Caption: Philippe Juglar, right, presenting AVPA award to Managing Director Chaminda Jayawardana, Lumbini Tea Factory, Sri Lanka
The Paris-based AVPA (Agence pour la Valorisation des Produits Agricoles) is allied with tea producers globally. Recognition, professional education programs, and competitions build self-esteem and economic success that directs a larger share of the value chain to the country of origin. “This is why we cling to local transformation of agricultural products so that producers benefit from the pursuit of excellence,” says AVPA President Philippe Juglar. Juglar explains how competitions that exclude international judges in favor of local experts reveal that what the gastronomic world and what the professional tea world consider quality tea leads to some “very interesting differences.”
Philippe Juglar is a partner and consultant at Agro Business Consulting & Development, a Paris-based consultancy focused on agrobusiness development and trade. ABCD helps clients increase revenue by adding tangible and intangible value. He has worked in Europe, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East.Juglar was named AVPA president in 2005.
Dan Bolton:Tea-consuming nations have many compelling reasons to support tea suppliers at origin. Name the most compelling of these reasons from the vantage of AVPA and describe your process of evaluating tea with French-only juries.
Philippe Juglar : We are trying to create contacts between European distributors and possible suppliers in new countries. For instance new tea producers in Eastern Africa are absolutely unknown up to now. They have a new image. We want the French and European tea distributors to have contact with new countries of production and new producers.
The tea market is mainly global international companies or very large trading companies. They import the quality and the quantities they want.
First, we try to precisely define the parameters we want to judge, and we check that all our judges in the jury agree on the measurement of all those parameters.
Second, we group the products in homogeneous categories. We don’t want to compare what is not comparable, but just to have a comparable notation for products that are seamlessly similar.
Third, very paradoxically, we wish not to have an international jury. Tasting is very hard to predict related to our culture. We want to have and to find out, the very interesting proof and for that a common language is very, very important. To try to say in your mother language what you feel is difficult but in a foreign language is nearly impossible.
Last, we try to compare what the gastronomic world thinks and what the professional tea world thinks, and I can assure you that we find very interesting differences.
Dan: Quality is visible to all. Color, pluck, and the precision of leaf preparation and style as is the absence of defects such as oxidation of the leaves. Taste is subjective, yet skilled tea tasters agree that certain teas possess exceptional characteristics. Please explain AVPA gastronomic approach in evaluating tea.
Philippe: Do you know how we judge wine in France? The best one of a certain region?
The wine that mirrors the pattern of the wine of that region. So you have an organoleptic profile for, for instance, Burgundy, and the best wine of this specific region of Burgundy is the one with a profile which is the nearest to the theoretical one, which is completely intellectual.
We never compare two wines from two different regions, that is nonsense.
In AVPA we prefer a local transformation of the rural product.
First reason, to give a larger share of the value chain to the country of origin.
The second reason is to obtain exceptional qualities. When the processing of the agricultural product is made by the grower himself or the nearest possible from the grower, then you get exceptional products: You change your grower into apassionate, dictator of his own product, and his reaction is completely different. There is no discussion. You just want to have the best with the best practice.
The third reason is that in producing countries you now have emerging markets. Why import from America or from Europe?
Tea is, by definition, processed in growing countries, which may be the reason for those exceptional teas you have in China or in Japan because they have processed their own teas for thousands of years.
Dan: Consumer preferences power markets, AVPA educates and helps inform tea selection by consumers. Will you share your thoughts on the importance of traceability and delivering a fair price to those at origin.
Philippe: Traceability for me is very, very important because what the consumer is looking for is to know the family, the region where the product is coming from. Nowadays you have a code, a picture of the very farm where the product has been grown. That leads to a notion, you know perfectly which is a geographical indication.
A lot of these small producers have no financial means to get a brand or a trademark, but they can get a geographical indication and collectively capitalize upon it (that’s the way we do it in Italy or in France or maybe in Japan).
Very good products are known by their geographical indication and a geographical indication is a way to get that intangible value, which will transform the lives of the group.
As far as fair trade prices for me, it’s a very, very difficult notion. I don’t believe that you built a regular commercial relationship based on the fact that one in the deal is a poor guy.
I saw it very well in coffee: If I am poor, I can sell my coffee. If by selling my coffee I become rich, I cannot sell it anymore.
And the second problem: What is a fair price? The cost of living is not at all the same in Sri Lanka, in China, in Colombia or in Canada.
So the notion of a fair price is a concept developed in developed and consumer countries.
Frankly speaking, deep studies for coffees show that over $1.00 gained by the fair trade logo, 90% of that stays in Europe.
I prefer to help the farmer to get a natural good value by the quality, and by the fact that his brand or the geographical indication is reviewed by the consumer. This is better than by an act of charity.
Juglar presents 2018 tea award to Chaminda Jayawardana, director at Lumbini Tea Estates, Sri Lanka
Competition Tea
By Dan Bolton
Tea competitions that “speak” for their respective markets are great for the industry. In the tea lands, skilled growers and tea makers can infinitely adjust their pluck, style, and grade for export but first, they must understand market preferences. Respected annual contests such as the Emei Dah Pan Competition in Taiwan and the Lu Gu Farmers competition, which dates to 1976, are a model for peer review but in France AVPA judges companies from around the world for excellence “based on gastronomic rather than standardized refereeing.”
A money-losing federation of small grower co-operatives in Tamil Nadu, the largest of its kind in India with a history dating to 1965, languished for decades before Supriya Sahu emerged as a leader with a singular message: produce tea that builds the lives of farmers and a better future. “That’s our ambition, to transform an organization that was a sleeping giant into one that can show the world that a small growers’ organization can be the best among the best,” she says.
Supriya Sahu, managing director of INDCOSERVE in Tamil NaduTea tasting at INDCOSERVE
Awakening a Sleeping Giant
Supriya Sahu arrived in the Nilgiris in 2019 to head INDCOSERVE, a cooperative of tea farmers started by the government of Tamil Nadu. In less than two years, she has turned this 55-year-old loss-making cooperative into a profitable one. INDCOSERVE’s 30,000 small farmers and 16 tea factories produce 14 million kilos per year, with a newly launched retail range. We talk to Sahu about how she has pulled this ambitious and audacious plan that can well serve as a blueprint for small growers across the country.
Aravinda Anantharaman: This is your second deputation in the Nilgiris. When was the first one? And how did the second one come about? What did you do between these two deputations to the Nilgiris?
Spuriya Sahu: The first one was 20 years back, between 1999-2002, when I was posted as the Collector of the district. I worked for the government of India for almost 10 years. I worked mostly in the ministry of information and broadcasting where I looked after the policy aspects of broadcasting, basically the licensing of the television channels and community radio and content regulation on television channels, et cetera. Those were my earlier assignments. After that, I was posted as Director General, Doordarshan. After competing 10 years, it was time to do something at the grassroots. Tamil Nadu government was kind enough to post me here because there was an opportunity to work with the farmers. So having worked at the policy level for a very long time, I think it was very important, interesting to touch base with the ground reality to see what’s happening in the field.
Aravinda: When you took over managing INDCOSERVE, where was it at? What did you inherit?
Supriya: Basically it’s like a sleeping giant. That’s what I’m telling my team all the time. That it is like a sleeping giant and we are awakening it slowly. It has a huge potential and it could be a game changer in the tea industry. I am saying this because of many reasons.
One, I think our greatest strength is that we are a cooperative. It is a democratically elected institution. INDCOSERVE is not headed by officers, but by farmers themselves. How many organisations can boast of that? The chairman of INDCOSERVE is a small farmer himself. We have 16 factories. Each factory has a board and the board is headed by a small farmer. How does it help? It helps because then they have a direct role to play in whatever they do. Almost all these small growers have been with us for more than 20 years, 30 years; we are doing enrolment of new members, which is a continuous process.
If profitable, as a very large player in the sector, we can be a game changer for the tea industry. Because we can set standards and benchmark us, which we were not doing earlier. With all due respect to my colleagues before me, I think most of them were holding the position as an additional charge. They were managing it remotely, sitting at Chennai or elsewhere. You did not have such a senior officer managing it from the headquarters. And that makes a lot of difference because you are there 24 by 7 to handle the affairs of the institution.
Aravinda: How is INDCOSERVE set up?
Supriya: It’s a cooperative federation. There are 16 factories affiliated to us. INDCOSERVE was set up by the government in 1965. Then the first factory was inaugurated at Kundah. Over a period of time, several factories have come up. We have about 30,000 members, 30,000 small tea growers who are members. That makes us one of the largest tea co-operative federations in Asia. And of course the largest cooperative federation in India. Because you have the bought leaf factories, you have STGs.
If you look at the North Indian tea sector, it’s mostly estates. There are some small growers also, but they are not affiliated in a cooperative structure. Whereas in South India, it is mostly the bought leaf structure, but like a federation people coming together, working for themselves, this may be the only one in the country.
Aravinda: The cooperative model is challenging. What were INDCOSERVE’s challenges?
Supriya: We had several brainstorming sessions with our small growers. I also started something called open house where every Monday, any small grower can drop in here.I wrote about 30,000 letters to small growers, saying that I’m here to serve you. Here is the number to my office, my office address, my email. Please tell me what shall we do. That letter was also very emotional because I also wrote to them as the previous district collector who served them 20 years back. I have that connection with the people of this district.
We had several rounds of discussions in the field, and then we identified several challenges, which we have documented. The most important challenge was that INDCOSERVE could never emphasise on quality of our teas. We were not even known. Nobody knew about INDCOSERVE as a brand, as an entity.
Now maintaining quality of tea leaves is a biggest challenge because we are not like a big estate where people can just ask their labourers to pick two leaves and one bud. Here, farmers just pick the leaves and bring it to us. We did not have leaf supervision standards in the factories. That was the biggest challenge we identified. But then, how do you make sure that 30,000 farmers understand how important is the quality of leaves? How do we make them understand that the quality of the leaf has a repercussion on the quality of the tea that we make.
We did several demonstrations telling our farmers that when you bring this kind of a leaf, this is the tea you produce. We launched something called as a mission quality, which was at three levels: what we will do at the INDCOSERVE level, the factory level and the grower level.
We started from the grower level. We have about 200 leaf supervisors. They are the people from the community, about 20-30 of them with each factory. Their job is to collect the leaf from the growers bring it to a collection centre, or the grower brings it to the collection centre. The transportation vehicle brings it to the factory. We trained all our leaf supervisors. That was the most critical because whenever a farmer brought the leaves, they were able to demonstrate, that you give this leaf, this is what we will produce. I would say about 55% to 60% of the leaf quality has improved dramatically, thanks to this kind of an interaction which we did at the grower level.
Then we also had several hours of meetings where we trained small grower representatives. One interesting thing in the Nilgiris, here the Badaga community, who cultivate land, who are the main supplier of tea, is a very cohesive, a very tight knit community. In fact, the entire village is like a family. If they see a value, they will tell everybody in their community to follow it. It’s a discipline, it’s coming together, it’s a team work. So that really helped us.
At the factory level, they did not have any standard operating procedures at all, no SOPs were in place. We consulted private bought leaf factories. We consulted some private estates like Chamraj. We learned, we went to them, we took our teams to see how a private sector company operates. And it was a huge learning. We took our MDs, we took our Chairman … it was an eye opener. Because they saw that the factories were so clean, so hygienic, so well maintained; packaging was so good, marketing was fantastic. They felt we can do it. So we introduced SOPs, we introduced monitoring of the liquor, we appointed quality officers. We appointed a Chief Quality Officer at the INDCOSERVE level. And at the factory level, we appointed five quality officers monitoring the quality of teas across the factories. They’re all experienced people who have worked in the private sector for a very long time.
At INDCOSERVE level, we have introduced a weekly and a weekly internal certificate mechanism. We give an internal certificate with quality grades. There is a healthy competition to get the A quality, because we have told them that those who will get the maximum number of these certificates will be eligible for an annual award. We are introducing an award system to incentivise the factories, as well as the MDs.
These were the major things that we introduced as far as the quality, but then I can go on talking about it because there are many things that we did, in marketing, in building a brand and things like that.
Aravinda: Just to go back a bit, when you wrote those 30,000 letters, did you get responses from the people?
Supriya: Many people did. About 35 or 37 called me to say, you have to do this, our factory is not operating at the optimum capacity. Their feedback was so good, so precise. They knew what was happening in the machinery. Many people also said that the tea maker was not good, or that the staff were not paying attention.
They also had an issue with non settlement of their dues. In fact, that was another major reform, We were not announcing the base price of the green leaf, which means if I am a farmer, I won’t know much money I will be paid upfront. We started announcing the price on first of every month. The farmer knew if I supply my leaf, I will get this. He or she was able to compare it with the private factory.
We were paying much less than the price determined by the tea board of India. That was not instilling the confidence. I think most of the grievances were attached to this, that they were not getting the base price determined by the Board.
Many of my factories were making a loss. We took a calculated risk in ensuring that we give the price determined by the board, to be on the right side of the law, and because it’s their right. I’m still happy to say in the last one year, except maybe for two months, we have been able to pay either the tea board rate or above.
We got more leaf. We’ve been able to operate our factories at an optimum level. It built the confidence of growers in the organization.
Kattabettu Tea Factory
Aravinda: Was there infrastructure upgrade to the factories?
Supriya: Most of our factories are 30 to 40 years old, some as old as 50. No upgrade had happened and only some machineries had been upgraded. There has not been an integrated upgrade of the machinery. We have got an upgradation plan as well as funding support from the government of Tamil Nadu and NABARD, under a scheme called as the Rural Infrastructure Development Fund. We have got about INRs 18.5 crore. We are renovating five factories which in the next six months will be state-of-the-art factories.
Aravinda: What makes up INDCOSERVE’s product portfolio?
Supriya: So we introduced the Bedford (named for the famous neighbourhood in Coonoor), BlueMont, Honey Hill, Marlimund, which is the local lake here. We introduced about 11 new varieties of tea. Earlier, we had 3, which we are supplying in the Public Distribution System (PDS) system, all three were dust. We just used to sell it through auction centres. For the first time we introduced leaf tea. That market we were not tapping. Plus we came out with a niche product, which is under packaging right now, the Nilgiri kahwa. We experimented, we have patented it. It has green tea, it has almonds, it has got saffron, it has elaichi (cardamom), laung (clove), and it has got rose petals. So now we are in the process of packaging it and bringing it out. So likewise, we are in the process of making a Nilgiri-Madurai jasmine, a mint tea, a masala … these are some of the varieties which are coming soon.
Aravinda: Why the need to create a brand for INDCOSERVE and not just continue on the auction route?
Supriya: We realized during our field assessments that we were a hundred percent dependent on the supply in the PDS. We are the largest supplier of teas in the PDS system of the government of Tamil Nadu. That makes us the largest supplier of tea in PDS anywhere in India because we are the only state where our teas are available in ration shops. We supply about 2,000 tons of tea annually through 30,000 shops of the government of Tamil Nadu. That’s our main business, that’s our bread and butter. It’s about 200 tonnes a month. It is very challenging, but then that gives us a very nice market to our famers because the tea that we supply in the PDS is not free. People have to buy it. It’s only an outlet that the government of Tamil Nadu has very kindly provided.
But our factories were making losses. They did not explore other avenues, newer markets. They were quite content within the space that was made available to them. They were also bringing the tea to only one platform, Tea Serve, The tea market is volatile; we were vulnerable. Therefore there was a need for us to kind of explore other avenues. Why not explore selling packaged teas, that can be displayed on the shelf. If you want to sell, you have to create a brand.
We opened the Indco Tea House. We have two now, one at Kattabettu and another at Bedford. We are opening four in Chennai, in the metro stations. We have launched the tea trucks, we are calling them as tea vandis, a tea and a snack shop. This is again a very unique concept coming from a cooperative federation. They are very beautiful vehicles. Five vehicles are already operating and 20 more vehicles are joining our fleet in next three months. They are in Botanical Gardens and Doddabetta, those locations. The new vehicles will go outside the Nilgiris too. They are very popular with tourists because apart from what people want, they also serve wholesome food like thennai mururku, payasam made of samai rice. The local whole foods is also being used, which is healthy and nutritious. And we have partnered with the local Toda tribal group to operate these vehicles.
Our dream is that we should be like Cafe Coffee Day chain or Starbucks. Why can’t we, a home grown outlet, be like that?
INDCO’s Tea House
Aravinda: The shift to making leaf tea, how did that go down with the factories?
Supriya: I must say that it is much more easy to convince local farmers, and it was easier to convince our growers then to convince the officers. Because I think they have a vision which is much more far reaching. It was not very difficult to convince them because leaf was not selling at all because South India is mostly dust market. So you will find that the dust used to get picked up, but the leaf would not sell or sell at a very low rate.
Thanks to these efforts, with leaf tea, we almost doubled our turnover in one year. We have almost doubled our farmers’ income. Out of 16 factories, except three, everybody was making loss in 2018-19. Last year, except three, everybody has made profits.
Another thing we decided to do, which is the game changer for our organization, is we have gone ahead with the international certifications like fair trade. Our fair trade audit got concluded just now. We will know in a week’s time about the audit outcome. Outcome is not important. What is important is the process. We have three of our 16 factories who got trustea certification for the first time. When they went through the process, our farmers and our officers looked at our factories. They looked like they were bombed, they were so dirty with microbial infections, with people not conscious about the cleanliness, the hygiene, the workers safety, the workers, rights.
Now all our factories have workers restrooms, excellent toilets, all newly constructed or renovated, clean drinking water, safety gears, boots, shoes, and fire safety.
When they went through the process, I would say it is an internal journey.
Why should a government body always be referred to as not producing good quality tea, inferior, not clean? We want to break all these stereotypes. So we have established one model at Kattabettu where the entire factory is better than a private factory, and with our own money.
When we have also eco-restored the factory, that is another futuristic area we are going to, where we have planted sholas, grasslands. We have created an eco-center within the factory saying that we are located in a biosphere and are responsible for the ecology.
We have demonstrated to our officers and to our farmers, that, look at it, you have done it. Your organization has done it. So why not others? And others are coming and doing it.
We have set up teams. There were hardly any people here. We have a separate marketing team. We have a quality team. We have a technical team who looks at all these aspects. We have appointed an Environment officer, somebody who will look at the environmental aspect of our factories. We burn wood which is not good. We need to find alternatives. We are looking at LPG to have the gas-fired factories. We’re looking at the options, like solar. One of our factories at Kaikatti, at converting into a completely solar integrated roof system, making it a carbon neutral manufacturing unit.
Aravinda: Are you still using the Tea Serve auction platform?
Supriya: Tea Serve was set up in 2000. An internal study conducted pointed to some bias in selling our teas. There was no electronic platform at that time. Tea Serve was the first electronic auction platform in India. Another reform we brought was on Tea Serve. Tea Serve was operating on outdated software and we were not aligned to the all-India software of the tea board. As a result, our market was limited only to some 15-20 buyers. We migrated to the software platform of the tea board.Now we are at par with any software platform. Earlier we were not taking our teas to any other auction. Today, instead of one, today, we are selling at five auction centres. We are at Kochi, at Coimbatore, at Coonoor auction centres; we are also part of their new experiment with the Japanese auction system. Within a year, we quickly moved over from a very archaic and old system at which we were operating to a dynamic platform and we are aligned with everybody else. Whenever we find that we need to balance the market, we can use this platform. So strategically, I think it’s good to have Tea Serve, but it is not good to confine ourselves only to it.
We have an all India platform available to us. Definitely our teas are fetching much better than ever before. The average price of tea was never more than INRS 62 to 65. Now, it is never below INRs 100. As a result, we have been able to pay a historical price to other farmers when we paid them in the month of September – 28 rupees per kilo of green tea leaf, which is the highest ever in the history of INDCOSERVE, thanks to all these initiatives being taken.
Aravinda: Are you making more leaf or more dust tea?
Supriya: We make about 14 million kilograms of tea every year, all grades of tea, leaf and dust. We adjust according to the market. Whenever the leaf prices are more, we can tweak our manufacturing process to make 60% leaf and 40% dust. All these things have been brought into the system now. So there is a market consciousness, market intelligence.
Aravinda: Are you making green teas?
Supriya: Not yet, but our factory is getting ready to make orthodox and orthodox green teas. We were not even making orthodox until now.
Aravinda: Is India the market or is export also part of the plan?
Supriya: Export is definitely a very big thing on our agenda this year. If we are looking at improving our farmers’ income, if we really want to play an important role in their livelihood, improving further their livelihood opportunities, then I think we need to find markets abroad.
Thanks to COVID, we have not been able to really travel and do that kind of market exploration. But, recently we have appointed an export consultant, on a part-time basis to help us look at the export market. Very good inquiries have come in and we are pursuing them.
Aravinda: What’s the brand INDCOSERVE story?
Supriya: If I put myself in my farmers’ shoes, then our story would be that we want to produce a tea which is sustainable, which is ethical and, which goes … these words are very commonly used, like empowerment … but we really mean that we want to produce a tea, which builds the lives of farmers towards a better future. From an organization that was a sleeping giant to one that can show the world that a small growers’ organization can be the best among the best, that’s what our ambition is.
Aravinda: Is tea farming of interest to the Badaga youth now? Will this stop the migration to the cities?
Supriya: With the organic cultivation that we are promoting now, we are registering our farmers to move towards the organic cultivation in the next 3-4 years. That is the plan. I think the young people are getting interested in this new and niche areas. If the factories are old, the machinery is dilapidated, if there is no technology, we cannot attract young people, they will not find any value in it. So we are renovating our factory, we are modernising our machines, We are moving towards eco-friendly technologies like LPG, solar. We are also moving towards a massive digitisation. We have launched a growers’ app. I mentioned to you some time back about the annual awards. We are introducing the young tea grower award. We want them them come into the boards during the election. That’s when change will happen. We want young farmers to come. They will come only when they look at the factory and say, it’s next gen.
Aravinda: What has turning profitable meant?
Supriya: We are not looking at profitability only in terms of money. We are looking at it in terms of what role we played for the people for whom we were established. For us, profitability will be in those areas, look at the UN sustainability goals – poverty, hunger. Did you provide livelihood opportunities? Did you reduce their vulnerability to situations like Covid?
Yes, we did. During Covid, we were the only cooperative, only factories operating with all precautions, because there was a huge demand for tea from various other states, especially from Kerala. Where we supplied 2000 tonnes in a year, we supplied it in 21 days to Kerala. None of our farmers had to borrow. None of our farmers had to face the brunt of Covid. That is where our profitability, our existence matters. Did you reduce the vulnerability of your farmer to unprecedented crisis like Covid. That’s where we played a very important role.
We are very proud about the fact that when this order was asked, whether we will be able to do it, within three days, all the farmers, they sprung into action. We opened up factories, supported by the government of Tamil Nadu. Farmers bore the gloves, the masks, the sanitation, and the medical checkup. We were the only people working. We worked through the entire COVID period and we fulfilled our commitment and earned INR 21crores, which we distribute it to our farmers. I think, this is where the real profitability or the success of an organization lies, when you are able to support your farmers in situations like this.
David O’Neill is director of Falls of Clyde International, a non-profit vested in preserving Scotland’s maritime heritage. The 280-foot-long Falls of Clyde completed in 1878 is the last of the full-rigged, iron-hulled clippers. It is designated a US National Historic Landmark and moored at a maritime museum in Honolulu that is now closed to the public. The ship is no longer seaworthy and needs $1.5 million in immediate repairs or it will be scuttled. O’Neill devised a bold plan to rebuild the ship as a modern sail craft with eco-friendly electrical propulsion. The foundation plans a return of clipper tea races in 2025.
David O’Neill on the return of clipper tea races in 2025China Tea Clippers Ariel and Taeping race 14,000 miles from China to London in 1866 in a painting by Jack Spurling.
Return of the Clipper Tea Races
In the late 1800s racing 2000-ton, 200-foot long, four-mast tall ships with 30-men crews at speeds of up to 32 kilometers per hour from Foochow, China to London was a 99-day spectacle that rivaled today’s FIFA World Cup. With a ten-pence per ton premium on top of the 5 pound per ton price of tea and a cash prize of 100 sterling for the first captain to reach port, the annual race (viewed as a sporting event with wagers a plenty) meant fortunes won and lost. From the first race in 1865 to the last in 1872 Londoners eagerly anticipated September when a glut of fresh tea first arrived.
British and American clipper ships were the marvel of their day but Scotland’s ship builders in Aberdeen on the River Clyde were the most renowned. The race of 1866 pitted 57 ships on a journey of 14,000 miles. Three contenders arrived within two hours on the same tide. The world’s two fastest clippers, the Taeping and the Ariel docked 28 minutes apart, the winning captain of the Taeping gallantly splitting the prize with is rival.
David O’Neill: I see this project as an opportunity to bring tea consumption to the attention of a global audience, to what it once was. It could attract global sponsors on a par with major ocean racing events and boost local communities and businesses in cities along the route. Importers, exporters, growers, retailers even tea drinkers and the media will follow this for reasons ranging from their interest in heritage tea, the environment and new technologies used in clean-emission shipping. It will truly be a spectacle and interactive experience.
Tea Biz: What inspired you to resurface these famous races?
David: I was around nine years old, in primary school, here in Glasgow. I was inspired by a book of short stories of famous events, such as the story of the clipper Cutty Sark versus the Thermopylae, a story of adversity, man against the elements and this Clyde-built, super fast-sailing ship, racing another home to the U.K.
The story had excitement, disappointment, danger, and it captured the hugeness of the sea. How clever we were to be able to be smart and innovative to solve problems, all lessons I learned in life and ones that I’ve passed to my own kids.
Our ship was built in Port Glasgow in 1878. Once it returns to Scotland, she will be rebuilt to meet today’s standards of structural integrity and meet today’s safety standards for ships. To celebrate her rebirth, what better way to show the world what Clyde-built heritage means, than by recreating the tea race. In this way we get to promote clean emission shipping as both vessels will be converted to all-electric or a hybrid clean fuel mix. We see this as an annual event, with a challenging vessel each year to join in, aiming to having a fleet of sailing ships, in the future taking part, all because of tea.
Caption Information here including photo credit.
Restoring the Falls of Clyde
Only three of the fabled clipper ships remain. Like her seven sister ships, the Falls of Clyde carries the name of historic waterfalls in Scotland. She was built as a bulk carrier and eventually bought by Glasgow merchants Wright & Breckenridge which meant she regularly travelled to India and Pakistan on trade routes. She was then sold to Matson Shipping in 1899 and taken to Honolulu, making 60 voyages between Hilo, HI and San Francisco carrying sugar and passengers until 1907. The ship has been on display at the Bishop Museum of History and Science since 1968.
The foundation writes that the “Falls of Clyde remains the symbol of a time of great innovation, ingenuity and engineering, she truly is a piece of history that shouldn’t be forgotten as ships like her opened the seaways for the new designs of the British Merchant Fleets of the 20th Century – fast steamships and turbine powered innovators of their day! There is so much history imbued in the very iron that was used to build her and she deserves to sail for another 140 + years.”
Click to donate to the restoration and return of the Falls of Clyde clipper ship to Scotland.
Neethanjana Senadheera, Amba, Buddika Dissanayaka, Forest Hill Tea, Udena Wickremoesooriya, Kaley and Chaminda Jayawardana, Lumbini Tea Valley.
Tea tasting webinars
Marketing is one of the most costly and daunting challenges for rural tea entrepreneurs in emerging markets. Digital marketing necessitated by the coronavirus pandemic adds another layer of complexity.
Since December seven artisan garden owners have combined their resources to present inexpensive virtual garden tours with live cupping attended by as many as 50 qualified buyers from around the world and a least one curious journalist.
The hour-long webinar on Feb. 18, hosted by the Ceylon Artisan Tea Association (CATA) and Kaley Tea Estate, is the third in the series. Buyers from major retail ventures in France, Japan, the U.S., and across Europe saw a brief PowerPoint explaining the association’s history and objectives, then set off on a trek into the tea forest where 150-year-old trees rise 30 to 50 feet toward the sky. The plot, formerly a pruned commercial garden, was abandoned and has since returned to its biodiverse tropical ancestry but this forest canopy is uniquely dominated by tea.
CATA began in 2019 as a collective based on a shared vision that focused on efficient micro-production that, in aggregate, could scale. It is a community-centric model that can be adapted by rural entrepreneurs in many tea lands.
The seven small enterprises have limited resources individually but collectively provide buyers diverse offerings in style and the distinct terroir of Sri Lanka’s growing regions. CATA expects to recruit additional gardens representing Nuwara Eliya, Dimbula, Uva, and Uda Pussallawa in the high mountains, Kandy mid-country, and Ruhuna and Sambaragamuwa in the low altitude coastal zone.
Estates are small. Amba grows its tea on only 30 acres. Neighboring farmers grow the remainder. But the price that Amba pays per kilo for fresh leaves is more than double the average in Sri Lanka. High rates encourage locals to grow tea naturally, adhering as close to organic cultivation as possible.
Last year the pandemic quickly decimated the island nation’s tourism sector. Tea sales to foodservice establishments declined at every level. Growers began the webinar series to maintain existing business relationships and later found ways to attract new buyers globally. Each garden sells most of its tea locally, but for overseas buyers, watching these videos offers tea retailers and wholesalers an alternative to sourcing in person during travel restrictions and mandatory quarantines.
A student intern with promising skills as a videographer followed Kaley Tea director Udena Wickremesooriya through the plucking, rolling, and processing steps, capturing Udena chatting with workers and pointing to innovations such as locally built drying racks and equipment customized to make the creative shapes.
Cupping table
Cuppings and the accompanying tasting notes are critical to effectively market artisanal tea. Seventy-five percent of consumers consider taste the most important consideration in choosing tea. No matter how compelling their brand story, growers rely on sampling to seal the deal, but no one has the time to sample all the tea in the world. Webinars that enable face-to-digital-face interaction and user engagement will likely continue long after the pandemic resides.
The live portion of CATA’s webinar delivered a satisfying glimpse of personality and pride a the cupping table with Kaley Tea Director Udena Wickremoesooriya and Buddika Dissanayaka, Director, Forest Hill Tea, Chaminda Jayawardana, Managing Director, Lumbini Tea Valley, and Neethanjana Senadheera, Production Manager, AMBA Estate. Each presented their best white tea, slurping and commenting. Webinar participants got a close look at the leaf and liquor along with descriptions of the tea.
When evaluating tea, considerations such as the precision of the pluck, discoloration due to oxidation, breakage, and leaf style all contribute to the buyer’s decision. Missing, of course, is the aroma, texture, mouthfeel, aftertaste, and overall organoleptic sensations. Fortunately, all this can be replicated in the buyer’s tasting room.
CATA’s webinars offer something more than samples: clues in the facial expressions, gestures, and the enthusiasm of tasters. The casual but informed banter reminded me of gaggles that formed after competitions like The Golden Leaf India Awards (TGLIA) organized by the United Planters Association of South India (UPASI) and the Tea Board of India.
These events, occasionally judged in Dubai, provided a cadre of international buyers an opportunity to discuss the results of skilled tasting judges such as Kurush Bharucha, tea expertise director and head of Unilever’s research and development, and Yahya Beyad owner of Britannia Tea.
Tasting notes with points awarded for specific characteristics motivate participants and provide bragging rights at dinner but vetting the best of the entire crop year annually also helped everyone to better understand the influence of seasonal dry spells, for example, and provided insights into the improving skills of tea makers. Artisanal innovations continuously break new ground as has been the case for centuries – but now, thanks to webinars and one-on-one tastings, innovations in tea are transmitted globally at the speed of light.
Hidden value
There is an interesting parallel in the growth of the organic tea segment that suggests public cuppings elevate the overall quality of tea. The TGLIA competition dates to 2005, a dozen years after Korakundah Tea Estate, part of the United Nilgiris Tea Estates Company, first produced organic tea.
Japan had begun labeling agricultural products in the 1950s and developed organic certifications by 1999. In 2000 JAS (Japan Agricultural Standard) adopted rules for “organic plant,” “organically grown plant,” “organic farmed,” and “organic” classifications. The United States Department of Agriculture organic program was authorized in 1990 but rules establishing the National Organic Program (NOP) were not finalized until 2002. The European Union first instituted organic rules in 1991 and by 2010 EU established an organic logo along with an indication of origin. During the past few years, all three certifications were harmonized but it will take even longer for consumers to understand the hidden value in organic.
To cash in on consumer fears about food safety and the environment marketers were quick to label certified organic products “superior” and “premium” leading consumers to pay a higher price for non-pesticide, ecologically produced teas, but evading an answer to the question: Does organic tea taste better?
Beginning in 2005 Korakundah won its first TGLIA prize. The garden won again in 2006 and for 15 consecutive years inspiring many growers to follow in their footsteps and demonstrating that organic farmed teas were equal in taste or better than conventionally grown tea.
Korakundah is part of a corporate network willing to invest in certification. Artisan tea growers recognize that third-party certifications help sell — but at a price. The webinars convey the hidden value of community building, educating youth, improving health care. Tea plantations economically purchase and maintain fleets of vehicles to bring their tea to market – Kaley chose not to buy vehicles, hiring trucks driven by villagers whenever tea needs to be transported. At Forest Hill, Buddika involves the villagers by commissioning packaging from them.
Transparency in action?
The webinars are the ideal media for demonstrating transparency. Buyers who witness the impact at origin of their purchases have more compelling visuals than labels on a tin.
A video capture of workers hand-rolling tea at Kaley Tea Estate near Kotapola, at the southern end of Sri Lanka
Tea Biz Podcast
A survey by the American Marketing Association last year revealed US marketers increased spending on social media by 74%. During the pandemic, investment in social media grew from 13% to 23% of total marketing dollars spent, according to AMA.
Tea marketers increasingly realized that traditional strategies such as advertising and attending tradeshows, while important for branding, convert only a few leads into buyers. This is because consumer expectation has evolved over time, making personalization and customization of marketing strategies essential.
In mid-February, the Ceylon Artisanal Tea Association (CATA), a collaboration of seven Sri Lankan tea farms, hosted their third garden tour webinar. Those who attended travel virtually to see the garden processing facilities at Kaley Tea Estate attend joint live cuppings where they met the principals, and asked questions face to digital face.
Simon Bell, managing director of Amba Tea Estate and a co-founder of the Ceylon Artisanal Tea Association, writes that digital marketing is often one of the biggest challenges for small growers and rural entrepreneurs in emerging markets. In this report, Bell discusses the effectiveness of this new approach.
Simon Bell discusses the benefits of webinars and virtual tours for small enterprise tea ventures.
Tea Biz:CATA has now hosted three online webinars introducing tea producers to buyers globally. Have these webinars been effective in achieving your objectives? How so?
BELL: Absolutely, ironically, for many of the association’s founding members, finding global buyers has never really been a problem. Nearly all tea in Sri Lanka is made in large factories, so when we started producing teas by hand the products themselves were so unusual that many of the world’s best tea merchants actually tracked us down from day one before we’d even begun any marketing. We’ve always had more orders than we can handle. However, with the advent of the global lockdowns, it was apparent that we were going to lose a lot of our sales locally as the market shrunk due to the absence of visiting tourists at hotels and restaurants around the island.
And it seemed like an ideal time to bring our teams to the attention of a wider audience, and frankly, the response has been far greater than we ever expected. In normal times if you asked a tea buyer if they’d like to join a virtual tea tasting where he or she would not even get to taste the tea, I think they would very politely tell you to stop wasting their time and to send them a sample. But with everyone around the world in lockdown, including our own customers, we were amazed that the CEOs, the chief tea buyers of many of the world’s most prestigious tea merchants have been joining the webinars – and are begging us for more.
Perhaps even more important, than simply showing off our teas, what’s great about the webinar format is the ability to tell the story behind the tea. You know when it comes to artisanal teas, it’s the terroir, the climate, the provenance, the social and environmental impact that is so important to our customers in terms of why they love these teas. And so, you know, during the webinars, we walk around the estate we show the plucking, the rolling and the other steps of the process actually happening, and that’s what makes the teas so unique. These videos show you the land and the people behind the tea. And as such, they can say so much more than static images or text.
Tea Biz: Collaborating on projects like the webinar series is one example of small growers pooling resources, explain other ways that banding together benefits buyers.
BELL: I spent much of my career advising small businesses all over the world about the virtues of combining their resources and combining their efforts through associations and cooperatives and so on, not just in tea but in other areas of agriculture, in tourism, in manufacturing and so on.
Our buyers want variety, but they want that variety in terms of terroir and technique. That doesn’t mean that we can’t pool our efforts in virtually every other aspect of operations.
Joint investments in research and development in developing new varieties and planting and testing new varieties in designing new types of equipment that suit our micro-scale teas. In commissioning equipment from engineering companies which wouldn’t be interested if we were just commissioning on our own from joint purchasing of packaging and certification services and other types of inputs like that that would typically only be affordable to larger enterprises. All across the chain, including, you know, making our voice heard with the government we are much better working together than we are separately. And perhaps most importantly, from a buyer’s perspective, we offer the opportunity to pool their purchases and their shipping, lowering costs. Two or three of our members are already working together and jointly shipping product to several customers around the world saving the customers time and money that they otherwise would be spending having to coordinate orders and shipments from multiple suppliers while giving them the variety that their consumers demand.
Ultimately, we hope to be able to offer buyers a one-stop shop where they can order a whole menu of different Ceylon artisanal teas representing all the different varieties in all the different growing regions of Sri Lanka.
Do webinars work?
The novelty of webinars waned from a time when 73% of B2B marketers and sales leaders identified webinars “as the best way to generate high-quality leads” yet 76% of B2B buyers used webinars in 2019. Last year the number of webinars soared, accelerated by the pandemic. Businesses all over the world are using webinars to attract customers, promote products, and build loyalty.
The Big Book of Webinar Stats, published in 2019, found that webinars were most commonly used by software, financial services, and consulting firms. Since that time travel and tourism, real estate, and retail use have increased. Health care webinars surged in the past year. Agriculture has lagged but travel restrictions, the additional costs, and the inconvenience of flying make webinars an ideal opportunity for small tea ventures to inform and attract buyers.
Go To Webinars analyzed 250,000 webinars to offer these tips.
The most effective channel to promote webinars is email. Expect 59% to register the week leading up to the event with 17% registering same day.
Thursday is the best day to schedule.
Mornings 9-11 am are the best hours for attendance
84% of attendees prefer webinar replays (vs live)
66% of webinars attract 50 or fewer attendees
Attendee engagement drops off at 57 minutes. The ideal length is 45-60 minutes but attendees will stay for about 70% of a webinar that lasts up to 90 minutes.
Tea: A User’s Guide
Purchase at World of Tea
Eggs and Toast Media
If you are one of those who load the software and ignore the user’s guide then regret never fully utilizing its features, you need to read this book. Tea is as complex as you make it—many dunk and run, but if you savor the nuances of specialty tea and want to really immerse yourself, this book contains the most thoughtful and detailed insights of any Western author. Eggs and Toast Media, 250 pages, $20 (PDF Download at World of Tea). Also available on Kindle and in print at Amazon.com.LEARN MORE
A User’s Guide to Tea You will Use
Reviewed by Dan Bolton
Start with a bountiful quantity of leaf, and a second steep reveals nuances that delight. And so it is with a second reading of Tony Gebely’s remarkable new book, Tea: A User’s Guide.
As Gebely, 33, explains it: “Multiple steeps allow us to achieve snapshots of the tea as dissolution begins, runs its course, and slowly putters out…. These snapshots accentuate nuances in the tea that may become muffled during longer infusions.”
His brilliant 250-page work distills and organizes hundreds of posts from the award-winning World of Tea blog that established Gebely’s reputation for clarity on a complex topic. The blog has twice been named best blog in the annual World Tea Awards.
Tea contains an estimated 30,000 polyphenolic compounds, writes Gebely in an opening chapter on tea chemistry that introduces the pigments, enzymes, amino acids, carbs, volatiles, and mineral building blocks that make tea such a remarkable beverage.
The body of the book describes 130 classic specialty teas with the precision of a high-level computer scientist. Gebely works as a chief technology and integration officer and has assisted several tea retailers configure web and in-store software. He applies rigorous conformity throughout the book; every tea is photographed (leaves and liquor) in a cup that holds precisely 20 cubic centimeters of water from Clairvic Spring in Volvic, France. The pH-neutral water contains 130 parts per million of total dissolved solids with a mineral content in mg/l of calcium (12), sulfates (9), potassium (6), silica (32), and chlorides (15).
Tony Gebely
A second read prompted a dozen margin notes underscoring the points he makes about preparation and the insights he offers in the chapter on processing. In his introduction, he establishes that “this book isn’t about all tea. It’s about specialty tea. The goal of this book is to celebrate the diversity of fresh, complex loose-leaf specialty teas.”
Gebely provides the knowledge needed to develop a personal style of tea appreciation, particularly salient in the West, where brewing tea is mainly “dunk and run.” There are few mentions of tea culture in this reference: “Early on while writing this manuscript, I realized that by separating tea culture from objective tea study, we are left with a much better framework for tea education,” he writes.
What Western tea drinkers need is to hone their skills in selecting and preparing fine tea. Gebely’s simple steeping chart is a starting point. Instead of the typical manufacturer’s temp and timer icons, Gebely introduces a grid.
Blocks represent a safe zone of both time and temperature given the recommended dosage.
“Your ideal parameters may vary, especially the steeping time,” he writes, explaining the relationship between dosages, time, and temperature.
This user’s guide is just that, explaining tea chemistry and processing and presenting historical background (without mythology) covering a most intriguing collection of teas. He offers a very useful explanation for establishing “altered tea” as the seventh main category.
The majority of teas sold in the United States are altered in some way, observes Gebely. Some of the most exquisite specialty teas (think jasmine scented) are altered. The category embraces flavored and scented teas, blends that feature inclusions such as fruit, nuts, and florals along with breakfast blends of pure teas that deliver consistency in flavor despite the annual variance of the harvest. Herein lies masala chai and Japanese genmaicha, a mix of sencha and roasted rice and beloved Earl Grey, a tea flavored with oil of bergamot that accounts for a quarter of U.S. tea consumed by volume.
Gebely’s diverse tea descriptions demonstrate the 35 nations that grow tea and offer a style for every taste. However, more critical, in his view, is giving readers the confidence to brew any tea they might want to try.
In The Kinetics of Steeping section, some 182 pages in, Gebely announces “the most important part… the entire reason for your tea journey.
“Steeping is the final step in the lives of tea leaves. And in their final act, they slowly unfold and unravel, creating a beverage that tells the story of where they came from. Every time we drink liquor from the steeped leaves, it tell us what the weather was like before they were plucked and how they were handled, processed, and stored before they reached your cup,” writes Gebely.
It is these chapters on preparation, including tea evaluation, and storage that the margin notes in your edition will likely equal or even exceed the margin notes in mine.
