• Tea Biz Podcast | Episode 10

    Listen to the Tea Biz Podcast on iTunes | Spotify | Sounder | Stitcher | Alexa

    Hear the Headlines for the Week of March 26

    Hear the Headlines


    | India High Court Reverses Tea Worker Wage Increase
    | Kenyan Tea Factory Elections Suspended
    | Study Finds Growers Adapting to Climate Change

    Click to read this week’s in-depth Price Watch or listen to the summary below.

    This week’s Tea Price Report

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    Features

    This week Tea Biz discusses a retail-inspired tea education club that delves deeply in the “geeky” aspects of terroir, horticultural practices, and processing during rare-tea cupping sessions at home

    …. and we travel to London to weigh the marketing value of third-party certifications against authentic “boots-on-the ground” community involvement tailored to local needs.

    Udena at Kaley
    Kaley Tea founder Udena Wickremesooriya at a July 2020 Ceylon tasting showcasing artisan tea makers.

    Certifications Soothe the Conscience, But Do They Deliver for the Communities Where Workers Reside?

    By Dananjaya Silva | PMD Tea

    In principle tea certification programs have positive impacts but in practice results are highly location-specific and mixed. Farmgate prices generally rise along with gross income, but so do costs that are borne by farmers in about 60 percent of certification programs. Certifications are an imperative for marketers seeking to export tea – third-party certifications soothe the conscience of retailers and consumers, but do they address the needs and interests of tea workers in the communities in which they reside? Read more…

    Kaley Tea founder Udena Wickremesooriya on third party certification programs.
    Shunan Teng
    Tea Drunk founder Shunan Teng

    Online Tea Education Club in a Class All its Own

    By Dan Bolton

    New York’s Tea Drunk tea house is normally bustling with tea lovers gathered to sip and learn. Since opening in 2013, founder and first-generation immigrant Shunan Teng, an accomplished speaker and educator, taught by example, telling stories of her annual buying trips while pouring tea for customers. Last March, Teng, who normally spends three months a year with heritage growers in China, was grounded – worse yet, her thriving business was locked down.

    Read more…

    Shunan Teng on educating tea lovers during the pandemic

    Headphone iconListen to Japanese Resilience and Resolve, Part 1: The story of the T?hoku Quake Tea Relief Caravan. | Click to see photos of their adventure.

    Japanese Resilience and Resolve, Part 2: The story of Kitaha Tea, a company reborn after the T?hoku Quake.

    Maruyama Tea: 21st Century Japanese Tea Production

    Tea News you Need to Know

    Assam High Court Halts Wage Increases

    A 50-rupee per day wage increase for Assam tea workers announced in February was halted by the state court on behalf of 17 tea companies and the Indian Tea Association. ITA filed the motion citing the state’s failure to properly examine financial and other impacts via subcommittee.

    On March 16 the Gauhati court ruled that garden managers are at liberty to pay the interim wage hike, but it is not mandatory, pending further review. The decision means tea estates can continue to pay workers a minimum of 167 rupees a about ($2.30) per day.

    Biz Insight – In the hotly contested Assam State elections India’s National Congress Party promised to more than double the daily wage to 365 rupees (about $5 US). The ruling BJP promises to increase tea wages to 351 rupees per day. A court hearing is scheduled for April 23, two weeks after polling closes for the April elections.

    Kenyan Tea Factory Elections Suspended

    Elections naming the boards of directors of 54 tea factories supporting 640,000 small farms were suspended this week by a Nairobi court that overruled a presidential executive order. The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) and reformists seeking to enforce the Tea Act are competing for the board seats. President Uhuru Kenyatta, pressing for reforms, on March 12 ordered the elections to proceed. KTDA responded by filing a motion to stop the elections. The Tea Act signed in December re-establishes the Tea Board of Kenya with orders to streamline the sector. Once the legal disputes are resolved, the board will be in charge of running Kenya’s tea factories — a change KTDA opposes.

    Biz Insight – Farmers in six factory districts have already cast ballots ousting KTDA incumbents and naming new directors as authorized under the Tea Act. Four other factories have scheduled elections March 31. President Kenyatta sought to conclude factory elections within 60 days, a timetable upended by the court

    Adapting to Climate Change

    New study by researchers at the Tocklai Tea Research Center recommends motivational campaigns, demonstrations, training, and extension work to encourage growers large and small to adapt to climate change.

    The study Perception of Climate Change and Adaptation Strategies in Tea Plantations of Assam India analyzed tea growers’ awareness of climate change, its impact on tea, adaptive approaches undertaken and future strategies. The study was recently published in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, a peer reviewed, scientific journal published by Springer. The work was authored by Dr. Pradip Baruah and Dr. Gautam Handique at Tocklai.

    Three quarters of tea farm respondents (78.3%) reported a decline in productivity while 12% were uncertain. Only 9.6% believe that tea production was not vulnerable to climate change.

    Rainwater harvesting and irrigation are common adaptations. Others include mulching to conserve soil moisture, reduce surface runoff and soil erosion while lowering soil temperature; reforestation, wildlife preservation, and the construction of wind barriers. “There is increasing evidence that climate change will strongly affect tea cultivation,” concludes a study of growers in Assam, the world’s top tea producing region.

    Read more…

    Rosekandy Tea Estate
    Rainwater harvesting to facilitate irrigation during the dry season is the most common adaptation.

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  • Shunan Teng

    New York’s Tea Drunk tea house is normally bustling with tea lovers gathered to sip and learn. Since opening in 2013, founder and Tea Master Shunan Teng, an accomplished speaker and tea educator, shared her knowledge by telling stories of her annual buying trips while pouring tea for customers at the shop’s beautiful tea bar. Last March, Shunan, who normally spends three months a year with heritage growers in China, was grounded – worse yet, her thriving business was locked down.

    Shunan Teng on attributes that lead to the ageless popularity of heritage teas.
    Tea Drunk
    Teng normally travels for several months in China visiting historical growing regions and sourcing tea.

    Online Tea Education Club in a Class All its Own

    Dan Bolton: Shunan, what inspired you to create the online Educational Tea Club, a $50-per-month subscription service that delivers tea samples to home-bound tea lovers?

    Shunan: When the pandemic hit it was mandatory close downs so we couldn’t really share tea with our guests anymore in person. There was this need to somehow stay connected and offer tea lovers this kind of tasting experience. Tea is a shared experience, right?

    We always had an educational key club before. What we did was send people extensive ratings on featured teas.

    Dan: Since the onset of the pandemic, tea retailers have created many virtual tea experiences. How does your program differ from other online courses?

    Shunan: Everybody was, you know, trying to create content virtually.

    We decided to create tea courses that bring a lot of essential information about the origin, the cultivar and also the processing of the tea. We supplement that with two virtual tastings that we host each month.

    Our club has two tiers. The the first explores true origin Chinese teas that are historically famous. This is a great way for people to get into tea.

    We also have a higher tier.

    Those teas are to be had once in a lifetime. They represent some amazing vintages.

    When I talk about where the tea comes from, I don’t mean ‘I drink Chinese tea’ versus Japanese tea or say, ‘I like teas from Yunnan’. We consider basically all the external environment that might affect the tree itself from the slope and direction of the sun and how the sunlight is actually dispersed which leads to temperature differences.

    There’s so many different things, a whole checklist of things — all the external things that affect the tea itself.

    Dan: You described a growing level of consumer awareness and appreciation for heritage tea and interest in what you call the “geeky” aspects of cultivation and production of ancient teas.

    Shunan: The core competence of Tea Drunk as a company is our tea. We don’t do just any tea.

    Gimmicky terms, such as “fair trade,” even organic, and single origin, don’t really apply to the Chinese tea industry. We specialize in historical and historically famous tea.

    Why?

    There is a long history of drinking this tea which means there is so much that we already know and can share. These teas have been highly sought after by generations of connoisseurs.

    What we are experiencing is a connection with the past — passed down to us.

    Click to join…

    • Tea Drunk offers a broad range of teas
    • Teas are sold in traditional Chinese packaging

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  • Maruyama: 21st Century Japanese Tea Production

    Maruyama Fields Shizuoka
    Meticulously groomed Maruyama Tea farm in Shizuoka, Japan

    Production Fields are Mechanically Harvested

    By Ian Chun | Yunomi Life

    With clockwork precision, the Shinkansen—Japan’s Bullet Train—smoothly pulled in to the Kakegawa train station. The trip from Tokyo to the heart of Japan’s tea production region operated with the characteristic technological sophistication that is this country’s trademark. While the image of tea leaf pluckers wandering among ordered rows of tea plants (beneath the benevolent gaze of the majestic Mount Fuji) pervade industry advertising, the foundation of Japan’s tea industry has been its incorporation of new technology. It has been apparent in the incorporation of shading in the cultivation of tea leaves in the 16th century, to the development of steaming and rolling in 1738 by Nagatani Souen, to the invention of machines to mechanize the laborious six-hour sencha hand-rolling process by Takabayashi Kenzo in the late 19th century.

    In the late 20th century, as Japan urbanized and the farm worker population plunged, as the average age of farmers crept upward to 68 years old in 2020, the development and incorporation of new technologies to maintain productivity and quality has been important to the health of the tea industry.

    In the fields, we see tractor like tea trimmers and harvesters, in the modern processing factories, the machinery allows for the finest adjustments to account for differences in the leaves, and in the daily weather — the craft of tea creation combined with technology to supply an entire nation.

    Perhaps the area of development that gets the least attention are the technologies used to preserve tea quality. Hashimoto Naoyuki, international sales director at Maruyama Tea in Kakegawa, Shizuoka, explained the technology behind the refiner and wholesaler’s tea quality. “Green tea,” he explains, “still has about 5% moisture content in the leaf when we purchase it from the production factories. We need to store it at low temperature or the flavor quality will go bad in a few months after harvest.”

    Maruyama installed its first -25C refrigerator in 1996. Hashimoto-san showed me a few of their storage facilities where the rooms are ordered in levels of temperature — 10C to 0C to -20C. Asked if there is an ideal temperature for tea storage, he replied, “The colder the better, but colder temperatures require more energy and so has a higher maintenance cost.”

    He pointed to the large fans at the ceiling blowing in the sub-zero air.

    “And when you remove the tea, you need to do it in stages. Japanese summers are very humid so you have to slowly acclimate the leaf to room temperature before handling it.”

    The tea leaves at this state is called aracha, literally “rough tea”; it is tea at its unfinished state, and besides removing stems and broken leaf bits to refine the aracha, Maruyama Tea’s facility also green roasts the leaf (in Japanese hi-ire, pronounced “hee-ee-reh”). By controlling the roasting time and temperature, refiners are able to add different levels of sweet toastiness to a green tea leaf. More importantly, the reduction of the moisture content in the leaf to 1-2% guarantees that the leaf quality will last for at least a year on store shelves without significant decline in quality. This process allows the manufacturer to prepare (green roast) leaf at anytime after harvest to start the clock for maximum quality. After green roasting, the leaves are nitrogen flushed and vacuum packed to remove as much oxygen as possible to maintain best quality, and placed back into the refrigerated storage rooms to await shipment.

    The other very impressive aspect of Maruyama’s facilities is the level cleanliness— the FSSC22000 level cleanliness, a food safety standard, requires workers to dress in protective suits, and undergo an air shower before entering the clean room environment for leaf processing and packaging. This helps to ensure a sanitary, dust-free environment for refining tea and grinding matcha.

    • Kakegawa, Shizuoka
    • Matcha grinder
    • Tasting room
    • Tea is harvested both mechanically and by hand.

    Yakuji Maruyama Tsuyomatsu, the founder of Maruyama Japanese Tea, learned his tea making skills working for Kyoyeki-Sha prior to establishing Maruyama Tea in 1933. Maruyama has always believed in creating a cupful of tradition and innovation. This philosophy led the company to work with local farmers to master deep-steam sencha, a Kakegawa cultivar shaded for a few days prior to harvest and then steamed for 45- to 60-seconds to make Fukamushi Sencha. President and heir Katsuhisa Maruyama continues the company’s tradition of technological innovation.

    A canopy of traditional grass forces tea leaves to produce additional polyphenols and healthful catechins.

    Matcha is a mainstay for Germany’s Wollenhaupt Tee

    Marco Sinram, head of tea trading at Wollenhaupt, a Hamburg-based supplier of Japanese tea, writes that family-owned Wollenhaupt and Maruyama share a similar ownership structure and philosophy in management style.

    Wollenhaupt

    Wollenhaupt imports Japanese teas exclusively from Maruyama. “Since 2018 we have entered ever-closer cooperation to focus on promoting Japanese teas to the western markets,” said Sinram. Wollenhaupt, founded in 1881 and Maruyama, founded in 1933, retain traditional values and time-honored practices while embracing technology and production efficiency.

    Last year Wollenhaupt constructed a large volume, cold-chain distribution hub to ensure timely tea delivery on short notice. Tencha, processed in Japan using traditional horticultural practices, is ground only when it needs to be packed against an order. Until then, it remains as the raw material, stored at minus 20°C,” said Sinram.

    He explained that Maruyama’s ability to nitrogen flush and vacuum pack tea is critical to meeting the expectations of beverage and culinary matcha clients in 70 countries. Shipments arrive every eight weeks. On arrival Wollenhaupt refrigerates teas at a constant temperature below 8°C. Container lots and a regular shipping schedule lower costs, and “stock never stays too long. This ensures absolute fresh quality to the customer,” writes Sinram. 

    Learn more at www.wollenhaupt.com.

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  • Udena Wickremesooriya

    In principle tea certification programs have positive impacts but in practice results are highly location-specific and mixed. Farmgate prices generally rise along with gross income, but so do costs that are borne by farmers in about 60 percent of certification programs. Certifications are an imperative for marketers seeking to export tea – third-party certifications soothe the conscience of retailers and consumers, but do they address the needs and interests of tea workers in the communities in which they reside?

    Udena Wickremesooriya on certification programs.
    Udena at Kaley
    Kaley Tea founder Udena Wickremesooriya at a July 2020 Ceylon tasting showcasing artisan tea makers.

    Certifications Soothe the Conscience, But Do They Deliver for the Communities Where Workers Reside?

    By Dananjaya Silva | PMD Tea

    Dananjaya Silva: Third-party certification is popular with EU consumers and elsewhere? How do you earn the trust of buyers without an organic certificate?

    Udena Wickremesooriya: I think it’s a tough one because everyone’s used to certification and certification is the easy way to prove you are organic.

    It’s how we communicate our authenticity, the authenticity of our story. If you look at CATA (Ceylon Artisan Tea Association), if you look at all of us artisan tea makers we are on ground. We live here at least 20 days per month.

    So if you look for one word, its authenticity the authenticity of our story and how we communicate the authenticity of our story. Certification is more than a marketing label. It assures soil and water conservation. It limits deforestation and increases plant diversity.

    Silva: Certification is more than a marketing label. It assures soil and water conservation. It limits deforestation and increases plant diversity. What steps does Kaley take as good stewards of the land?

    Wickremesooriya: The first thing is being on the ground. There’s a lot of documentation control one can do, for example. I sign off on every invoice that we payout. I know what comes in and what doesn’t. So if you stop stuff coming onto the land, that’s one way of control to ensure that what shouldn’t come into the site doesn’t come.

    The second is creating the forest ecosystem, building the soil. We have a diverse mix of forest trees that we plant in between the tea. We also have patches of cinnamon so we bring plant diversity which builds soil. We just started making biochar which will feed into the soil.

    The third element is our cows. We have ten of them to make a liquid fertilizer from dung and urine. We apply close to 2000 liters per acre.

    Silva: Udena, what are the most pressing challenges facing small producers of premium quality tea.

    The very first challenge is marketing. How do we get our teas out there? I’m fortunate that I worked elsewhere before I became a farmer, I have travelled and have a network to leverage, but most farmers are locked on their farm. They don’t produce what the market needs and they don’t know how to get their product out. They don’t know how to build a brand, how to communicate. So marketing is the biggest. The key issue that stops good Sri Lanka artisan tea products from reaching the market and reaching the consumer. So marketing is the biggest.

    The second is how we change the mindset of everyone around us to say that the ecosystem is critical and that good leaf is critical because of good qualities made on the soil in the land. And how do you? How do you really manage your bushes? How do you pluck good leaf? This is a second second key aspect.

    So the first is marketing, getting a product out and the second is how we grow and source good quality raw material.

    Kaley Tea Estate
    Workers sort tea leaves at Kaley Tea Estate, Sri Lanka

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  • Tea Biz Podcast | Episode 9

    Listen to the Tea Biz Podcast on iTunes | Spotify | Sounder | Stitcher

    Hear the Headlines for the Week of March 19

    Hear the Headlines

    | US Restaurant Rescue Funds Total $28.6 Billion
    | EU Reviews Pesticide Rules
    | Tea Theaflavin Inhibits Coronavirus Replication
    | PLANT-AG is a $9 Billion Startup that Promises Field-to-Plate Traceability


    Click to read this week’s in-depth Tea Price Report or listen to the summary below.

    This week’s Tea Price Report

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    Features

    This week Tea Biz continues its coverage of how Japan’s tea industry successfully met the challenges of marketing tea a decade after the disastrous earthquake, tsunami and meltdown of the nuclear power plant in Fukushima.

    .…. and we travel to India to discuss a pandemic pivot with Rudra Chatterjee, Managing Director of the Luxmi Group.

    Rudra Chatterjee
    Luxmi Group Managing Director Rudra Chatterjee. Luxmi owns 25 estates including Makaibari Tea Estate in West Bengal, as well as gardens in Assam, and Tripura in India, and the Gisovu Tea Estate in Rwanda, Africa,

    Pandemic Pivot

    Will Direct-to-Consumer Tea Sales Catalyze the Farm-to-Cup Movement?

    By Aravinda Anantharaman

    2020 accelerated a shift to digital media, one that many tea producers embraced. Did this bring more customers? Did this increase sales? Is this the catalyst the farm-to-cup movement needed? Tea Biz posed these questions to Rudra Chatterjee, managing director of century-old Luxmi Group. Luxmi auctions millions of kilos of tea annually to a small cadre of buyers purchasing 20,000 kilo container lots. Last year the company quickly adapted to selling 250-gram packets of tea directly to thousands of consumers, a pivot that Chatterjee says brought significant benefits. Read more…

    Rudra Chatterjee on Luxmi’s pandemic pivot to direct-to-customer tea sales.
    Kitaha Tea Garden, Japan
    Kitaha Tea was destroyed during the T?hoku Quake in 2011

    Meltdown Led to Tea Industry Realignment in Japan

    By Dan Bolton | Part 2 of 2

    Radioactive fallout from the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown descended in plumes far north and east of Japan’s tea growing region. Losses were significant in Shizuoka due to factory closings where lightly contaminated tea was concentrated. Japan’s tea growing regions were not impacted and continued to evolve, initially foregoing exports in favor of the domestic market. That changed beginning in 2016 as exports increased from 4,000 to 5,100 metric tons. Valuation peaked in 2018 at 1.5 billion yen, largely because of the out-sized success of matcha, which accounted for 43% of exports, according to the Japanese Tea Export Production Council

    That changed beginning in 2016 as exports increased from 4,000 to 5,100 metric tons. Valuation peaked in 2018 at 1.5 billion yen, largely because of the out-sized success of matcha, which accounted for 43% of exports, according to the Japanese Tea Export Production Council. Production remains level at 80,000 metric tons, down 20 percent from all-time highs. Export levels plateaued and tea value is declined during the pandemic year. Testing continues as a precaution but the tea from Japan is safe when accompanied by a food-safety certificate.

    Jason Eng lives in Japan and works in business development for Kametani Tea, a green tea blender, custom roaster, and matcha company that processes more than 1,000 metric tons annually for Japan’s food and beverage companies.

    Read more…

    Jason Eng predicts a bright future for Japanese green tea and matcha

    Japanese Resilience and Resolve, Part 2: The story of Kitaha Tea, a company reborn after the T?hoku Quake.

    Headphone iconListen to Japanese Resilience and Resolve, Part 1: The story of the T?hoku Quake Tea Relief Caravan. | Click here to see photos of their adventure.

    Tea News you Need to Know

    US Restaurant Rescue Funds

    The $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan signed into law last week includes $28.6 billion to rescue US restaurants. The funds provide debt-free relief for small and mid-sized restaurants. Applications for tea-themed restaurants, small café chains, and tea rooms will be accepted by the Small Business Administration beginning in April. Funding eligibility includes franchisees with fewer than 20 locations that are not publicly traded.

    The president of the National Restaurant Association said the grants “will inject a much-needed stimulus along the supply chain to begin to balance the economic damage done.” The rescue plan extends moratoriums until September, allocating $5 billion to help business tenants struggling to pay rent. Government funded grants are capped at $10 million per restaurant group and $5 million per location. Grants are calculated as the difference in average monthly revenue earned in 2019 minus average monthly revenue earned in 2020 multiplied by 12.

    Biz Insight – Market research firm IRI in Chicago writes that consumer habits formed during the pandemic may be here to stay. One clear winner is retail loyalty “points” programs. Eighty percent of Generation Z subscribe to FREE grocery loyalty programs and 79 percent of Generation X. A majority of Millennials (68%) prefer PAID online loyalty programs. Overall 51 percent of respondents cited shopper loyalty programs as “somewhat influential” when deciding where to shop with 22 percent indicating loyalty programs are “extremely influential” when deciding where to shop.

    EU Reviews Pesticide Rules

    Since pesticides can have harmful effects on the environment and human health, they are strictly regulated by the European Union. In recent years the EU adopted a Green Deal directive that seeks to reduce the use and risk of chemical pesticides and herbicides. The EU’s subsequent “Use of Pesticides” (SUD) rules for use apply to both ag professionals and to the public but they are not legally binding. In January, the European Commission identified “significant shortcomings in the implementation, application and enforcement” of the SUD directive by member states, launching a period of public consultation to determine whether the rules should be mandatory. The SUD directive could result in a 50 percent reduction of chemical pesticides, according to some estimates. Commissioners made it clear the SUD is not enforceable as law unless adopted by parliaments of the member states. The comment period ends April 12

    Biz Insight – In East Africa growers are experiencing the worst locust outbreak in 70 years. Ambitious locals are capitalizing on the fact that locusts become lethargic after dark and easy prey. In February the Bug-Picture, a Kenyan firm that processes insects into animal feed, bought 2.4 metric tons of locusts. Teams of 25 to 30 workers sustainably and organically eliminate up to 400 kilos of the crop-killing pests between sunset and sunrise daily, earning $5 for every 10 kilos. No pesticides required.

    Tea Theaflavin Inhibits Coronavirus Replication

    A healthy diet and plenty of sleep are best at boosting immunity from the coronavirus, but those stricken with COVID-19 may benefit from also drinking tea.

    Researchers at Tocklai TRA, a branch of India’s Tea Research Association, have demonstrated the “virus inhibiting benefits of black tea,” writes Joydeep Phukan who manages the research center in Jorhat, Assam. Citing studies published in the Journal of Biomolecular Structure and Dynamics and in the Journal Frontiers in Immunology, Director Dr. A.K. Barooah, writes that variants of the bio-active compound theaflavin act on multiple targets of the coronavirus affecting the stability and blocking the binding sites of viral proteins.

    The formation of specific bonds “inhibit replication of the virus.” He said that harnessing the health properties of tea will pave the way for “extensive use of bio-actives that will immensely help to popularize black tea in India.”

    PLANT-AG is a $9 Billion Startup that Promises Field to Plate Traceability

    Investors, confident that traceability is a bankable attribute, have invested $8 billion in public-private bonds with an additional $800 million in cash to fund PLANT-AG – a US based open-source, blockchain documented vertical farming infrastructure project. IBM’s Food Trust software will manage gigabytes of logistics, cultivation, and processing data on greenhouse-grown leaf lettuce, strawberries and tomatoes, basil, kale, and blueberries.

    Half of the fresh fruit and a third of vegetables sold in grocery stores is imported, often traveling along a month-long supply chain. PLANT-AG intends to shorten the chain to three days. Founder Karim Giscombe is building greenhouses no further than eight hours from urban centers. Harvesting at 4 a.m. means the company will eventually be able to provide a third of Americans fresh produce within 72 hours.

    Biz Insight –Consumers scanning PLANT-AG product labels with their phone will be able to see where the food is grown, making tracebacks in the event of contamination practical and quick and leading to greater accountability at origin, addressing not just food safety but sustainable practices and labor conditions. Read a full account by Cliff Rainey in this month’s Fast Company magazine.

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    Subtext

    Avoid the chaos of social media and start a conversation that matters. Subtext’s message-based platform lets you privately ask meaningful questions of the tea experts, academics and Tea Biz journalists reporting from the tea lands. You see their responses via SMS texts which are sent direct to your phone. Visit our website and subscribe to Subtext to instantly connect with the most connected people in tea.

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