Tea News for the week ending October 21
Podcast Episode 89
Contest entries increased by 21% to more than 300, including several from less well-known tea-growing origins
Competitors earned 25 Gourmet Gold, 36 Silver, and 34 Bronze medals last week in Paris’s 5th Teas of the World International Contest. The competition awarded 95 medals in two broad categories: Monovarietal Teas and Infusions, Blends, and Scented Teas. Taiwan collectively dominated the Camellia Sinensis categories, earning eight of 17 gold medals. Chinese growers earned four gold medals, followed by Vietnam with two.
Click to view Monovarietal Winners | Infusions and Blends Winners
| India Lifts Tea Blending Ban
Tea tensions between Nepal and India eased somewhat this week as India lifted a ban on blending Nepali tea imports with domestically grown Darjeeling.
| Low Green Leaf Prices Distress Assam Smallholders
Growers on small tea farms in Assam must now pay wages equal to those at the largest commercial gardens. In August, the Assam government announced a 27 rupee increase in the minimum daily wage to 232 rupees. Workers, mainly women, who pluck 24 kilos of tea (about 50 pounds a day) will now earn about 9.5 rupees for every kilo plucked. Read this in-depth report by Assam correspondent Roopak Goswami.
| PLUS Nishchal Banskota, the founder of the Nepal Tea Collective, shares his vision of a public benefit corporation that shifts the focus to creating value for every stakeholder in tea – not just shareholders.
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