Tea has an ancient history of medicinal applications, many of which have been validated by scientific research. The same is true of seaweed which contains antioxidants (vitamins A, C, and E) as well as trace minerals and protective pigments. Joining us from Tokyo for this week’s podcast is Hiroshi Takatoh, CEO, founder, and blender at Japan-based Teatis Tea. Takatoh is exploring, with his team of food scientists and doctors, tea formulations to assist diabetics and pre-diabetics control their blood-sugar levels.
Listen to the interview
Teatis Tea Founder and CEO Hiroshi Takatoh explains the health benefits of blending tea with brown seaweedHiroshi Takatoh, CEO Teatis Tea
Matcha and Powdered Seaweed Tea Aids Diabetics
After acting as caretaker during his ex-wife’s battle with cancer, tech industry veteran Hiroshi Takatoh recognized the need for easy-to-make, nutritious foods that were suitable for the dietary requirements of medically fragile consumers. He then consulted with a wide array of doctors and food scientists for innovation within the condition-specific food and beverage space and discovered that diabetes was a challenge he could tackle in his latest business venture. The company has received $1 million in seed capital.
Dan Bolton: Your two new powdered teas “CALM” and “AWAKE” are condition-specific blends formulated for diabetics and pre-diabetics with high blood sugar levels. Why did you focus on diabetes?
Hiroshi Takatoh: There’s a huge population to diagnose in diabetes, and many who suffer lack the time to manage their diet. So we wanted to provide a fast way for them to control blood sugar levels.
There are more than 400 million people with diabetes globally with 122 million people in the US diagnosed with diabetes and pre-diabetes. That is a very huge problem. Many lack the time and cooking skills to effectively manage their health. I think consumers with Type 2 Diabetes lose an average of two and a half hours a day. We want to solve this problem by providing the fastest way to manage nutrition without any cooking skills.
Seaweed is harvested in large quantities in Japan for use in food and for its medicinal properties.
To further support consumers with diabetes, every Teatis purchase contributes to our “Diabetes Advocate Tax,” which is donated to Insulin for Life USA, a non-profit that provides disease management supplies free of charge to diabetic patients worldwide.
Dan: The “Calm” blend is a mix of traditional herbals, such as turmeric and ginger. “Awake” contains matcha and powdered peppermint. Tell us a little bit more about the health benefits of brown algae (Eisenia bicyclis) and the interaction of tea and turmeric with the seaweed.
Hiroshi: Both Teatis powdered teas utilize the power of seaweed extract (Arame) that is proven to suppress the absorption of sugar from the intestinal tract and moderates blood sugar levels. Seaweed polyphenols show clinical evidence of inhibiting digestive enzymes from digesting food into glucose. Through a proprietary manufacturing process, Teatis is able to harness those nutritional benefits of seaweed, without passing along the flavor or aroma, and blend the seaweed seamlessly into matcha and turmeric powders.
The two flavors are both good either hot or cold in the summertime. I love this kind of taste and definitely recommend it. The best way to use these is to put our tea in some skim or plant-based milk. Use one teaspoon per cup. That is the simple way to use our product. Some customers using our turmeric blend add it to their soup, others use Teatis to make green smoothies. So maybe this way is more fit for the matcha flavor.
Dan: You’re making the point that its convenience and versatility encourage people to drink these tea blends in soups or smoothies or in a warm plant-milk-based latte.
Hiroshi: The most important thing is that it is easy to drink. I want customers to enjoy their wonderful tea time and take just a tiny step toward prevention. So please enjoy.
Many people like to add milk or milk alternatives to create a special at-home latte. Some add the matcha-flavored powder to smoothies and include the ginger-turmeric blend in soups. The powdered teas are accessible to cooks at any skill level and versatile, allowing diabetics and low-sugar dieters to be creative and craft beverages to their preference while managing their health.
| India Adopts Tea Industry Reforms | US Considers Granting Exemptions from Chinese Tariffs | A Tribute to Nepal Tea Maker Morris Orchard
Seven-minute Tea News Recap
Oct 2 – Sale 39
India Tea Price Watch
India Tea Price Watch | Aravinda Anantharaman The Tea Board of India announced a mechanization subsidy for smallholders to address the problem of labor shortages in tea gardens. India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry extended its tea development and promotion program through 2025-26 discontinuing subsidies for Orthodox production that includes $40 million for clearing subsidies in the tea sector. Learn more…
Aravinda Anantharaman
Features
This week Tea Biz travels to Alberta, Canada, high in the Canadian Rockies to visit one of several Swiss-inspired tea houses designed to provide high-mountain trekkers shelter and warmth.
… and then we visit Tokyo, Japan to meet tech and tea entrepreneur Hiroshi Takatoh whose Teatis blends of brown seaweed and matcha and seaweed and botanicals are formulated to help diabetics control high blood sugar levels.
Jolene Brewster, left, with partner Jess McNally in front of Jolene’s Tea House located in the historic Crag Cabin, Banff.
Jolene’s Tea House
By Jessica Natale Woollard
The rugged Canadian Rocky Mountains thrust nearly 20,000 feet into the sky, a haven for hikers that inspired a unique style of high-mountain tea houses built to provide warmth and shelter along the trail. In Banff, Alberta, Tea Biz correspondent Jessica Natale Woollard visits Jolene’s Tea House – a refuge for mind and body. Read more…
Listen to the Interview
Jolene Brewster on the launch of Jolene’s Tea HouseHiroshi Takatoh, CEO and Founder Teatis Tea
A Medicinal Tea from the Sea
By Dan Bolton
Tea has an ancient history of medicinal applications, many of which have been validated by scientific research. The same is true of seaweed which contains antioxidants (vitamins A, C, and E) as well as trace minerals and protective pigments. Joining us from Tokyo for this week’s podcast is Hiroshi Takatoh, CEO, founder, and blender at Japan-based Teatis Tea. Takatoh is exploring, with his team of food scientists and doctors, tea formulations to assist diabetics and pre-diabetics control their blood sugar levels. Read more…
Listen to the Interview
Teatis Tea founder Hiroshi Takatoh discusses the medicinal benefits of blending brown seaweed and tea.
News
India will no longer require permits to grow tea, one of several reforms gradually deregulating the tea industry.
India Adopts Tea Industry Reforms
By Dan Bolton
Facing continuing declines in export revenue, India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry has funded several programs and instituted fundamental reforms in tea.
In September the Tea Board of India said it will suspend seven sections of the Tea Act of 1953 following the commerce ministry’s decision to amend regulations governing the sector. Seventeen of the Act’s 51 provisions are no longer enforced as India gradually deregulates the tea sector.
Permits to grow tea will no longer be required, a decision that is likely to increase unregulated production by smallholders who now account for 52% of India’s tea by volume. Tea production has rebounded in 2021, up 18% compared to the first eight months of 2020 to total 792 million kilos. Read more…
A Tribute to Teamaker Morris Orchard
The death of Nepal teamaker Morris Orchard due to COVID-19 is a sad reminder of the pandemic’s toll on the global tea community. Orchard, general manager at Jun Chiyabari Tea Estate and a third-generation tea man, was 58. Kevin Gascoyne, a partner at Montreal’s Camellia Sinensis tea company and a long-time buyer of Nepal tea shares how Orchard advanced tea making in his lifetime. View on YouTube.
Jun Chiyabari Teamaker Morris Orchard (1963-2021)
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Montreal-based Camellia Sinensis tea buyer Kevin Gascoyne pays tribute to teamaker Morris Orchard
US Considers Exemptions from Chinese Tariffs
Trade talks between the US and China will resume but there is little hope the Biden Administration will do away with tariffs that have depressed tea imports from China for the past three years. However, US Trade Representative Katherine Tai announced the US will resume a program that allows companies importing some product categories to apply for exemptions, relieving them from paying the tariff.
Applications for exclusions were suspended in 2018. USTR writes that of the initial 2,200 exclusions granted, 549 were extended through Dec. 31, 2020. Criteria to qualify is based on economic hardship and whether the product is available only from China, which is true of several categories of tea.
The US currently charges duties on $350 billion of Chinese goods, penalizing importers who often pass the added expense to consumers. Tariffs add 7.5% to the price of Chinese tea. Tai said the US “does not want to inflame trade tensions with China” but made it clear additional duties and restrictions could be imposed.
Biz Insight – Tariffs on tea are insignificant compared to those levied on steel, agricultural food products and create no hardship for the Chinese who annually export $2 billion worth of tea. The 50-day public comment period on why the USTR should reinstate exemptions opens on Oct. 12. The list of previous exemptions is posted on the USTR website. None of the 549 exemptions were granted to tea companies but companies importing ink cartridges, submersible pumps, lampshades, bottle caps, and electric motors all made the list.
— Dan Bolton
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Upcoming Events
October 2021 Duyun Maojian International Forum for Tea Lovers | Dunyun, Guizhou, China | 6th Annual Conference for China Tea Import and Export Trade | Oct. 21-22 The co-located events showcase the production of Maojian green tea. China quarantine and travel restrictions apply. Website | Brochure (PDF)
December 2021
World Tea & Coffee Expo | Gandhinagar, India | December 2-4 Launched in 2013 and now operated by Messe Muenchen India, this hybrid virtual and in-person event for tea and coffee professionals is now scheduled for the Helipad Exhibition Centre, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. Website | Register
| Kenya Exports Saturate Black Tea Market | COVID Depresses Japanese Tea Business in Unique Ways | Unilever is Recognized as the Top Food and Agriculture Benchmark
Seven-minute Tea News Recap
Sept 25 – Sale 38
India Tea Price Watch
India Tea Price Watch | Aravinda Anantharaman The Tea Board of India announced a mechanization subsidy for smallholders to address the problem of labor shortages in tea gardens. India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry extended its tea development and promotion program through 2025-26 discontinuing subsidies for Orthodox production that includes $40 million for clearing subsidies in the tea sector. Learn more…
Aravinda Anantharaman
Features
This week Tea Biz travels to Monte Metilile in Mozambique, a country along the southern coast of East Africa where Mohit Agarwal, Director of the Asian Tea Group, has revived an abandoned 15,000-acre tea estate to demonstrate the viability of organic farming at scale.
… and then we talk with supply chain and procurement expert John Snell about what makes Mozambique such an exceptional tea-producing region.
Monte Metilile Tea Estate in Mozambique is the world’s largest certified organic tea plantation.
Organic Tea Farming at Scale
By Dan Bolton
Mozambique is the best-kept secret in the tea world, says Mohit Agarwal, Director of the Asian Tea Group, the company that owns Cha de Magoma and the Monte Metilile brand. Mohit is walking the garden as we speak via Zoom, describing the organic dairy herd, a forest of renewable eucalyptus used for fuel, the hydroelectric turbines that power the plantation’s three factories. Pointing to the brilliant green tea bushes that stretch as far as the eye can see he explains that during 15 years of civil war from 1977 until 1992 Mozambique’s tea plantations were abandoned. Read more…
Listen to the Interview
Mohit Agarwal, Managing Director at the Asia Tea Group, discusses the advantages of scale.Procurement expert John Snell, founder of NM Tea B Consulting and owner of Ela’s Tea.
John Snell: Mozambique is God’s Country for Tea
By Dan Bolton
A century ago, when the Portuguese first planted tea in Gurúè, Mozambique they found gentle, well-drained slopes of rich red volcanic soils at 1,500 to 3,600 feet elevation – the same altitude as India’s Darjeeling mid-tier gardens. The climate there is cool and dry from May to September and hot and humid between October and April. Annual rainfall averages more than 3,000 millimeters. By 1950 production exceeded 20,000 metric tons a year and there was more land under tea in Mozambique than any country in Africa. Listen as procurement and supply chain expert John Snell explains why Mozambique is such a great place to source tea. Read more…
Listen to the Interview
John Snell on why Mozambique is a great place to source tea.
News
Kenya increased pay for green leaf and provided smallholders 65,000 metric tons of fertilizer to increase production.
Kenya Exports Saturate Black Tea Market
By Dan Bolton
Kenya reported a 19% increase in exports totaling almost 300 million kilos through June despite falling production totals. In September Kenya increased fertilizer subsidies following an August increase in payments for green leaf sold to Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) factories. The combination will spur tea production and likely increase Kenya’s share of the global black tea market. Low prices led India to import 5 million kilos of Kenyan tea in the first half of 2021, compared to 1.5 million kilos during the previous year. Worldwide, tea supply continues to outstrip demand, continuing a downward trend dating to 2018. Read more…
Japanese funerals involved tea and generous tea gifting. Funeral directors note a steep decline since COVID-19.
COVID Depresses Japanese Tea Market in Unique Ways
By Dan Bolton
Like the rest of the world, Japanese tea growers suffered as restaurants closed, social gatherings were canceled, and safety precautions limited harvest days and processing.
The pandemic also inflicted setbacks unique to the market including a sharp decline in the gifting of tea at funerals.
Japan’s Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry, reports that production of unrefined “aracha” declined by 15% in 2021 compared to the previous year. Year-on-year sales of first flush teas fell by 20% in Shizuoka prefectureand by 17% in Kagoshima, according to ministry figures.
The Japanese Association of Tea Production reports that total production of sencha declined by 15% in 2020, compared to 2019.
Japanese office workers are teleworking and drinking tea at home but tourism dollars are down 79% compared to 2019, despite the Olympiad and Japan’s popular rural ryokan inns are shuttered, according to the Japan Times.
An article published in Japan News identifies money spent on gifting tea at funeral services is down 90% from a peak of 13.6 million yen in 2015.
The publication quoted a tea association spokesperson, PAUSE “Even if the pandemic is brought under control, I doubt funeral services will ever go back to the way they were before.”
Biz Insight – To boost sales city and regional governments in tea growing regions are providing subsidies. Shizuoka’s prefectural government is offering producers ¥5 million yen (about $30,000) to develop new tea products and ¥3 million yen (about $45,000) to develop new sales channels.
Unilever Named Top Food and Agriculture Company by World Benchmarking Alliance
The World Benchmarking Alliance has named Unilever its top Food and Agricultural Benchmark. The alliance, established in 2018, encourages seven transformations considered essential to put society and the worldwide economy on a more sustainable path.
Annually the group evaluates 2000 of the world’s most influential businesses against its benchmarks.
In a first, the alliance assessed transformation in the Food and Agriculture system globally, ranking 350 companies from farm to fork. Criteria include transforming nutrition, addressing environmental issues, and social inclusion. According to the Alliance, the findings reveal worrying gaps in the industry’s adaptation to climate change, progress on human rights, and contribute to healthy diets.
“Only 26 of the 350 companies are working to reduce emissions from their direct activities through science-based targets set by the Paris Agreement,” writes the Alliance.
Unilever Benchmarks
Unilever, one of the world’s largest food companies, received a combined score of 71.7 out of 100, ranking ahead of Nestlé (which scored 68.5) and Danone (which scored 63.6). Retailer Tesco and beverage companies PepsiCo and Anheuser-Busch InBev were among the top 10. No foodservice company made it into the top 10. One hundred and nineteen companies scored between 10 and 25 points and 110 companies scored below 10 points out of 100.
Download Unilever’s World Benchmarking Scores (PDF)
Biz Insight – The Alliance writes that “while companies at the top of the ranking demonstrate that they are meeting societal expectations on a variety of topics, the overall average benchmark performance is low. Almost two-thirds of the companies in scope fail to obtain a quarter of total scores, demonstrating significant room for improvement across all measurement areas.”
— Dan Bolton
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Upcoming Events
October 2021
World Tea & Coffee Expo | India Postponed to December 2-4 | Launched in 2013 and now operated by Messe Muenchen India, this hybrid virtual and in-person event for tea and coffee professionals is now scheduled for the Helipad Exhibition Centre, Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India. Website | Register
Mozambique is the best-kept secret in the tea world, says Mohit Agarwal, Director of the Asian Tea Group, owners of Cha de Magoma, located in Gúruè, in Zambezia province. With 6,325 acres under tea, it is the world’s largest bio-organic tea garden and its Monte Metilile brand is a success story that demonstrates the many advantages of scale in producing great-tasting, high-quality, clean teas.
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Mohit Agarwal, Managing Director, the Asian Tea Group, discusses the advantages of organic production at scale.Mohit Agarwal, Director of the Asian Tea Group, owners of Cha de Magoma and the Monte Metilile brand
Organic Tea Production at Scale
Mohit Agarwal, Director of the Asian Tea Group, the company that owns Cha de Magoma and the Monte Metilile brand, is walking the world’s largest certified organic garden as we speak via Zoom. Pointing to the brilliant green tea bushes that stretch as far as the eye can see he explains that during 15years of civil war from 1977 until 1992 Mozambique’s tea plantations were abandoned, allowing the land to rejuvenate and the bushes to expel plant protection chemicals and fertilizer.As our virtual tour continues, he describes the organic dairy herd, a forest of renewable eucalyptus used for fuel, and the three hydroelectric turbinesbeing installed to provide green power for the plantation’s factories.
Dan Bolton: Monte Metilile is certified organic by EU-Organic, USDA-NOP, and JAS. Here you specialize in the cultivation of organic whole leaf for orthodox processing as well as commercial grades of CTC. Will you talk about your commitment as stewards of the land and your regard for the ecosystem?
Mohit Agarwal: The natural ecosystem that we have here is ideally suited to operate any plantation without chemicals or fertilizers. We have a lot of green cover, we have 6,000 hectares of land out of which 2,560 hectares are under tea. Do you see those Eucalyptus forests over there? A lot of this land is under forest cover. A lot of land is under citronella and Guatemala [grass] which stops soil erosion, and gives nitrogen to the soil, and is used to create bio compost.
There’s a total ban on any chemicals or fertilizer. We do totally sustainable agriculture. Even the food for our people grown in-house is organic. We have our own dairy farm with more than 100 head of cattle which gives us cow dung and cow urine as fertilizers. Butter and milk are used by families to make Ghee.
The entire ecosystem we built here at Monte Metilile is self-sustaining.
Dan: This is a large-scale operation with more than 6,300 acres under tea will you explain to listeners the advantages of scaling up if you’re an organic farmer.
Mohit: The whole idea was to make organic tea affordable and available to the global audience. MRL levels and tolerance in most countries have become stringent. Converting this entire site of 2,560 hectares of tea into organic has taken a lot of hard work. We managed to make the entire 2.2 or 2.5 million kilos of tea we produce available to consumers globally at a very reasonable, affordable price.
“Farming organic at scale is applying the required size to solve the problem.”
– Mohit Agarwal, Managing Director, the Asian Tea Group
Compost beds
Compost bins
Vermiculture bins
Cover crops in the foreground are grown for compost and the Eucalyptus forest, right, provides renewable fuel.
Dan: What will consumers discover when buying Mozambique tea?
Mohit: There is flavor in the tea because of the climate. The temperatures in Mozambique are between 15 to 30 degrees. Because of the lower temperatures, there are inherent flavors. Most of our bushes are Chinery [Camellia sinensis-sinensis] out here, which the Portuguese planted.
We can produce orthodox black tea and green teas, and, within green, we produce both steamed and roasted, CTC, and Orthodox. We also produce oolong teas and some specialty teas such as white teas. The tasting notes for these are simply magnificent. In the winter months, during what we call the first flush, the teas are light-bodied, muscatel flavored teas. Once the season comes in, we’ll get a little more body in the teas, but still, the brightness and the cups remain mellow.
Mozambique is the best-kept secret in the tea world. This growing region has been hidden for centuries. Teas from here blend very well with the Sri Lankans or the Indian teas. Consumers have not been exposed to Mozambique as the tea was only being used in blends in conventional teas. Now we are exposing the full bouquet and it’s just delicious as a single-origin tea — fantastic for consumption without milk and sugar.
Cha de Magoma offers the largest organic selection anybody could find in the world.
— Dan Bolton
Monte Branco CTC Factory
Color Sorter
Orthodox Rolling Tables
Cha de Magoma is the largest fully certified bio-organic tea plantation in the world with an annual production of 2.5 million kilos of tea in three factory buildings constructed by colonial Portuguese in the 1960s. The factories have since been refurbished and equipped with state-of-the-art machinery. There are two lines of CTC machines in the Monte Metilile factory. Monte Branco produces black CTC, green CTC on four lines as well as Orthodox black and green teas. Equipment includes a panner/roaster for green teas. The Orthodox factory at Monte Metilile produces black and green teas, oolong, and specialty teas on 30 rolling tables. Equipment includes two-color scanners, a steamer, and a roaster.
Cha de Magoma
The Asian Tea Group is a tea producing and trading conglomerate with plantations in Assam and Mozambique and trading offices in Kolkata, Coimbatore, Mombasa, Colombo, and Fuzhou (China). The group handles more than 27 million kilos of teas across all their offices worldwide.
Cha de Magoma is the largest private-sector employer in Mozambique, a country where labor is readily available as 70% of the workforce is employed in the agriculture sector which accounts for 25% of the economy. In 2020 Mozambique exported 3,203 metric tons of black tea, down from 3,447 MT sold in pre-pandemic 2019. The value of exports rose by 79% between 2017 and 2019, bringing exporters $4.7 million in sales, according to trade statistics compiled by Selina Wamucci. Mozambique ranks 62nd globally for black tea exports.
The plantation is certified by Fair Trade International as well as Fair Trade USA. Since certification in April 2020, workers have collected substantial fair trade premiums from customers, funds that have been invested in welfare projects. The FT premium committee, for example, purchased an ambulance which is critical to ensure that people get health care when required and improved plumbing to provide clean drinking water. The next big project is the construction of new buildings for a school to ensure access to education for the children, according to Avinash Gupta, Director of Global Sales at the Asian Tea Group.
Rainforest Alliance, Naturland, Non-GMO, and FSSC22000 certifications are a work in progress and are expected to be in place very soon, according to Gupta.
In addition to tea, Cha de Magoma bottles natural spring water at a water packaging plant on the estate. The mineral water is marketed under the Monte Gúruè brand.
The estate covers 6,000 hectares with 2,560 hectares under tea. Crops include citronella, banana, pineapple, vegetables, Guatemala grass, neem, and sugarcane. Some are grown to make bio compost and some to feed a herd of dairy cattle. farms. Three Hydel green power units drive turbines that generate a large portion of our power requirements. There is immense potential to expand the tea plantation and increase our production.
A century ago, when the Portuguese first planted tea in Gurúè, Mozambique they found gentle, well-drained slopes of rich red volcanic soils at 1,500 to 3,600 feet elevation – identical to the altitude of India’s Darjeeling mid-tier gardens. The climate is cool and dry from May to September and hot and humid between October and April. Annual rainfall averages more than 3,000 millimeters. By 1950 production exceeded 20,000 metric tons a year and there was more land under tea in Mozambique than any country in Africa.
Listen to the interview
Procurement expert John Snell, founder of NM Tea B Consulting and owner of Ela’s Tea.Monte Metilile Tea Estate in Gurúè, Mozambique. Photo courtesy Asian Tea Group.
Mozambique is God’s Country for Tea
John Snell is principal at NM Tea B Consultancy, with expertise in sourcing that spans 35 years of procurement, supply chain management, and importing tea for major brands and private label suppliers.He also owns Ela’s Tea a specialty tea supplier and blender. John resides in Toronto, Canada.
Dan Bolton: John why is Mozambique is such a great place to source tea?
John Snell: Firstly, Mozambique’s latitude is a bonus; given the warming of the equatorial region, Gurúè is a more stable environment for tea and unlike much of Africa’s tea region, has true seasonality. With a true off-season, Gurúè offers an opportunity to produce true first, second, and autumnal flush specialty teas, something quite rare on the continent.
Furthermore, Zambezia province sits on the Great Rift Valley whose high sides create a rain shed and whose depths collect groundwaters. This together with loamy soils and the seasonality makes Mozambique God’s country for tea.
John Snell
The Republic of Mozambique spans an area of 300,000 square miles with a population of 30 million. The estimated GDP is $41 billion with a per capita annual income of $1,331 (PPP)
Dan: Will you describe the Portuguese era of tea production in Mozambique that began with plantings in the 1920s?
John: Mozambique was a Portuguese colony for 700 years and chose this place above others, in her vast empire, as the most prodigious place to grow tea, despite being ever-present in South India and Sri Lanka. By 1950, Mozambique was the largest producer in Africa, only usurped by Kenya in the 1960s due to civil war.
Dan: Mozambique tea production is resurging, its tea industry reborn, with organic cultivation and modern, more efficient processing techniques. What is the business opportunity in Mozambique?
John: To be honest, during the civil war and thereafter, the tea produced in Mozambique was plain, weedy, poorly manufactured stuff, a price reducer for most normal tea chaps and if this had continued, I have no doubt that the business would be extinct by now. However, the civil war did the industry a favor, if you like, as it precluded Mozambique from an era when the rest of Africa geared up to support the teabag market of the UK, predominantly. When Assamica clones were created for productivity and strength rather than finesse. So, come their re-emergence, the bushes planted by the Portuguese, both Sinensis, and Assamica varieties are still there and have naturally cross-pollinated creating their own unique hybrids. There is now this astounding variety of mother bushes, which need testing and selecting, from which VP [vegetative propagation] can proliferate the types to fields.
