Japan once produced copious black tea – enough to be exported. Kitaha Japanese black tea is reviving the country’s black tea tradition and in so doing passing the skills of monocha agriculture to future generations.
Kitaha Tea in Miyagi in northern Japan, revived growing and processing of black tea cultivars after 400 years.
Reborn After Devastating Quake, Kitaha Breaks New Ground
Kitaha was born in 2017 in Miyagi, from a wish to revitalize the Tohoku region with Japanese black tea.
Kitaha Tea writes, “The idea has is its roots in a policy conceived over 400 years ago by a famous Sendai Domain lord who aimed to ‘build up the region with home-grown industry.’ ”
The Kitaha Tea Store opened in Ishinomaki, Miyagi in 1972, a rarity in the Tohoku region. region. “Our store, which was destroyed by the tsunami following the Great East Japan Earthquake, has been able to stay in business thanks to the support of both locals, and people from all over. As members of the community, we strive to be a tea store that spreads smiles with tea,” writes Kitaha.
The company explains that Kitaha products are made with monocha tea grown in Ishinomaki, Miyagi. “Monocha is said to have originated 400 years ago, when Date Masamune promoted tea cultivation in the feudal period as a means of developing the region. Although it was once the most cultivated variety of tea in Japan, only one producer of monocha remains. The tea is notable for its mild flavor, characteristic of tea leaves grown in cold climates. Recently, in recognition of monocha’s long history, there have been numerous local efforts to preserve and promote the tea,” according to Kitaha.
“Japan once produced copious black tea – enough to be exported. In addition to reviving the Japanese black tea tradition, we also wanted to pass monocha on to future generations. With these aims in mind, we created Kitaha Japanese black tea in 2017, six years after the Great East Japan Earthquake. Relying on the wisdom and expertise of many people, we strive to become a tea brand which symbolizes Tohoku’s resilience,” according to the company.
Kitaha sells its tea at the local co-op, department stores and in Sendai at the Standard Market, Ito Yokando and Tokyu Hands in Sendai.
A Story of Resilience on the 10th Anniversary of the T?hokuQuake
By Dan Bolton | Part 1 of 2
The devastation was near total in the hours following the March 11, 2011 T?hoku [tuh how koo] quake along Japan’s northern coast. Four hundred and sixty five thousand people were displaced by a gigantic surge that spawned 40 meter waves towering 133 feet – higher than a 12 story building – in some inlets. The toll in lives exceeded 18,000 and the 40 trillion yen in damage that day makes the 9.0 quake the costliest natural disaster in human history.
The following winter was harsh as many sheltered in temporary lodging or with relatives housed beyond the 200 square miles of inundated coastal land.
Five hundred miles south of the destruction, Yasuharu Matsumoto, vice president of the Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms, called for volunteers to travel north on a mission motivated by kindness.
Ten months after the tsunami the flotsam and rubble remained, with buses and boats precariously balanced on roof tops of multi-story buildings.
The Tea Relief CaravanTea Relief Caravan travelers in 2011 with the signatures of those they helped. Photo courtesy Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms
Listen next week as Tea Biz returns to Japan for a story of renewal at the Kitaha Tea Farm in Ishinomaki, Miyagi and interviews with suppliers on the challenges of marketing tea a decade after the Fukushima Daiichi meltdown.
Tea workers march in Munnar, South India, during Pembilai Orumai (Unity of Women) strike in 2015. Photo by Sabita Banerji
Women’s Rights in Tea
By Aravinda Anantharaman
“In recognition of International Women’s Day, Tea Biz spoke with Sabita Banerji and Krishanti Dharmaraj from THIRST, The International Roundtable for Sustainable Tea. Sabita was born and raised in the tea gardens in Assam and Munnar. She is an economic justice advisor and the founder and CEO of THIRST. Krishanti Dharmaraj is a THIRST trustee and Executive Director of the Center for Women’s Global Leadership in New York and co-founder of WILD for Human Rights (Women’s Institute for Leadership Development).
In conversation these women say that no one in the tea industry intentionally abuses human rights but inequality is deeply embedded – requiring systemic change.
“Tea workers are trapped in a 19th century system that creates poverty and suffering,” says Banerji. “You can’t just break it down overnight and destroy the well being and the ability for communities and individuals to live,” adds Dharmaraj. “I think this is where the collective power of the government, the industry and the workers needs to come together,” she said.
A conversation with THIRST’s Sabita Banerji and Krishanti Dharmaraj
News you Need to Know
First Flush Harvest Underway
Droves of COVID-19 wary pluckers are working gardens in China, Sri Lanka, and India amid favorable weather after a dry winter. The Darjeeling first flush is underway. Consumer demand for premium tea increased during the pandemic and pricing is firm, but there is uncertainty throughout the entire supply chain as to when newly processed tea will reach market. Waiting time for obtaining container space on a ship is now 3-10 weeks at rates 50-200% higher than mid-year. Wholesalers are raising shipping minimums and pricing significant increases due to shipping. Retailers that absorbed some of the financial shock of 2020 project steep increases. Fewer aircraft are flying with many aircraft diverted to vaccine delivery. Consider the $38.25 cost of sending a three-kilo parcel from Darjeeling to Paris or London, or the $39.60 cost to reach New York. A major Canadian supplier notified customers to expect an increase in its free freight threshold from $1200 to $1350 (CAD).
Biz Insight – Price volatility is a concern which is why Tea Biz is launching the weekly Tea Price Report. The podcast news segment reports auction averages and prices for specific types of tea. The report draws on many sources including tea boards, traders, and the China Tea Marketing Association which provides a benchmark for the 10 teas most commonly exported.
Compounds in both green and black tea result in significant vasodilation of blood vessels in the human body, according to medical researchers whose work was published in the journal Cellular Physiology and Biochemistry. The findings could lead to the design of new blood-pressure lowering medications. Researchers at the University of Copenhagen and the University of California, Irvine, found that tea catechins activate a protein found in the smooth muscle that lines blood vessels. The catechins cause potassium ions to exit cells, reducing cellular “excitability.” Researchers note that tea has long been known to reduce blood pressure. Understanding the precise mechanism could be helpful in reducing hypertension the number one risk factor for global cardiovascular disease and death. Heart attacks claim the lives of 17.9 million people annually, according to the World Health Organization.
Celebrating the Green
Relevant brands are pervasively innovative. Consider the collaboration announced this week between Hershey’s Chocolate Syrup and Kung Fu Tea….
Then there’s matcha. Eight hundred years ago the practice of grinding tea leaves into powder was already centuries old, but Japanese growers near Kyoto advanced the craft by improving the quality of tencha. The result was emerald matcha. Globally matcha is projected to maintain steady growth of 4.6% through 2026 more than double the rate of tea overall. This is due, in part, to the versatility of matcha which is used in many baked dishes, confectionary, ice cream, smoothies, and juice drinks. The monks who created matcha would probably not recognize the Shamrock Tea introduced by Starbucks for St. Patrick’s Day, but they would surely taste the matcha in this blend of a green tea latte made with coconut milk with a splash of lemonade and two scoops of vanilla bean powder.
Biz Insight – Starbucks, one of the biggest tea retailers in the world, announced this week it will no longer sweeten its iced tea. Customers can add as much cane sugar as they like at no additional charge, but unsweetened is the new default, making tea a zero calorie menu option.
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.
The devastation along Japan’s northern coast was near total after the March 11, 2011 T?hoku quake. Four hundred and sixty five thousand people were displaced by a gigantic surge that spawned 40 meter waves towering 133 feet – higher than a 12-story building in some inlets. The toll in lives exceeded 18,000 and the 40 trillion yen in damage that day makes the 9.0 quake the costliest natural disaster in human history.
The Tea Relief CaravanThe Shizugawa Public Hospital in Minamisanriku after the March 11, 2011 tsunami. Photo by Akira Kouchiyama.
A Story of Resilience after the T?hoku Quake
Five hundred miles south of the destruction, Yasuharu Matsumoto, vice president of the Kyoto Obubu Tea Farms, called for volunteers to travel north on a mission motivated by kindness.
Ten months after the tsunami the flotsam and rubble remained, with buses and boats precariously balanced on the roof tops of multi-story buildings.
I first met Matsumoto, “Matsu” a few months after the quake. His enthusiasm is contagious and his knowledge of tea vast. He is unusually social, an organizer who founded the International Tea Farms Alliance and in recent years the Global Japan Tea Association.
Moved emotionally by the continued suffering of his fellow countrymen months after the quake, he traveled 2,000 kilometers in a packed van in the middle of winter with a merry group of tea growers and volunteers. Their route was haphazard, their days jammed with scheduled and unscheduled stops in villages, nursing homes, relief centers and parking lots. They brought to all the warmth of tea and asked nothing in return.
Matsu: The Caravan continued for three weeks. I visited around 40 places traveling 2,000 kilometers. During the tour I met a lot of victims, I would say casualties, of the Tsunami and I poured for hundreds, sharing more than 1,000 cups of tea with them.
This is what he saw along the way.
Ninety percent of those who perished, drowned in the first hour after the tsunmi struck
Elyse Petersen, a former Peace Corps volunteer, was a student in Hawaii completing work on an MBA with a focus on Japan and a deep fascination with tea when she heard the call for volunteers.
Elyse: The tea Relief Caravan was my first trip to Japan. I landed in Osaka, spent the night with a friend and the next morning I took six different trains to make my way up to Tohoku to a small island village where I met Matsu.
We brought no propaganda, no message, just purely a tea party. We had gone to a nursing home. I remember that it was freezing cold. That was always recurring in my head. How not only sad the event must have been, but just how cold and empty feeling it was during that time.
We were still traveling through places where the damage had not yet been cleaned up so that sadness was in your face every day.
The tea parties brought so much light and happiness to all these communities. We were doing presentations in school classrooms with the children. We were doing them in community centers, having big dance parties and singing parties.
They had so much capacity for happiness. There was not one frowning face at any of these tea parties,” she said.
Petersen has since made tea her life’s work, beginning as an intern at a tea farm in Kyoto and later founding Tealet, a direct-trade tea supplier in Las Vegas.
The ad-hoc relief effort was both chaotic and cathartic. Matsu packed 10 into the van with chase cars joining. He said that he would phone ahead to speak to emergency services providers in the next village. Local media covered the adventure. Some calls were direct from victims, inviting them to visit. The caravan might stop at a bazaar, or brew tea at tables in a parking lot.
At the Namche Bazar, Shunsuke Matsuo, a student skilled in the violin, played selections for the crowd, leading Matsu to dance about in joy.
At each stop grateful recipients signed their name on a poster that was covered with the names of hundreds of survivors by the time the caravan pulled into Tokyo for its final stop in February 2012.
Matsu was 36 at the time. A decade later he poignantly recalls a conversation with one elderly victim.
“I now understand how tea is totally different from water,” he said.
Matsu: One of them told me so. She said that she drank lots of water in the evacuation places. ‘Since the tsunami days I survived, water is essential to life, but today when I drank tea with you, I felt a totally different feeling than drinking water. Just sitting next to you,’ she said, ‘I drank the tea and the tea absorbed [entered] my heart. So, I can live with water, but with tea I can open my heart to you, and I can tell this story to you.’ “
“That’s why tea and water are totally different,” she said.
“That story changed me,” said Matsu, now 47.
“I now know the difference between tea and water. My perception is totally different,” he said. Among the many encounters he recalls, “that conversation had the largest impact on me during the caravan,” he said.
“I now believe more in the power of tea.”
Epilogue
The group spent its last night in Minami-Ashigara before stopping in Tokyo to hold one last tea event “to share our love and hope with the victims in the area,” says Matsu who kept a digital journal from those days. In researching this post I discovered an archived tweet or two.
When I last interviewed him in 2012, Matsu told me that tea is restorative, that it brings relief in difficult times. I now see how he gained this wisdom by serving a thousand cups for a few weeks during a dreary winter as he listened to the venting of the sorrowful stories of those who survived.
A decade has passed and those who survived still live with the ghosts and grief of losing so much on a single day in a single hour. In these trying times I am certain they continue to turn to tea for solace and warmth.
“Tea is relief,” Matsu explained. Sharing a cup of warm tea is sufficient in crisis. Nothing more needs to be done.
Matsu and some of the Tea Relief Caravan volunteers. Elyse Petersen, center, shared these photos.
| Brand Relevance in Chaotic Times | Nepal Announces Tea Traceability Project | The Danish Tea Association Merges with The European Speciality Tea Association | YELP! Names a Tea House to its list of Top 100 Places to Eat in America
Features
Differentiating Tea by Terroir
By Dan Shryock
Growers of high quality tea in the United States set out to create something that isn’t available from anybody, anywhere else, an expression of regional flavor grounded in local terroir. Angela McDonald, the president of the US League of Tea Growers, explains that while the quantity of tea grown in the US is limited, that scarcity and unique taste profile adds to its appeal.
“No one is going to buy a Mississippi Yellow Tea from Sri Lanka because it will never be the same,” says McDonald.
Angela McDonald describes the importance of expanding regional taste profiles in tea.Memorable blends are essential to brands that set themselves apart from the competition.
The Business Benefit of Custom Blends
By Jessica Natale Woollard
How creamy do you want your Earl Grey? How much citrus do people like in a green blend? Which inclusions with health benefits are best sellers?
Blending tea is both art and science with a lot of trial and error.
Sameer Pruthee is CEO of Tea Affair, a Canadian blending company based in Calgary, Alberta. With a background in culinary management, Pruthee got his start importing specialty teas in the late 1990s. He was intrigued by blending and flavoring: How to find the right combination of botanicals, strawberry, mango, lychee. What flavor do people gravitate to?
How can blending help achieve business objectives?
During the last 20 plus years, Sameer has built a business blending teas using quality raw material imported from around the world. His aim is to blend as much tea in Canada as possible. In our conversation we focus on how companies can use custom blends to their advantage, and we’ll hear tips on Sameer’s best practices for blending.
Marketing consultancy Prophet announced its Brand Relevance Index this week, scoring companies during a pandemic year that rewarded convenience, comfort, trust and dependability. Apple, Peloton, Kitchen Aid, LEGO, Costco, Honda, PlayStation and Amazon all made the top 10. The Mayo Clinic and Johns Hopkins received positive accolades from the 13,000 consumers surveyed.
Apple has held the top spot for the past six years and seems invincibly relevant.
However, consumer appreciation for Peloton which rose from #35 to #2, the Mayo Clinic which advanced from #24 to #4; LEGO (from #28 to #5) and Costco (from #21 to #6) all reflect behavioral changes easily traced to the pandemic. Prophet credited these brands for “adapting quickly to consumers’ changing needs and expectations, but they do so by remaining ever more true to themselves.”
No tea companies appear on the brand relevance list but in 2020 consumers rewarded tea brands with their loyalty during a time of disruption. While many consumer brands saw declines due to lockdowns tea drinkers calmly steeped at home. The lesson to apply from Prophet’s consumer research “is that all of these brands are customer obsessed, ruthlessly pragmatic, distinctively inspired and pervasively innovative,”
Tea brands should take note – especially the point about becoming pervasively innovative.
Biz Insight – Chinese luxury brand Zhuyeqing advanced to No. 2 on the World Brand Lab’s 2021 analysis of the Global Top 10 Luxury Tea Brands. Twinings (UK), TWG (Singapore), Harney & Sons (US) and Dilmah (Sri Lanka) were all top ranked. World Brand Lab analyzed 5,000 tea brands to identify 300 global (super brands). China is home to many thousands of tea brands, but few are widely known beyond the Great Wall.
Nepal Announces Tea Traceability Project
Publicly declaring the provenance of Nepali tea will increase sales globally, according to advocates of the Sustainable Export Promotion Project. The proposed tea traceability system is financed by the federal government.
“This project will do the work of branding by producing quality tea,” writes Bishnu Kumar Bhattarai, executive director of the Nepal Tea and Coffee Development Board, part of the Ministry of Industry and Commerce. He called on farmers “to be honest to make the effort a success.” The 36-month project will enable the entire supply chain to share information much of which will be available to consumers. The government allocated 175 million rupees (USD$1.5 million) for the project.
Biz Insight – Throughout Nepal’s recent history nearly all its tea exports were used in blends, obscuring its identity. Eighty percent of the country’s tea is processed as CTC (cut, tea curl). Eighty percent of exports are to India. The remaining 20 percent, approximately 5 million kilos, is hand made. These higher-value “orthodox” teas are purchased by Germany, the US, Canada, and Japan, accounting for 10% of export volume. Nepal has expanded planting to 13 districts beyond the existing five which produced a combined 25 million kilos in 2019. These districts, mainly in the west, are better suited to orthodox production.
The Danish Tea Association Merges with The European Speciality Tea Association
The five-year-old Danish Tea Association will merge with The European Specialty Tea Association, transferring more than 50 members to become ESTA’s Danish Chapter. Danish association president Alexis Kaae currently serves as vice president of the London-based ESTA. Initially cautious of the newly formed ESTA, Kaae said“we are totally confident that our good work of the past will continue in Denmark but within the wider community which is being grown by ESTA.”
Biz Insight – European Speciality Tea Association executive director David Veal said that chapters operate with a degree of independence electing their own board every two years. Chapter members in Denmark can still promote specialty tea locally… “but they will also be able to network with the wider global speciality tea community,” he said. ESTA members reside in 28 countries.
YELP! Names Tea House one of the 100 Top Places to Eat in America
Congratulations to the Copper Kettle Tea Bar in Foley, Alabama for making Yelp’s 2021 list of 100 Top Places to Eat in America. The many steak, sushi, tiki, hot dog, chicken, and fine dining winners on the Yelpers’ Choice list all serve tea but the Copper Kettle, which ranked 66th, is the only tea-themed eatery to meet Yelp’s extensive criteria. The Gulf Coast shop offers sampling, tea classes, and high tea with a huge selection of 115 traditional and sophisticated offerings from Wuyi oolongs and pu’er to gunpowder green teas. There are also wellness, fruit, and honeybush teas as well as rooibos, mate and chai. The shop hosts musicians and tea by the fireside. “We are a little tea house with a big heart,” writes co-owners and sisters Robin Peters and Susan Adams. The shop, housed in a 1930s era cottage, opened in its current location in 2015.
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.
| Retail Sales Thawed in January | Restaurant Reticence Persists | Kenya’s Tea Export Earnings Surged in 2020 | Assam Increases Daily Wages by 30 Percent for Tea Workers.
Features
India’s tea industry has for long been about two types of tea, CTC and Orthodox. But in recent years, the industry saw the emergence of the specialty tea segment, which includes new tea types, and handmade and artisanal teas, and also wild and indigenous teas. Tea Biz India correspondent Aravinda Anantharaman talked this week with Parag Hatibarua, who works closely with these teas and their makers.
Hatibarua says that higher value teas are not easy to make. “It takes a lot of love, a lot of dedication, a lot of experimentation,” he says. His advice to growers: “You’ve got to first learn the art of making these teas with love and then move slightly more mass market,”
Parag Hatibarua, tea consultant
Collaborative Training Program Taps Industry Expertise
By Dan Bolton
The tea industry lacks a good, consistent, authoritative, recognized educational program that offers a universally acknowledged certification, says David Veal, executive director of the European Speciality Tea Association.
Tea Biz asked Veal to explain what makes the association’s new training program unique?
David Veal, Executive Director, The European Speciality Tea Association
“The aspiration of our program is that not only knowledge and skills, but professionalism and passion will be stimulated by those participating in the program, and that the overall results will be an ability and desire to buy, brew, serve and promote better quality tea, and in so doing, educate consumers and encourage them to experiment with new and different teas,” says Veal.
Tea Biz: You explained that the program is collaborative, drawing on broad industry support.
Veal: Collaboration is one of the fundamental values of the association, so this collaboration is being delivered in two ways, firstly, by working with a wide number of industry professionals using their skills, knowledge, and experience to create the curriculum for the various modules, and secondly, by delivering these modules and the resultant certification in partnership with existing high-quality individual tea educators and trainers and existing successful schools and academies.
Students developing their knowledge and skills will be able to add European Specialty Tea Association certification to their CVs and, therefore, enhance their career progression. Conversely, those recruiting and promoting within the industry will demand the European Specialty Tea Association certification from their staff. And indeed, sponsor their staff to become certified in the relevant disciplines. – David Veal
“Of course, this will only work if the quality of the content and the delivery of the modules is consistently high and relevant, and we’re absolutely certain that this model, based on working with industry leaders will be successful,” he says.
Register here if you are interested in becoming an ESTA Authorized Tea Certifier or if you would like to register for the introduction to tea module.
Strong January sales signal a retail thaw in the US despite high unemployment and COVID lockdowns. Retail sales grew by 5% in January, the strongest performance since June, according to the US Census Bureau which found 88% of those receiving federal stimulus checks immediately spent the money. Construction and manufacturing workers are returning to job sites as the vaccine rollout gains momentum. Rates of infection and hospitalizations are down 72% from the January peak.
Biz Insight – Congress is debating an additional $1,400 payout that will boost sales through the spring and summer. Economists at Bank of America predict “stellar” growth but the Federal Reserve cautions that the recovery is “uneven and incomplete” with hospitality and entertainment experiencing the slowest return to normal.
Source: Jack Li, Datassential
Restaurant Reticence Persists
In the US the National Restaurant Association reports that 83% of American adults say they are not eating in a restaurant as often as they’d like. Market research firm Datassential has routinely surveyed consumers on behalf of restaurant owners since March 2020. Last week 43 percent of consumers said they still “definitely avoid” eating out. …Fear of visiting restaurants peaked in April at 68 percent.
Asked whether their greatest concern is public-health or the economic crisis — 54 percent said they are more concerned about public-health, but that’s down from 61 percent in January.
Starbucks, a proxy for the retail beverage segment, reported same-store sales were down 5 percent in the latest quarter, an improvement over the 9 percent decline in same store sales last fall. Starbucks locations in China turned positive for the first time since the pandemic began. NRA predicts a 10% jump in sales at eating and drinking places in 2021 largely due to pent-up demand. In the meantime, there are still dark days ahead for tea-themed restaurants.
Seattle’s Queen Mary Tea Room Faces Permanent Closure
“In Seattle, we’re only allowed to seat at a 25% capacity. The Queen Mary Tea Room is located on a hill with no available space to do any outdoor dining. We’re so small it just really doesn’t make sense for us to open unless we are at full capacity. We’ve shut down our phones, our internet, stopped the garbage. Just about everything, it’s all we can do,” says owner Mary Greengo. Greengo has operated the tea landmark for 33 years.
Seattle’s Queen Mary Tea Room faces permanent closure, says Greengo. Last March she was forced to close the dining room, the staff of 30 has been trimmed and now, she says, she’s “out of options.”
“The Tea Emporium across the street from the restaurant has remained open. We’ve built a small deck and started serving cups of tea to go and crumpets,” she said. “We started a GoFundMe campaign to ward off a permanent closure of the Queen Mary Tea Room,” she says.
Donors far and near have contributed $30,000 to cover expenses. Greengo hopes to raise $20,000 more. “The clock is ticking,” she says.
Kenya’s Tea Earnings Surged in 2020
Kenya was handsomely rewarded for a bountiful 2020 crop that filled the global gap in black tea exports. The Kenya Tea Directorate reports more than $1 billion in sales, an increase of nearly three billion shillings compared to 2019. Lockdowns curtailed India’s harvest and logistics hampered black tea suppliers globally enabling Kenya to export 518 million kilos last year, up from 497 million kilos in 2019. Black tea production globally declined 2.5% in 2020 according to the Global Tea Digest which writes that the bulk of that decline was in India which was down 135 million kilos for the year.
Biz Insight – Pakistan previously favored Indian black tea but political tensions over Kashmir virtually halted trade. Pakistan purchased the largest quantity of Kenya’s tea followed by Egypt, and Russia. Indian tea sold to Dubai for re-export still finds its way to Pakistan in blends.
Daily Wage Increased 30% for Tea Workers in Assam
Last week garden workers in Assam received a 30% an increase from $2.30 to $3 per day. Union leaders representing garden workers say the INRs50 (70-cent) increase rupees is insufficient. Wages are an issue in the state elections this year. Congressional leader Rahul Gandi promised an increase to 365 rupees $5 per day if the ruling BJP party is re-elected. Separately the federal government announced a 10 billion rupee budget proposal to improve the welfare of workers.
Biz Insight – Tribal workers comprise 17% of Assam’s population – a deciding factor in 40 of the state Assembly’s 126 seats. The long overdue increase dates to 2017 when a wage advisory board recommended an increase to INRs 351 RUPEES per day. Tea is labor intensive with wages accounting for 65% of the cost of production. The domestic price of tea rose in 2020 giving growers additional leeway but many argue that the colonial-era plantation model is failing.
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.
Listen next week as Tea Biz returns to Japan for a story of renewal at the Kitaha Tea Farm in Ishinomaki, Miyagi and interviews with suppliers on the challenges of marketing tea a decade after the 
