really catchy and simple for you to understand, or the product has to be really simple for you to understand. So for all of these reasons, we wanted to keep the complications kind of as minimum as possible. We made lemon black tea, and we did a peach drink tea, and we did barley tea which was something that I personally liked a lot it has immense health benefits, and it will be tragic if people don’t get to try it. These are the three products that we started with.

    Aravinda: Would you say health is still the main marketing angle for tea? Do you think people respond to health and wellness as in the marketing conversations, or is it flavor?

    Jyoti: As a product-first company, I will say if you don’t have a strong product, no amount of positioning of the product will really get the customer pull. So first, the product has to be incredibly strong, which means it has to check all the boxes. If you ask me what is important – is the health angle important, is the flavor important, is the price point important, is the availability important – I would say all of these four, if they are in place, only then there’s a hope that you know the customer will discover you, will decide to part with his money to try your product. So in my case, I was hell-bent on finding the right flavor. We wanted customers to come for the flavor. You flex on the flavor, you know? Health is something we take care of, it’s something that is in the product, but you come for the flavor. 

    Even the premixes that we have launched, milk tea premixes, are unsweetened, but if you drink the product, it is phenomenal. We could have put fillers in it or done all kinds of shortcuts to arrive at a cheaper product that probably would appeal to a wider range of audiences. But we didn’t. We were like, this is what we’ll do, we’ll find our consumers, maybe everybody’s not my customer. It’s important to know how wide a net you want to cast because that will determine what kind of product you will develop.

    Aravinda: And with marketing, have you relied heavily on online and digital, or have you gone for a bit of both?

    Jyoti: We knew that we have to be present in the offline touchpoints, wherever impulse buying happens. And so we our first point of sale was not online or on our website. It was Nature’s Basket stores in Mumbai. We started with a few of them. And in the longer view, if I take a longer view of things, I would say that distribution is probably more important than anything else regarding the beverage business. By that, I mean trade, finding the right channels, setting up distributors, and ensuring your product is available. Because even after Shark Tank, I feel like I lost a lot of customers, or maybe I advertised for my competitors in that sense because our distribution was not there. If somebody in Delhi went to buy a TeaFit after watching us on Shark Tank, we were not available. A lot of marketing without distribution is marketing for the competitor. So we’ve not done a lot of marketing; we are looking to focus on building deeper distribution within Mumbai, within Pune, and then spread radially from there. And online and commerce, we are pretty much everywhere today, on Big Basket, Blinkit, and these platforms. So we want to be wherever the customer is, in the best, most cost-efficient way. And most of our marketing is organic, we do some marketing on the platforms where they’re on. Like, if you’re an Amazon, we’ll do some Marketing on Amazon. And similarly, for the e-commerce platforms, we do some marketing in stores where we are, we do sampling activities.

    A big blitz will get you trials, right? It will get your eyeballs, will definitely make people curious, and make them try. But if you don’t have the right product, they will not return. So I always insist that it is not the first PO or the first order that matters, but it’s also the second PO, right? The second order, or, you know, the second time the distributor calls you and says, I need to talk. And those are the real markers of where the business is going.

    TeaFit Youtube Channel

    Aravinda: Tell me about the Shark Tank experience. Why did you choose to go? What happened? How was it? And how has it been post that?

    Joyti: I don’t think I chose it. I think it chose me because there were so many people who applied for it. And all great businesses. Many far ahead in the journey than me. In fact, I applied last year, also. I was like two weeks, two months into the business, I had done a sum total of Rs 20,000 in revenue and applied. So the guts were always there. And I did get through all the rounds, even in the first season. But I was traveling when they wanted to come, so I had to skip it. This season, I didn’t apply with any hopes. Honestly, I’ve seen all 85 episodes of Shark Tank to know that it’s almost a fluke that you make it or it’s a stroke of luck. So I would say that probably my story resonated with them. There are a couple of rounds of applications wherein they ask what’s your big vision? What’s the big idea? What is it that you’re building? And if you get shortlisted for a second round, which is also written down but fairly detailed in terms of revenue, product market fit, and your footprints, all of that. And then, you have to submit a three-minute video pitch to them. If they like it, they call you. And that day, I didn’t have any baby care at home. So I took my kids with me on the day of the auditions. So whoever is in the audition must attend the final shoot. So I had to take them on the final shoot even though I was unsure how the kids would behave. But I guess it went well. I am generally not a very camera-friendly person. I prepped for it, and then I went. I had done the business in and out from day one alone. So those answers you will always have, and I felt like that came through well in the show. We got a lot of love. Our phone didn’t stop ringing for weeks. We had 300-350 distributor inquiries overnight; sales skyrocketed, and the website shut down… so all of the good things a business faces, we faced all of that, and it has given us like catapult us into a different stratosphere.

    So I was playing at a very small business level, now I would say that, you know, we are fighting bigger problems. I have a bigger team overnight now. I was doing a couple of interns and a friend. Now I’ll have like a legitimate team of people. More than anything, people know about the brand. People know what we do. So the kind of exposure the brand gets makes up for any inhibitions you have as a founder. If you’re a consumer brand, if you’re at a stage where your product is available for people to buy, I think you should absolutely do everything in your power to try and get your 15 minutes on TV.

    Aravinda: Are you still riding on the success of that?

    Jyoti: It doesn’t sustain in the way, it becomes 100x in the first month, right? And then it slows to 50-60x, but that 5-6x would have taken you that long to get there on your own. Honestly, it’s hard to quantify everything that comes your way. Sales are one way to quantify, but just the number of opportunities that come up… brands like Zepto, Blinkit, and other e-commerce platforms. If I were nobody, which I was before Shark Tank, it would be much harder to get into closed-door conversations like that. And platforms like that, just access becomes a lot easier. I’ve been meeting people like Harsh Mariwala, and just being able to pick their brains for even a five-minute conversation, it’s a whole different mindset that it puts you into. You start to think about what’s possible and think of bigger possibilities for yourself, the brand, and what it can do. And, you know, you start to believe in leapfrogging and not just building brick by brick. This was one such milestone for us.

    Aravinda: Do you want TeaFit to be seen as a tea brand? One of the things within the industry I hear is that coffee is cool; tea hasn’t been able to crack that and get younger customers. Something like TeaFit would, I imagine, interest younger people. So how does TeaFit fit into the larger developments shaping Indian tea?

    Joyti: So we feel like there’s a ton of scope to make tea cool, and tea associated with the elderly is, I think, an idea of yesterday purely because it has not been presented in the way with the amount of cool as that coffee does. As a tea-drinking country, I feel like there is an absolutely wide open gap to create a brand that is intentional that is responsible that is cool that is that aligns with the value systems of the young buyer today, and we absolutely consider ourselves to be a tea band before you know any other brands so There’s a lot of innovation that we are currently working on, to innovate on different products and incorporate tea in it. Maybe chocolates. We are working on not just a vertical extension of the product but also taking it horizontally and seeing what else we can do with tea and what other products we can incorporate tea into. I feel like we are at a stage where discerning young people want more than traditional cola/ energy drinks. You do see a lot of experimentation in the cocktail space, in the cocktail/mocktail space, the party space, so to speak. I feel like no innovation has happened in the tea and RTD beverages. So we’re glad to be going after that space and building a brand that resonates with the youth and hopefully makes tea drinking as cool as coffee.

    *Ziddii: Adjective. Headstrong, stubborn, obstinate, intractable, adamant, obdurate, intractable. Rekhta Dictionary

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    Aravinda Anantharaman

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  • Spice and Tea Synergy

    Vahdam Tea founder Bala Sarda is launching a new line of 25 Indian spices grown free of adulterants and pesticides and manufactured without artificial colors. Initially, Vahdam spices will be sold directly to consumers and later offered in grocery stores.

    Listen to the interview
    Bala Sarda talks to Aravinda Anantharaman about spicing up his tea line
    Vikas Khanna & Bala Sarda
    Chef Vikas Khanna and Vahdam Tea Founder Bala Sarda

    Bala Sarda’s Vahdam Tea turned eight this year. From launching Vahdam as a brand that connects tea drinkers with producers to a range of superfoods with turmeric, moringa, and matcha, Vahdam’s journey has been about an Indian brand offering consumers across the world what they want, direct from the source. The latest addition to the brand is a range of Indian spices, now offered not unlike their tea. We talk to Bala about the new launch and what it means for Brand Vahdam.

    Aravinda Anantharaman:  Thank you, Bala, for joining us here at Tea Biz. I know it’s a busy time for you. But first, congratulations on all the developments and in particular the launch of Vahdam Spices. How did that come about? And how does that fit into the larger Vahdam Brand?

    Bala Sarda: Thanks, Aravinda for having me on the show. Excited to be here. I think this is just to give you a sense of our vision and our dream with which we are trying to build the brand, right from the early days that I started this almost eight years back, in 2015. This month will actually turn eight. And from day one, I think one of the key things we identified, Aravinda, was this incredible opportunity, which India as a country offers. I think if you really look at a product like tea, as we all know, India is one of the largest producers and exporters of tea in the world. In fact, almost a quarter of the world’s production of tea happens in India. You look at tea-growing regions like Darjeeling, Assam, and the Nilgiris, these are GI indications, right? Just like Champagne and Cognac in France. I think we genuinely know that there’s a consensus among connoisseurs that India grows the finest tea in the world.

    We looked at a category like spices even early on, where, if you look at the stats, India is the largest producer and exporter of spices in the entire world. We have the largest variety of spices we make as a country. If you look at some of the more popular variants of spices, say turmeric, 80% of the world’s turmeric is actually made in India and the list goes on and on. Yoga, Ayurveda… there is so much India has to offer and I think, very early on, we realized that all these products are being exported from India at single-digit margins. There is no Indian brand or there is no brand at origin, which is, adding value and taking this product to consumers in global markets. There is no innovation in the category, Of course as we know right supply chain was extremely broken. There were multiple middlemen, right from a farmer in India to consumers sitting even across the world And that just told us that there is an opportunity for us as a brand to solve and make available a much better higher quality, fresher product to consumers.

    Lastly, and most importantly, tea is also, the largest employer of labor in India. You add spices to it, this is potentially the largest employer of organized labor in India. And India is the most populated country in the world now, according to some stats. I think this is a massive, massive industry we are talking about that has been, plagued with stagnancy right? The farmer’s costs have not gone up, and the prices of tea and spices have not gone up. Everybody wants to come out of this industry. Estate owners want to shut their estates down or sell them even though this is such an amazing business on the consumer-facing side of things. This is such an integral part of consumers’ life in all these markets. And I think the biggest reason for that again was that there was no value addition. And there was no homegrown brand, which was taking it taking it to the world.

    So, just like tea, where we said, hey, can we cut down the middleman, source direct, process it, bring innovation to the product, to our supply chain, and make available a much better product to consumers through the power of the internet? I think the crux of everything we do at Vahdam is the internet. I think it’s truly democratized global consumer brand building because today’s sitting out of India, a brand like Vahdam can you know, can sell to over 3.5 million consumers globally, which I think was unimaginable right before the internet came in. So of course, the bedrock of our distribution is the Internet.

    So when you combine all of this, the gap in the market, the opportunity to make available a better product plus obviously a strong differentiated brand story, that is obviously high trust with origin brands, you know all French wines, Scotch, chocolates, anything and everything that we’ve grown up, believing that origin products are more trusting And third is the internet is how we sort of built business in tea for the last eight years.

    That said, I think we were fortunate to have a tremendous response, And I think there were two, or three signals, which got us to get into spices. First of all, Aravinda, a lot of our teas have spices as an ingredient in them. In fact, a lot of our herbal teas that don’t have tea, it’s basically a concoction of different spices. In addition to that, we launched this very innovative range of turmeric teas back in the day in the US which is widely popular across markets.

    Very early on I think a lot of our consumers started emailing me and telling the team that while they love the quality of our spices and they consume tea, they do not have an alternate option, which is as good when they want to, use it for say, lattes, for their cooking, for curries so on and so forth. And that got us thinking that there is a tremendous opportunity even in the spices market for applications, which is non-tea, right? So that is something we’ve been receiving as customer feedback for the last three years, if not more.

    Second, if you look at the brand, Aravinda, the long-term vision of Vahdam is to take the best of India to the world, right? Going back to why we started, what we are doing with Vahdam was, can we take the best of India to the world under a proud, ethical, sustainable, homegrown label? After getting some stability in tea, if I can put it like that, we said, hey, what’s the second category we can get into and you know, probably create an impact near to what we are trying to do in tea? This is what has got to think of spices as a very, very natural progression, right?

    I’ll give you a small example. We did this brand study to understand what consumers think of us selling spices. A lot of those consumers thought Vahdam is already selling spices. So, that just tells you that the perception was always this is a brand, which is bringing the best of India to the world, and that again, you know, just reinforced our, our vision of, getting into spices.

    And lastly, and most importantly, I think, over the last three years, we have spent a lot of time like tea in building the supply chain. We work with a lot of direct farmers, and cooperatives. Unlike tea, I would say spices are slightly more disorganized. You will see a lot many smaller farmers versus, you know, like a Darjeeling is 87 estates. So I would call it organized versus, you know, somebody growing tulsi to see in Utter Pradesh, you know, there will be thousands and thousands of farmers doing that, right? So bringing them together, with the consistency, the quality… Of course, it’s a product, which is exclusively available outside India. So obviously there are several parameters around the use of pesticides, the product being organic, the product being pesticides and toxins free, right? So I think we spent a lot of time over the last three years or more. In fact, because of tea, we had started using it, but we got very, very serious about it in the last 24-36 months in the spices categories as well. And then we were sure that we have something that we can scale is when we decided to you know, finally get into spices around our 8th Founders Day.

    Kitchen Essentials
    Kitchen Essentials line

    Aravinda: You talked about the supply chain innovation, you talked about the product innovation. So what were the lessons you were able to bring from the journey you’ve had with tea into spices?

    Bala: I’ll start with product innovation. First-time entrepreneurs can be very naive and I’ll be very, very honest with that, right? Sometimes you think you have, you have created a product. And there is a demand for that. One of the things which I learned in my journey at Vahdam Teas, building the tea category which we still, I think it’s still very, very early days and we’re still building that, so, don’t get me wrong there, but I think was, how do you listen to your customers more, right? So here I think instead of believing what we can make available to customers, which is what we did with tea in the early days, here, everything was customer-driven.

    The signal for us to get into this category came from customers which we, then obviously took that signal, went very deep, probed our current customers, and did multiple studies in the market to first, understand: Should we do it? If we do it, what are the kind of products we need to do? What are the real challenges in this category? And then we identified trust as a big deficit. There was a big trust deficit, especially for products coming out of India. You would have a foreign label branding it is as packed in America. Obviously, the tea, the spices being Indian, which was still being accepted. But, again, like what I saw with tea early on as well, right, we saw that with spices. We, very early on, realized that, how do you build amazing trust with the customer and you know he is going to be super critical around, everything we do. And of course, having the Vahdam brand equity made a big difference in helping us do that.

    But from a product side of things, I’d like to give you a small example. We work with organic-certified farmers across India. Most of our spices are certified organic whichever can be and we will try to keep it that. Despite the fact that we also want to work with a lot of small farmers who on paper have absolutely toxin and pesticide-free products but which time we potentially certified organic because if you have one acre of land just the cost of certification is so high. So we also want to support them. We build trust by, you know, ensuring that all our spices are tested in European labs, which are considered to be the most, the highest standards in terms of testing parameters and just the sensitivity of that instruments around the product. So I think a lot of these things were, very, very critical to us getting to the product. And what’s our brand positioning, what’s our go-to-market? What do we communicate to our consumers? And I think that that’s the one learning, I think all of this, we did was actually based on all our learnings you got in the tea category and things we went wrong or fumbled rather several times in our journey, building the tea category, that would be number one.

    And on the supply chain piece, I think, Aravinda, I think, to be honest, I believe it’s a playbook we are trying to build, right? If you look at tea and spices, I think the only fundamental difference was that spices were a slightly more tougher and disorganized category, versus even tea. But I think the principles of our supply chain, which is, how we ensure we source direct from farmers. How do we cut out middlemen? How do we ensure that we sort of address the fragmented supply chain?  How do we ensure that there is enough no matter where you source it from?

    All our spices are packed in our own facility. Like tea, we source, process, blend, and package 100% of our spices within our facility today. It’s BRC Certified A grade facility in the NCR region near the Delhi airport and ships it out to consumers.

    Investing in the supply chain early on can give you long-term results is again, something we knew very, very closely. So I think broadly no real learnings in the supply chain piece because that’s really what we had done. Probably right in tea and… you know just how do you scale that up and do it in slightly different categories is really the challenge we are addressed since the last 24 months.

    Aravinda: Why have Indian spices not been marketed as single-origin spices? Is it because it’s also a commoditized segment?

    Bala: Two reasons. I think one definitely I think it’s been very, very commoditized. The category, the product has been extremely commoditized over the years, even though it’s an amazing, such an important part of our lives. It adds flavors, spice, and so much life to your kitchen, to your food, and to everything you consume right. And a lot of things that don’t even come on that level of impact in your life still have been marketed better. I think it was just about somebody, you know, taking that step and trying to, at least market the product better. And, that’s really, the first understanding we had. That it’s a commoditized market but it’s very, very important to the consumer, which means that has the potential to sort of create a differentiated brand positioning in this category. And that’s what we really trying to do.

    And second, I think India grows the best spices in the world. I think that is absolutely no doubt. Again not because I run now, a category of spices through our brand, but I think if you compare it, I think there’s a general consensus among chefs all over the world, among food connoisseurs, and enthusiasts that the flavor, the aroma, the density of oils, just the quality of Indian spices is phenomenal. And when that is there, I think it makes sense to help market the origin. Why can’t a Lakadong turmeric not be as popular as the Darjeeling first flush or a Kerala cardamom or a Telicherry black pepper be as popular as a black tea from Assam? I think it’s it all comes down to making that high-quality product available, consistently branding, it positioning it and just ensuring that there is trust and trust is built by just doing the right thing several times over and over right for several years. That’s really what we vision to do with spices. And I think if we can do that, I believe, Indian origin spices can really stand, gather a lot of real estate even in foreign retailers and of course most important in the minds of our mainstream consumers in these markets.

    Aravinda: The Western market is an important focus market for you, isn’t it? When will you launch spices for India?

    Bala: I think on a lighter note. I think, like our strategy, the 24 hours a day has also been consistent and that is not changed. So I think it is just a matter of, to be very honest, I think it just been a matter of focus. Like tea, right? It was always about when we will do India rather than if we will do India. And I think just give him the bandwidth, the depth of the market, and the impact we can potentially create with the time and the resources we have as a team. We just realize that it is more efficient and more effective to sort of focus on some of these markets first. And that’s really what we did with teas. And that’s exactly, you know, what we are trying to do with spices as well. But that said, I think, you know, once we are able to get some understanding we are able to create some impact and foreign markets. Of course, we will end up coming and launching in the India market also, hopefully soon.

    Aravinda: Has the choice of people you’ve sought for brand endorsements and partnerships been about building trust? With spices, you have Vikas Khanna. What was the thought behind this partnership?

    Bala: This is our first – I don’t even use the word commercial because Vikas is genuinely and truly a fan of Vahdam. He was our consumer even with teas and when he got to know about spices, he was like, we have to do this together and we sort of collaborated, even though there is a commercial collaboration to a small level there. But before that, till today, I think every endorsement right from Oprah [Winfrey] to Ellen [Degeneres] to Mariah Carey, Nicole Scherzinger very recently, these are 100% organic or revenue share partnerships where these more people who were fans of the brand and that’s why like I said. And we’ve been very lucky and fortunate to have been able to get our products to them. And them appreciating the brand, the story, and everything we are doing. And so that in tea, all these partnerships you see are 100% organic and I can say that on the record because they are. With spices, as I said, we were very sure that it is a category that is foreign to tea, right? Vahdam is considered as a tea brand and we’re doing that transition. So I think to sort of put that message out, we wanted a slightly higher impact, in terms of knowing the kind of people we can reach and the noise we can create. And that’s number one.

    Number two, as I said, I think trust is very, very important, to the entire process, right? And a Michelin Star chef, a MasterChef judge is launching a brand of spices, which is native to his country, I think stays a lot somebody who’s been pretty much approached by any and every country and every spice company in the world, or at least from India.

    And then third is, I think no better way, you know, to take Indian spices to the world with the man who’s actually, who’s been at the forefront and the flag bearer of taking Indian cuisine, Indian aromas, you know, to a modern consumer and to the mainstream audience in markets like the America right? Like the US. I think absolutely, you know, no brainer for us to work with him and you know and we hope you sort of continue this partnership for a long-term basis.

    Q6: How will the spice segment expand? What’s in the pipeline?

    Bala Sarda: I’m in the firstly very, very excited to be doing this. I think it’s an incredibly large opportunity. We are very, very passionate about taking India under a proud, ethical homegrown label to the world. And, you know, I think, and taking it to consumers, with spices, we can also get much more from a consumer’s day because you spend so much more time cooking and eating your food. So, I think that’s, that’s really very, very exciting for us. And, driving us to sort of do this and try and make this successful but from our from a product perspective like I said, right? We’re coming out with almost 20 to 25 single-origin spices in the first phase, that’s really what we’re doing. So the best of Indian single-origin spices, right? From your turmeric to ginger to black pepper, clove any, or every spices you spice you can think of. Right from Himalayan rock salt. A chili powder from some several, several spice-growing regions in India. And in addition, to that, in the next phase, you will see a lot of spice mixes and seasonings coming from our portfolio, which is basically a pre-made concoction. I think it’s gonna be the same spices we’re selling a single origin but you know for people who like their spices in a certain ratio as a certain concoction you know our spice blends and our spice mixes right from a chai masala to a lot of these Indian taste to even some very modern American flavors, you know because ultimately the application needs to be for an American or a European and a mainstream consumer to actually use it in, in his or her daily life. So you will see a lot of that also, coming from us. And lastly, it’s very important to position the category in a certain way I think for far long, I think, the spices category has not been disrupted, and the spice box is still a very boring part of your kitchen. We want to sort of enlighten that. We want to make it colorful, we want to add a lot of color, brand, and storytelling to that. And you will see you know, assortments and gifts and all of that also coming from our portfolio, like what we did with tea,  to sort of just ensure that, consumers perceive this product in a much better way than they do today,

    The dream rather is to actually create this platform of high-quality Indian products. Create an entity, create a brand that is really trusted, which is consistent, which is, which is as per global brands. Taking India as a brand and making that more trusted ultimately is really, what makes us very, very passionate. Obviously, it’s a great feeling when you see an Indian brand selling in a Bloomingdales or a Whole Foods Canada or a Sprouts Farmer’s Market, which is packed in India, from India. And I think that’s really what drives us every day. So, I think, like tea, spices are an absolute Indian category, and we deserve a global player creating impact in this category, not only in the US, not only in Europe, but pretty much all countries globally. Because like I said, 80% of the world’s turmeric comes from India. Most of the world’s ashwagandha comes from India. And these are, these are life-changing spices. These are spices, which can help you live a better life, better lifestyle, your mental health… So, there are also a lot of strong wellness connotations attached to spices like tea. I think it’s just very exciting for us to take this, from India to the world. And we will do everything it takes to make this available to consumers and hopefully make it worth their while.

    Aravinda: There was tea, then there were superfoods, and now spices. Is Brand Vahdam a story that’s still being written?

    It is, Aravinda. I think we’re probably in the second chapter, and probably hopefully it’s a longer book than we would also imagine. I think one step one step at a time. And I think for us, two critical goals are – how do we ensure everything we are doing in tea and how do we go deeper in that while at the same time we make spices a success. From our product market fit perspective, this is really what we are focusing on this year. And hopefully, you’ll see more coming out from our umbrella over the next year or so.

    Download Vahdam Spice Booklet (PDF)

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    Aravinda Anantharaman

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  • Sinna Dorais Bungalows Balance Comfort and Old World Charm

    Sinna Dorais Bungalows - Kadamane Tea Estate
    Sinna Dorais Bungalow. Photo by Preetam Koilpillai
    Narrated tour by Aravinda Anantharaman

    Sinna Dorai is how assistant managers were addressed on turn-of-the-century tea estates in south India: Dorai would have been the manager, and Sinna Dorai loosely translates to ‘small manager.’ At three estates owned by the Murugappa Group – in Sakleshpur (Karnataka), Valparai, and the Nilgiris (Tamil Nadu) – the Assistant Manager’s bungalow has been converted for tourism as the Sinna Dorai’s bungalow. The wives of the current managers manage them. One is at Kadamane Tea Estate, located high in the Western Ghats in Karnataka, India, about 250 kilometers west of Bengaluru. Kadamane was planted nearly a century ago; its bungalows are old, charming, and well-preserved. The interiors have been tastefully restored. The rooms are modern and comfortable but have retained that old-world charm, and that’s a delicate balance. The estate offers a glimpse into a way of life that is no longer relevant but reveals a vibrant, fascinating history worth recording and preserving. There’s no restaurant, just a kitchen and a dining room where you go for mealtimes like the Sinna Dorais, sharing hearty meals made with local produce and delicious bread. The vistas are boundless, and the forest streams are lovely to explore. It is a perfect stop, a great example of tea tourism done right because it’s indulgent without being excessive. – Aravinda Anantharaman

    • Caption: Tea time on the lawn at Sinna Dorais Bungalows
    Sinna Dorais Twin Cottages, Kadamane Tea Estate, Karnataka, India

    A Stay at Scenic Kadamane Tea Estate

    By Aravinda Anantharaman

    If you drive 250 kilometers west of Bangalore, you reach Sakleshpur, where the coffee country begins. And sitting here amongst the coffee estates is a tea garden called Kadamane. And that itself seemed reason enough to visit. I spent a weekend there recently, and it’s one of the nicest breaks I’ve had. I booked a room at the Sinna Dorai’s Bungalow. So Sinna Dorai is how assistant managers were addressed. Small manager. That’s what it translates to. Venky Muthiah, whose family has owned Kadamane for years, decided to convert the assistant manager’s bungalows and open them out to tourists. He’s done this with two other estates they own in Valparai and the Nilgiris.

    Kadamane was planted nearly a century ago; its bungalows are old and very charming and very well preserved. The interiors have been done very tastefully. The rooms are modern and comfortable but don’t lose that old-world charm. And I think that’s a fine balance they’ve managed to maintain. So there were three Sinna Dorais, so the bungalow itself was large. These really wide verandas go all around, and these are great spaces to lounge in because the views are fantastic. I learned that the Sinna Dorais needed to keep an eye on everything that was going on, whether the gates, the tea sections themselves, or the factories, so the bungalows were strategically located, and you get a 360-degree view of what was going on around you. There’s also a tennis court, probably something assistant managers enjoyed.

    There’s also a pool table, which I don’t think is from the time of the Sinna Dorais. I enjoyed a small library with its old Planter’s Chronicles collection and discovering a story that rivals the Jungle Book. It’s called the Bad Girl of Kadamane, and it features a Sinna Dorai named Angus Hutton, man-eating tigers, and a lost child. And, of course, bears.

    Sinna Dorais Bungalows - Kadamane Tea Estate
    Bedroom
    Sinna Dorais Bungalows - Kadamane Tea Estate
    Fireplace
    Sinna Dorais Bungalows - Kadamane Tea Estate
    Veranda
    Sinna Dorais Bungalows - Kadamane Tea Estate
    Sinna Dorais Bungalows – Kadamane Tea Estate

    “It’s a way of life that’s no longer relevant today because the world of tea is changing. But there is an incredibly rich and fascinating history that is worth recording and preserving.”

    – Aravinda Anantharaman

    It must be said as British that they had a sense of adventure whether facing man-eating tigers or the prospect of creating a large-scale plantation. Standing here, I imagine them arriving at these forested hillsides so far from their home, plotting roads, earmarking sections to cultivate tea, and building a little world. And as I look at the vast expanse and the twisting roads, I try to imagine what an assistant manager would have seen or imagined possible. Sure, it’s a way of life that’s no longer relevant today because the world of tea is changing. But there is an incredibly rich and fascinating history that is worth recording and preserving.

    The room I booked was not one of the planters’ rooms but a cottage just a little away from the main building. And this used to be a post office before. So slightly larger, a little private, and enjoyable. Kadamane spans 7,500 acres, but only 1,000 have been planted with tea. So you see slopes of tea but also generous stretches of the sholas. In the silence – I don’t know much about birds, but you can hear bird songs. I could recognize the jungle fowl. I recognized the incessant hammering of the woodpecker. I also listened to, oddly, the peacock. And once we heard a noise which we later learned was barking deer. We came out quickly and caught a glimpse of it, but then the lorry tramped down the road and sent the deer scurrying into the bushes.

    I also liked that there’s no restaurant, but there’s a kitchen and a dining room, and you go there at mealtimes, just like the Sinna Dorais used to, to eat hearty meals made with delicious local produce. And the idea of Sinna Dorais bungalow is to come here and do nothing, but they also have a few activities. We did a couple of them: one was tea time on the hill. So there’s a Jeep in which we drove up to this hill on the property, but it has amazing views. Piping hot tea had been packed. Crispy hot bajjis had been packed. There were a few deck chairs. So we just sat down, spent a little time, and enjoyed it… it was Tea Time with a View. But that other activity was my favorite because you took the 4×4 and drove into the forest on the property. There was a small clearing. We spent an hour enjoying a stream flowing nearby, surrounded by forest, watching a couple of Malabar giant squirrels gamboling on the tree. And it’s an experience I’ve never had before. And sitting there surrounded by forest, the name Kadamane, which translates to ‘forest home,’ seems so apt.

    The rest of the weekend went into reading a fat murder mystery I was carrying. Wi-Fi and mobile signals are iffy, so you get a digital detox. And because Kadamane is a working estate, we decided to walk down and take a peek at the tea factory. There was a large chimney puffing out smoke. Just like Willy Wonka’s factory, my son said. Inside, on large troughs, the day’s plucking was withering gently, and yesterday’s leaves were making their way into the CTC machines and then being sorted by grades. You get this aroma of fresh tea that you never get anywhere else but in the factory.

    Sinna Dorai’s bungalow is a great example of tea tourism done right because it’s indulgent without being excessive. It’s luxurious yet accessible and affordable. And just, quite simply, a great getaway. The only thing I wish guests would do more is to ask about the tea because but for tea, this would have been a missed experience.

    Gawa Koilpillai
    Gawa Koilpillai
    Sinna Dorais Bungalows - Kadamane Tea Estate
    Scenic Kadamane Tea Estate
    Sinna Dorais Bungalows - Kadamane Tea Estate
    Sinna Dorais Bungalows, tea pluckers at Kadamane Tea Estate
    Kadamane Tea Estate
    Kadamane Tea Estate. Photo by Preetam Koilpillai

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    Aravinda Anantharaman

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  • Q|A Sandip Thapa

    Sandip Thapa, the founder of CuppaTrade, an eMarketplace that enables bulk growers to sell online, says the newly launched B2B eMarketplace exploits new-age tech, including AI and VR, to offer the expanding segment of small tea growers access to a diverse and global base of tea buyers.  not interested in maintaining the status quo, “the old way of doing business needs an overhaul,” he says, adding, “We want to blow up the market basically, and to bring in efficiency, make trade much faster, make it extremely dynamic and bring the sellers and buyers closer.”

    Listen to the Interview

    Cuppa Trade Founder Sandip Thapa on fixing the old way of doing business in tea.

    A Fresh Perspective

    Sandip Thapa started his career as a tea taster and auctioneer. He later spearheaded India’s first tea eMarketplace – the Jorhat Tea Centre, working with the Tea Board of India.

    Sandip Thapa, Founder CuppaTrade

    CuppaTrade is a newly launched B2B platform offering the expanding segment of small tea growers access to a diverse and global base of tea buyers. The platform exploits the new-age tech including AI (artificial intelligence) and AR (augmented reality) to connect tea producers across the world directly to buyers worldwide. It facilitates the sale of authentic GI tea to buyers, reducing cycle-time, ensuring quality, providing better renumeration to sellers and making procurement cost-effective for buyers.

    In this conversation with South Asia Correspondent Aravinda Anantharaman, Thapa describes a sales cycle that takes far too long, lacks transparency and favors large buyers. Stakeholders shows little interest in innovation. “The need of the hour is a fresh perspective,” he says.

    Aravinda Anantharaman: Congratulations on launching CuppaTrade. Will you tell us a little about it?

    Sandip Thapa: Thank you. CuppaTrade is an online marketplace catering to the tea ecosystem. We are focusing on the small tea growers’ cooperatives, the bought leaf factories, and the small producers. And we are increasing their buyer base. We are working on their market expansion, and we are going to the secondary and the tertiary buyers. We are connecting the small producers with a very large number of small buyers across the country. This is the plan in phase one, and in phase two we intend to open up for cross-border transactions as well, wherein we focus on the exports.

    We want to blow up the market basically, and to bring in efficiency, make trade much faster, make it extremely dynamic and bring the sellers and buyers closer.

    Aravinda: Looking at the Indian auction system, where did you feel there are gaps that needed to be plugged?

    Sandip: The entire process should have evolved. It is almost 180 years old and by this time everyone knows how tea is to be treated. So, the quality assessment is set, the pre-sale and the post-sale processes are set. What are the responsibilities of the seller? What are the responsibilities of the buyers? These are set and on the basis of these conventions, you see a lot of comfort in private sales. Wherein, the seller is sending samples directly from the garden; the seller is taking the onus of taking care of the quality and the buyer is taking the responsibility of timely payment or whatever the understanding is, with regards to paying prompts or credit terms.

    What we should have done is, in the auction system, we should have gone many years ago directly to ex-garden sales.

    Technology has yet to play a pivotal role in the ecosystem. So if it’s a broking house or an auction organizer, they could have come up with an app or platform wherein directly from the garden, the tea invoices for sale, could be uploaded and by the time it’s come to the warehouse, your kuchcha or the provisional catalog would be ready. They could have reduced the cycle time. And this is very easy. These are very common sense interventions. Nobody’s doing it, so we might as well do it through CuppaTrade.  

    Now, we have knowledge in the palm of our hands. Why can’t trade be that quick? You have the learnings of the marketplaces like, Amazon and Flipkart. Unfortunately the tea industry has been bereft of these innovations. You have pockets of innovation, but they’re very tiny. You have progressive sellers and buyers, that’s why you’ve seen the plethora of D2C brands coming in directly trying to sell from the gardens.

    So for us, the number one concern is the pace of transaction.

    Second is opening up of the market or the platform to add a very large number of buyers and sellers and to showcase small tea growers and producers because the kind of teas they are producing, although the volume is very small, has limited representation.

    Next you have to consider credit facility, with regards to receiving the material and making the payment, already set.

    It is a Tea Board run auction. The banks and fin-tech companies, could have easily opened up credit facility to the buyers or even to the sellers through the platform. That takes care of the working capital concern.

    CuppaTrade offers buyers four ways to complete a transaction.

    Finally, I feel it’s very restrictive in the sense that it’s not enough to have a tea board license if you are a buyer. Even if you have a license, you probably will not be able to operate out of any auction center if the committee doesn’t allow it.

    So the Buyers Committee is almost like a club. New buyers do get added in the auction system, but if you dig deeper, who are these new buyers? It’s the same old firms registering their new firm. So that is how the new buyers are coming in the platform. But it’s the same handful of 20, 30, 35 buyers. So these things should have evolved. Who should have anchored these? It could be the auction organizer, CTTA (Calcutta Tea Traders Association) or the GTAC, or STAC. It could be the Tea Board, it could be the brokers. But unfortunately, because the industry is so old, you have various interest groups and they run in their own direction. They have their own agenda, they have their own interests to fulfill, and that is how you see where the industry is at the moment.

    “The only segment that has made headway are the traders, packeteers, and merchant exporters. They buy low and sell high. That premium never returns to the small tea grower (STG) or producer (STP).”

    – Sandip Thapa

    Aravinda: In terms of price discovery and in setting prices, the auction offers the benchmark. How would CuppaTrade do that?

    Sandip: It’s very unfortunate because when you have a very limited set of buyers, price discovery will suffer. We respect the buyers version, because they also have their own interest to protect because they are looking for value. And with the commodity prices going up, it’s not just the tea price, you have other various costs which is going up, one has to control cost somewhere. Unfortunately, the producers are at a receiving end, where they don’t have much of a say.

    And you have to understand the buyers are mostly either traders or agents or packeteers in the auction system. So the procurement cost has to be low so that they make a larger margin. The platform has not been opened to the secondary or tertiary buyers, no one would want to go there and bring them onboard. Else, then what happens to the primary agents and buyers?

    We feel everyone can coexist. A small buyer can become a medium-large buyer. A large buyer can become a very large buyer because, when you look at the FMCG industry, everyone is going rural, everyone is going to tier-two, tier-three cities. Everyone is trying to get into just-in-time to fill the shelves, use technology so that inventory is just right and operational costs are down. Similar things could have happened, but when you have a very limited base, how would you expect a fair price discovery?

    Yes, you need discipline and you need to put systems in place. But why can’t teas be bought by international buyers at the same time? You have to have mechanisms in place. And it may not be suitable for all kinds of tea. That’s all right. But even on an experiment basis the platform should have been opened up. If it’s a very high quality tea, anyway it’s going to Europe, why can’t the importers be asked to be part of the platform. With a click, you would have expanded the market. And it would be all digital. You log in, explore the catalogue and you bid. How difficult can it be? And now we have working examples, it’s not that we are reinventing the wheel. It’s been many years that Amazon and Flipkart have been in our lives.

    If we don’t focus on an alternate, wherein we are speeding up the cycle time, we are reducing the inventory turn-around or providing easy credit in a transparent and open manner from the platform, then when?

    Even for that matter sampling. If you go to a buyer’s place, a fairly large or medium sized buyer, the amount of samples they get, it’s humanly not possible to taste all those teas. In many cases, they know what a garden or a particular mark is making. They know the flushes and they know the quality that would be coming out at any particular point in time. So it’s just the type samples they would see seriously at the start of the season or flush, and occasionally the usual sale samples, that’s about it. They do not have the bandwidth to see all samples, because they’re buying from auctions, they’re buying from private sale, they have 2, 3, 4 local brokers sitting outside the office with the samples pushing for sale.

    For certain category, you have to see the sample and then only purchase, definitely. Why not? But not for all categories. If you look at the BLF category or the variety that is mostly bought within a particular price range, that anyway is bought on the basis of touch and feel. No one would make the cups and taste. That category is increasing. So if you do something about it, digitize it or have a data set, that one can refer to, instead of just receiving sample, it would make things easier for both buyer and seller.

    Here also, CuppaTrade will be using a lot of tech like digital catalogue to make catalogues a bit more interesting and offer more than an Excel sheet; Augmented Reality so that buyers don’t have to go through physical samples. This will save them a lot of space and time. And with our quality assessment, it’s going to be very interesting. They will be able to buy teas on the go, even if they’re travelling or wherever they may be stationed. Once fully ready, we’ll showcase it and we’ll take feedback from the stakeholders. So far it’s been very, very encouraging.

    Aravinda: I would also think it addresses one of the concerns that producers have about how many samples they send. Small producers can’t afford to send so many samples in the hope that they get somebody to taste the tea and set a price for it.

    Sandip: Correct. So while we are building the AR module, we have already taken steps to get into focused sampling. The process begins right from registration. It’s very thorough. It’s a two step process, where initially, the buyer just uploads the basic details. Then the team sits with the buyer over a call and captures which grades do they buy, at what levels, what are their preferences and so on. And then we also push or showcase the teas that they’re not purchasing. And that is how we nudge them to try new varieties and steadily expand the market.

    You would be surprised and happy to know that while it’s been only about three months that we are active and live, we’ve handled teas from Arunachal, Nagaland, Himachal, Upper Assam and South India. And of all shapes and sizes. It could be a five kilo pack, it could be a two kilo pack, all are welcome; green tea, oolong, orthodox, tippy, non tippy, CTC, many varieties.

    When we discuss with buyers who mostly deal in CTC, Bolder Grades, Dust and so on and so forth, we ask them, if they would buy green tea as well, or would they be interested in Arunachal Orthodox or some other varieties? They usually say, “No, we do not deal in these teas.” Then we counter, “You haven’t dealt because you haven’t had a platform where you could be assured of a constant supply. Here is your chance, we are showcasing these variety and sending you a few samples.” We encourage them to test it out with their clients, and tell them that now they have a seasoned partner in CuppaTrade who can offer a smooth supply. So this is how we are expanding or helping the small producers expand the market.

    Aravinda: The traditional auction system, especially with the mix of commodity and CTC and Orthodox (ODX) has a very complicated grading system that is very intimidating for any new buyer. Unless they already have a sense of all these finer differences between grades.

    Sandip: It’s a very interesting point. We have a plethora of grades and most are not required. We had discussed this with Tea Board earlier. Everyone agrees that we need to reduce the numbers and have only the standard ones like you find in Sri Lanka. But here comes the problem, when you say, a particular grade, let’s say a BOP or a BP, it varies between garden to garden because of the sizing of the grains. And that happens because of quality of mesh in sifters, as it varies between manufacturers. You’d be happy to note that during our quality assessment, we are pointing out the mesh size for each invoice.

    This is a foundational work that we have started wherein we are providing as many data points as possible for the comfort of buyers. We are laying this foundation so that slowly, we may do away with the samples altogether. This may sound impossible now, but with technology, this is possible.

    We realized early, that after a point, when we have lakhs of buyers in the platform, it’ll not be possible for us to send out samples even if we do focused sampling.

    It’s a process. Sellers realize it. Buyers also realize that there are too many grades in the market. We need to reduce it. We are talking to Associations too, because it reduces cost for the seller as it helps in streamlining packaging, and is less confusing for buyers.

    Aravinda: With the small tea farmer and the bought leaf factory how do you ensure, because the volumes are so small how do you ensure there’s a sufficient supply of a particular tea, a particular grade, which has already found a buyer and who’d like a, the assurance of a steady, consistent supply

    Sandip: For stabilizing the supply chain for a buyer with a particular set of variety, we have a mechanism for requirement matching. We use AI to educate the platform that for a particular buyer, a certain category of tea is suitable. Thus, after a point, when we have enough data, the platform will give us and the buyer suitable recommendation basis her buying history. Then, we shall position the new marks accordingly. This way we are trying to bring some semblance and ensure that the buyers have the required supply.

    Aravinda: And I think there’s also the opportunity to take back market insights to producers, or to the factories, to the small tea growers, and say, okay, I have an estimate of how much tea of a certain grade, of a certain kind at a certain price band in demand and sort of establish those sort of conversations also

    Sandip: Yes, this is what the market is demanding and perhaps they could tweak manufacturing to stay relevant and take advantage of the prevailing market. We want to rely on data and market feedback for this. We are earnest in developing a robust database and analytics to improve all-round offerings.

    The other thing with small growers is that, they are defined by one segment, but within that segment itself, there’s such a huge range, isn’t it? There are those who are producing these uber specialty and extremely fine quality tea, and there are those who are still starting out and figuring out a way around making tea. So how do you then navigate this spectrum of small tea growers?

    We have already faced this kind of a dilemma because you have certain bought-leaf factories who are working very closely with smart growers and they’re putting in 70% to 80% fine leaf in manufacturing. But the moment the buyer hears it’s a bought leaf factory, the perception gets colored. It’s a constant education process with them. And we insist that they shouldn’t judge either by the mark or where it’s coming from. They should assess and pay only basis the quality.

    It’s a process because the perception of BLF is very strong. It’s a volume game for BLF producers with less regard to quality. But when you come across exceptions, you’ve got to fight for them.

    Here, we have an advantage because the buyer set is very large and it’s increasing every day. So I think from the traditional platform point of view, when they are selling through CuppaTrade, the biggest advantage is the market base. There is somebody who’s working hard towards positioning them, and we do get into a bit of confrontation with buyers, and urge them to stick to apple to apple comparison on quality because we know what we have, we know the producers, the team and advisors have gone to the factory, we click pictures, we make videos, and we know some of them are very disciplined producers and the result is in the cup. When you taste you know immediately that these have been manufactured with very finely plucked leaves and they’re different. Some of the invoices are even better than many agency gardens, I must say.

    It’s a constant positioning that we have to do. And that is how you set the mark, because it’s not just the seller who’s saying that her tea is good, but the platform too, which is supposed to be unbiased. And because we have a large buyer base, it becomes somewhat easier for us to represent those kind of teas.

    Aravinda: CuppaTrade is not just a trading platform, it’s also supports a community where conversations can happen, insights can flow from one to the other. And you facilitate, that direct dialogue.

    Sandip: We are not traditional brokers. We are not traders. We don’t want to keep a margin. We are very clear on that. Whatever benefit or the higher price that the seller gets, which the buyer is providing, it has to go directly to the seller. We have a service fee. We charge the sellers, we charge the buyers, but that’s about it. We are pure facilitators providing a platform where everyone is welcome to interact, negotiate in a secure, safe environment, while we take care of quality and payments.

    Aravinda: So what is the volume you need of buyers and sellers to make CuppaTrade viable and breakeven?

    Sandip: We’re going for all. We’re going for everybody. And it’s because India itself is a very, very large market. If you look at the figures, I think the timing of CuppaTrade is apt.

    If you look at the auction versus private sale data, auctions are usually around 45% annually. And there is a constant shift towards private sale. We anticipate that this shift will keep increasing. Within a couple of years it will be a stark 40-60 in favor of private sale. CuppaTrade operates in the private space and we don’t conduct auctions. It’s a marketplace, where buyers and sellers negotiate directly and finalize the price and quantity.

    As far as buyers are concerned, internally we have taken a target to have about over a lakh (100,000) of buyers across the country. At the moment, we are somewhere near 500 buyers, and we have not even stepped up because, it’s end season in North India. We are focusing on South Indian producers right now. By late February or early March, we shall go all-out and hasten the onboarding process. It’ll be pedal to the metal, so to say.

    We want to go to the hinterlands. We want to go to the destinations, hold buyer-seller meets, do the legwork, also to make the onboarding process as smooth and easy, help them understand our processes, our quality assessment, show the AR version of the sample, gauge their comfort level and tweak accordingly. Again, it’s a process and it’ll take some time and as you know the industry is averse to innovation and tech, we anticipate it’s going to be a long haul. But yes, for us, the figure is over a lakh of buyers on the platform.

    Aravinda: How difficult is it to conduct transactions on CuppaTrade? What are buyers and sellers required to do to join the platform?

    Sandip: It’s very easy. You go to the website CuppaTrade.com and click Marketplace. You identify whether you are a seller, buyer, or both. And the registration form opens up. Many requirements are not mandatory. It’s left to the seller and buyer. That is the first step of registration. Then the team calls and we get into the detailing bit. So it’s that easy and it’s completely free. We don’t pay to be members of Amazon or buy from Flipkart. So that’s the model.

    Aravinda: And it comes directly the product itself, eventually comes directly from the producer’s side, the seller’s side?

    Sandip: Yes, fresh and in the shortest possible time. We’re removing many layers of traders or intermediaries. In most cases, it’ll be between seller to destination buyer. For certain categories it could be the intermediaries who would be feeding the destination. We are not averse to, agents or traders being in the platform because we are focusing on the ecosystem. Where we bring advantage for both seller and buyer is better remuneration, a large variety in the shortest possible time on a one-stop shop platform with tech driven value-adds. There’ll be many segments of buyers who will be very interested in the platform.

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