• Tea Biz Podcast | Episode 26

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    Hear the Headlines

    | Darjeeling Experiences a Severe Downturn
    | Researchers Discover Expanded Role for Microbes in Tea Making
    | Oxfam India Defines Living Wage for Assam Tea Workers

    Seven-minute Tea News Recap
    Tea Price Report

    This week, the focus is on declining tea exports from India, which is a cause of concern to the industry. The tea associations have issued a press release that the industry is bracing for a decline of 30-40 million kilos this year, compared to 2020. Read more…

    Features

    Tea Biz this week travels to South Africa to discuss with Carmién Tea founder Mientjie Mouton the beneficial aspects of the European Union’s decision to register rooibos as the first African food product to receive protected designation of origin.

    … and then to Scotland where Dananjaya Silva discusses with nine local tea growers how the short summers and cold winters of a far northern terroir contribute to the unique flavor of Scottish tea.

    Carmién Tea founder Mientjie Mouton
    Carmién Tea founder Mientjie Mouton walks a field of rooibos

    Rooibos Revived

    By Dan Bolton

    Carmién Rooibos Tea founder Mientjie Mouton explains the significance of the European Union’s decision to award Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) to rooibos, a registration that attests to the authenticity and commercially guards traditional processing methods to protect suppliers in the region where unique products are grown. Read more…

    Carmién Rooibos Tea founder Mientjie Mouton
    Catherine Drummond-Herdman at her Megginch Castle tea garden.

    Scottish Tea

    By Dananjaya Silva | PMD Silva

    Scots have a long history of growing Camelia sinensis in faraway lands ? from the jungles of Assam to the hills of Ceylon. A group of Scottish ladies have decided to follow in their ancestor’s footsteps by banding together as the Tea Gardens of Scotland. I’m Dananjaya Silva from PMD David Silva & Sons, and today I sit down with Kate Elliot, Catherine Drummond-Herdman, Pinkie Methven, and Veronica Murray-Poore to talk about tea grown from seed on micro tea plantations in Perthshire, Fife, and Angus Scotland. Learn more…

    Tea growers in Scotland discuss their tea gardens and aspirations for Scottish tea
    Darjeeling’s tea planters are experiencing difficult times.

    Darjeeling Experiences a Severe Downturn

    By Dan Bolton

    The West Bengal tea community that surrounds Darjeeling is experiencing difficult times. Only 45 of the 87 tea gardens within the protected geographical origin are routinely auctioning tea. Production has declined from 16 million kilos 15 years ago to fewer than 7 million kilos in 2021.

    Tourists are few. As COVID-19 infections decline elsewhere, the pandemic persists in the foothills of the Himalayas forcing travel restrictions. There were 1,500 active cases last week, with 88 new infections on July 8, a number greater than Kolkata recorded that same day.

    In June, the Telegraph India reported that more than 10% of Darjeeling’s tea gardens were up for sale but saw no buyers. Absenteeism, political turmoil, and climate change are often cited as reasons, but the main concern is the declining volume in production.

    Rajah Banerjee, the heir to Makaibari Tea Estate, describes the situation with clarity and insight. “Darjeeling now faces a large-scale decline,” he writes.  “Commercially, Darjeeling tea has been weathering a waning export market, explained by outdated management practices and exploitative middle-men. But there is a far more powerful factor at work now — the region’s ecology was already facing deforestation, making the seismically sensitive area vulnerable to topsoil loss and land-slides. Pushing the tea gardens closer to the edge now, climate change is bearing down on tea yields, impacting the livelihoods of thousands in the industry.

    “As emissions rise, intensifying global warming, changes in the melting of the Himalayan glaciers are causing temperature rises in Darjeeling — this has led to insect proliferation which damage the crop. Alongside, a lack of precipitation during dryer winters and unseasonal inundations during plucking seasons have drastically changed our harvesting window, reducing an eight-month harvest period to just six. Uniquely, Darjeeling is the world’s only region that produces teas in four seasonal ‘flushes’ or harvests. While each has its distinctive flavor, color and aroma, the four flushes share one common thread — the regularity of the seasons themselves. Currently though, between prolonged droughts and unusual rain, tea growers are facing erratic and shrinking yields,” he writes.

    Tea Board data shows that in 2020, Darjeeling’s production stood at 6.7 million kilos. This year, the second flush which makes up 20% of the annual production is seeing a reported decline of 200,000 to 300,000 kilos. April-May 2021 production stood at 1.22 million kilos (Source: Tea Board of India) 

    Biz Insight – News of gardens being sold has been recurring from this region. In 2020, the Singbulli and Nursing Tea Estates were sold. Okayti in June is the latest estate to be acquired. The 1600-acre high-altitude estate operates a factory that dates to 1888. The new owners are local and offer a hopeful vision of Darjeeling whose first concern is serving the domestic market. The estate was sold to Chai Chun, a unit of Siliguri-based Evergreen Group, a firm that operates Chai Rasa cafes and boutiques. Founder Rajeev Baid envisions a world-class tea academy to draw students of tea culture and tourists to an estate that produces organic tea using orthodox process as well as cut, tear, curl packet tea. The company processes 15 million kilos of tea across a broad range of 165 varieties supplying premium and bulk tea in quantities that benefit from scale.

    Expanded role of microbes in tea making

    Researchers Discover Expanded Role for Microbes in Tea Making

    By Dan Bolton

    The oxidation of tea leaves during orthodox processing is essential but not exclusively responsible for the flavor in tea.

    The finding that bacterial and fungal communities also drive tea processing suggests the microbiome of the leaves can be manipulated to create greater quantities of tasty compounds due to fermentation.

    A team of researchers at Anhui Agricultural University in China cleverly demonstrated that black teas, withered, rolled, and oxidized before drying are less flavorful when sterilized. Their paper, Black Tea Quality is Highly Affected during Processing by its Leaf Surface Microbiome, which was published in the June issue of the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, shows that microbial fermentation, present in non-sterilized control samples, produced tea with lots of catechins and L-theanine, an amino acid specific to tea. Tea made from the oxidized but sterile leaves was less flavorful and lacking in many of the complex compounds that tasters identify in premium teas.

    The experiment showed that caffeine and theanine were found in the same quantities in green tea with or without leaf surface sterilization. “However, the sterilization process dramatically decreased the content of total catechins and theanine in black tea, indicating that microbes on the surface of tea leaf may be involved in maintaining the formation of these important metabolites during black tea processing,” according to Prof. Ali Inayat Mallano.

    Oxfam India Defines Living Wage for Assam Tea Workers

    Oxfam India, a confederation of 20 independent charitable organizations, released a study last week that determined the minimum living wage for tea workers in Assam is INRs 887 rupees (about $12 per day). Workers make far less per day and are working fewer days due to COVID-19 restrictions. Only 39% of workers can be considered as permanent, the remaining 61% contract their services with fewer benefits. The study calculated a minimum of INRs 285 per day for food for a family of four and INRs 599 for non-food expenditures.

    Biz Insight – The study of 5,000 tea workers in seven districts was conducted in October through December 2020. Oxfam CEO Amitabh Behar in appealing for improved wages described “a stark gap between the current wagers that tea workers receive vis a vis the living wages that has been calculated.”

    – Dan Bolton

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  • Rooibos Revived

    Rooibos is a shrub that grows in a very narrow corridor north of Cape Town in the fertile soil of the Cederberg Mountains. Growers there produce about 20,000 metric tons annually to make a healthful, refreshing, non-caffeinated herbal beverage known locally as red bush tea. Rooibos and the region where it is grown were recently awarded Protected Designation of Origin (PDO) status by the European Union. The traditional process used to make rooibos was also protected.

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    Carmien Tea Rooibos
    A field of rooibos in the shadow of the Cederberg Mountains. Photos courtesy Carmién Rooibos Tea. Photos by Peartree Photography

    Listen to the interview

    Mientjie Mouton, founder and managing director of South Africa’s Carmién Rooibos Tea, a supplier of quality rooibos, explains the significance of the protected status afforded this widely consumed beverage and how rooibos has rebounded from a devastating drought.

    Mientjie Mouton, founder and managing director Carmién Rooibos Tea

    Dan Bolton – Will you tell our listeners why the EU’s decision is good news and how you see the European Union’s seal of authenticity advancing the overall consumption of rooibos worldwide?

    Mientjie Mouton – We are very excited about this. It’s a process that was started about ten years ago. Everyone now knows that rooibos tea is really something special and that some key points differentiate the product from all the other herbal teas. The rooibos tea certification means the product must be cultivated and produced in this region. Processing also has to take place in that region.

    The region sees very cold winters and hot summers, which helps create the special taste and flavor of rooibos tea.

    Rooibos is a natural product only grown in 15 areas in the Western Cape and the Northern Cape of South Africa.

    Carmién Rooibos Tea is based in the Western Cape. We buy tea for processing from all the different areas, including the Northern Cape and southwest locations. When buying rooibos tea from Carmién Tea, we can guarantee that you will get true, honest, and purely natural products from these locations.

    Dan – About half of the rooibos produced is consumed locally, and the rest is exported to 60 countries, mainly in Europe, where Germany (28%) is the leading market. Japan consumes about 22% of rooibos exports. Following several years of strong growth, a four-year drought in 2015 curtailed market expansion. The rains have since returned, and the perished bushes have been replanted, some with drought-resistant cultivars. Mientjie, you mentioned that shifting temperature and rainfall patterns have actually expanded growing areas.

    Mientjie – Drier conditions apply globally, specifically in South Africa and the Western and Northern Cape. The production area for rooibos tea has moved slightly towards the southwestern parts and away from the northern parts. Our average rainfall is around 300 millimeters per year came down to below 100 mm of rain during the severe drought. Over the last two years that rainfall has picked up, but it’s still below average. So in general, we see a trend towards drier conditions. Luckily for South Africa, we have areas that used to be too wet to grow rooibos tea, which has become perfect and suitable for growing good quality rooibos.

    Harvesting rooibos
    Rooibos prior to oxidation
    Oxidized rooibos air dried
    Rooibos Processing
    Processing occurs immediately after cutting. Red rooibos is first bruised, then wet, and left to undergo enzymatic oxidation for 12 hours. Naturally occurring enzymes in the plant give the needle-like leaves a red hue. Green rooibos is harvested, cut, and dried immediately, without the fermentation step. Photos by Peartree Photography

    Dan – The EU’s Geographical Indication (GI) requires strict compliance with traditional processing methods and prohibits third parties from using phrases like “rooibos style,” “red bush type tea,” or “imitation red bush” on labels and promotions.

    Mientjie – This is actually a stricter GI certification that has been approved for rooibos tea. It specifies only 15 regions within the Western and Northern Cape of South Africa where Rooibos can be grown and be called rooibos tea. Rooibos undergoes an oxidation process where the antioxidants in the tea and the natural plant phenolic activities in the tea give you a very specific characteristic smell and taste, which is a more fruity, sweet flavor. That is one of the most identifiable properties of rooibos tea. The tea has a slightly sweet caramel taste and flavor and is not as stringent as black tea or other herbal teas. It has a very nice, smooth, full flavor and aroma. All that has to do with the special oxidation process where the temperature can increase to about 40 degrees Celsius. That happens overnight after the tea has been cut. Once it’s gone through that process, we have a nice red infusion in the cup. “Rooi” in Afrikaans is the color red in English; that is where the name comes from.

    When it does not go through that process, we have green rooibos tea, which is the unfermented variant of our rooibos. Green rooibos is very popular nowadays, and we are very excited about it because the health properties are even greater in green rooibos than red.

    “All Carmién Rooibos Tea products will now carry the PDO logo ensuring buyers that they are purchasing rooibos sourced from the above-mentioned areas and authentically produced.”

    Dan – During the ongoing pandemic, there’s been a significant increase in consumption and interest in the health qualities of herbal infusions. Will you describe some of the health advantages of rooibos.

    Mientjie – Rooibos tea is naturally caffeine-free. That is one of the biggest health benefits. Every batch of tea that we process is graded for the quality of that specific cup when it comes to specific antioxidant values. These antioxidants benefit and support your immune system and helps you to stay hydrated. We all know that is the baseline of keeping healthy. What we’ve seen is that minerals like zinc, magnesium, and calcium have become exceedingly important in times like these. It is about a well-balanced, healthy body that you have to maintain in order to prevent contracting viruses.

    To keep a healthy body, and healthy lifestyle, we like to say that you need to drink 10 cups of rooibos tea a day. Research indicated six cups of rooibos/day provides important benefits but even two cups will suffice.

    So you’re gonna have to drink your rooibos daily in order to keep healthy.

    Dan – Customers looking for convenience will find rooibos available in both an iced format (bottled and canned), or brewed hot then chilled over ice, as well as cold brewed. Will you talk briefly about cold brew formulations since they are growing in popularity.

    Mientjie – You can brew rooibos for as long as you like and it will not become bitter, it just increases the sweetness and antioxidant value. The cold brew option as a way of preparation is very interesting to us. Just put the tea bag in cold water, let it steep overnight and you get a very smooth flavor profile.

    Carmién rooibos served hot or cold. Photo by Peartree Photography

    If you use a high-quality tea you will get the rich flavor and fullness in your cup. The health properties, antioxidant levels, and minerals available in that cup are exactly the same. Processed rooibos is steam sterilized and has a very low total microbial count, making rooibos a very safe tea to use as a cold brew. As for convenience, you can keep it in the fridge, let it brew overnight, and have it eady for the office or children’s food boxes, the next day, or simply for in-home consumption. It’s very healthy and very safe.

    Carmien Rooibos

    Carmién Rooibos Tea

    The company was founded in 1998 in an old farm shop in Citrusdal, South Africa, at the foothills of the Western Cape’s Cederberg Mountains. Founder and Managing Director Mientjie Mouton grew up on a rooibos farm in the same valley before moving to the Brakfontein Estate where rooibos was also produced. Carmién sources from several growers and supplies Costco Japan, Taiwan, and several private-label and bulk clients globally. In North America QTrade Teas & Herbs has been the exclusive distributor of Carmién organic rooibos for the past 20 years.

    Rooibos is native to South Africa and has been consumed by the Khoisan for more than 300 years. It has been grown commercially for over a century and now accounts for most of South Africa’s tea exports (South Africa also produces a small quantity of black tea). Initially regulated, in 1993 the South African government permitted commercial production that boosted exports. Plantings in the prime growing areas of Citrusdal, Piekenierskloof, Nieuwoudtville, Wupperthal, Clanwilliam, Redelinghuys, and Gifberg expanded and dry yields rose to about 300 kg per hectare using modern harvesting techniques. In 2007 rooibos generated $10 million annually (ZAR155 million) a total that doubled by 2015 when a severe drought depressed yields that fell to less than 10,000 metric tons. In 2019 South Africa exported 7,693 metric tons. The domestic market consumed 7,000 metric tons. According to the Rooibos Council fact sheet, there are 11 commercial processors and approximately 300 commercial farms employing 8,000 farm laborers. The annual harvest begins in late January through February.

    – Dan Bolton

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  • Tea Biz Podcast | Episode 24

    Tea Biz Podcast Logo

    Hear the Headlines

    | Logistics Companies Invest to Right the Ship
    | Kenya’s Newly Elected KTDA Board Ousts Executives
    | Hain Celestial Streamlines its Tea Selections

    Seven-minute Tea News Recap
    Tea Price Report

    A special auction conducted by the Tea Board of India across auction centers featured a carefully curated catalogue of teas, plucked on the International Tea Day on 21st May. This special sale saw record prices that brought welcome energy and excitement to the industry. Read more…

    Features

    Tea Biz this week travels to Darjeeling, India where Dorje Tea, an innovative new tea venture is taking root at the Agarwal family’s ancestral farm at Selim Hill Tea Garden … and then to the Jersey Isles off the coast of France where Alicia Gentili, project manager and tea maker at Jersey Fine Tea, discusses the challenges and rewards of establishing a new tea garden in the English Channel.

    Dorje Tea co-founders Sparsh Agarwal and Ishaan Kanoria, right.

    Reviving Darjeeling

    By Aravinda Anantharaman

    Sparsh Agarwal is the fourth generation in his family to cultivate tea in the Himalayas but, as you will hear, he is not bound by tradition. Agarwal and Dorje Tea co-founder Ishaan Kanoria are targeting India’s domestic market, offering a subscription model that delivers Darjeeling tea from all four plucking seasons that will improve profitability and give Selim Hill Tea Garden a second chance.  Read more…

    Sparsh Agarwal on marketing Darjeeling’s seasonality domestically
    Alicia Gentili, project manager and tea maker at Jersey Fine Teas

    Splendid Tea from the Isle of Jersey

    By Dananjaya Silva | PMD Silva

    Camellia sinensis is a versatile plant that is grown in many parts of the world, observes Tea Biz correspondent Dananjaya Silva. At 49 degrees latitude, Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands situated between England and France, is much further north than traditional tea lands, yet the island is proving to be fertile ground to produce fine loose-leaf tea. Silva talks about the challenges of growing tea outside its comfort zone with project manager and tea maker Alicia Gentili from Jersey Fine Tea. Read more…

    Alicia Gentili on growing tea on the English Channel Island of Jersey
    MSC Ship
    MSC operates the world’s second largest container fleet by TEU

    Logistics Companies Invest to Right the Ship

    By Dan Bolton

    Shortages of raw ingredients for beverages and higher shipping costs continue the saga of supply chain woes into summer. Last week Starbucks’ customers found green tea in short supply along with chai tea bags and oat milk. No single item has disappeared from the menu, but Reuters found temporary shortages at nine major fast-service chains are widespread.

    Less obvious are the costs passed along due to more expensive air and sea transport and a shortage of truckers. Reserving a 40-foot container to ship tea from Shanghai to Los Angeles cost $6,368 in June, according to the Drewry Freight Rate Index. Delivery to Chicago from Shanghai normally takes 35 days (including 33 at sea) but shippers now estimate 73 days for delivery as port-to-destination times have doubled. When premiums are added to secure equipment and vessel space is included, the effective West Coast rate for landing tea from China ends up being about $8,000 to $11,000 per FEU (forty-foot equivalent unit), according to the Journal of Commerce.

    At the consumer level, this means online orders for tea must now meet $50 and $75 thresholds to qualify for free shipping and that four-week delays are common. Observers predict that the kinks in the supply chain will persist through 2022.

    Biz Insight – Global container fleets are consolidating as shipping companies put new-found money to work acquiring vessels and ordering containers. Swiss-owned MSC (Mediterranean Shipping Company) has acquired 70 ships since August and has an orderbook of 800,000 TEU for new ships. The buildup in demand shows no sign of abating as consumers spend pandemic savings and economies emerge from lockdowns.

    Kenya surge
    Kenya is home to 658,000 tea smallholders

    Newly Elected KTDA Board Ousts Executives

    Newly elected Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) directors and chairman David Muni Ichoho on June 22 were escorted by police to their offices in the KTDA headquarters in Nairobi.

    KTDA’s Peter Kanyago, who had been at the helm of the tea agency for 26 years, was forced to relinquish his position after he was unseated in a local election April 25. KTDA CEO Lerionka Tiampati and other senior staff were given compulsory leave. Ichoho announced an internal investigation to determine culpability for potential malpractice and possible abuse of office.

    Kenya’s tea farmers collectively own 66 of the nation’s tea factories. They contract with the Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) to pay for what they produce and to market their tea.

    During the past two years local concerns about a ‘tea cartel’ and a new administration in Nairobi led to legislative reforms that permit factories to replace directors by conducting special elections. The previous system awarded votes by share. Board members found they only had to please the largest farmers. Now it’s one man, one vote. Ousted board members challenged the Tea Act, 2021 in court and consider any special elections conducted between March and May invalid.

    Ichoho’s first official act was to notify the organization to accord full recognition and cooperation to the new board as it takes over factory management, “We wish to assure all stakeholders that the operations of the group are running smoothly without any interruptions.”

    He told the Kenya News Agency that “Procurement contracts will also be reviewed to ascertain value for money and determine if the services and goods were obtained within the market benchmarks.”

    “The reform journey began in earnest on 14th January 2020, with the directives by His Excellency the President of the Republic of Kenya, following outcry by over 658,000 farmers over dwindling fortunes as it became clear that the tea value chain governance structures had been captured by some individuals and groups of persons for their own selfish interests at the expense of the principal stakeholders – the tea farmers,” said Ichoho.

    He said KTDA abdicated their core responsibility of serving the best interests of the farmers.

    “It is against this background that shareholders made a decision to exercise their rights to make leadership changes with a view to charting a new direction towards a sustainable and profitable farming in tea sub-sector for smallholders. The farmers, towards this objective undertook to elect new leaders from the shareholders as Factory Directors and Board members for the KTDA Holdings,” Ichoho said.

    A spokesperson at a non-violent late-night protest predicted that a case before Kenya’s Constitutional Court would find the government’s actions unconstitutional and reinstate the old board.

    Ichoho said that all cases brought by or that have been filed by KTDA challenging the Crops Industry Regulations, 2020, and the Tea Act, 2021 will be discontinued with immediate effect.

    “The Company will support full implementation of the Tea Act 2020 and will no longer pursue avenues that are against the interest of over 600,000 small holder farmers,” according to the Kenya News Agency report.

    On June 18, 2021 KTDA elected the following: David Muni Ichoho as chairperson with board members, Michael Kamau Ngatia, Paul Mwangi Kagema, Enos Njiru Njeru, John Mithamo Wasusana, Geoffrey Chege Kirundi, Abungana Khasiani, Erick Kipeyegon Chepkwony, Thaddeus Mose Mangenya, James Ombasa Omweno, Wesley Cheruiyot Koech and Baptista Muriki Kanyaru.

    Patrick Ngunjiri was appointed Acting Company Secretary.

    Celestial Seasonings
    Celestial Seasonings offers 105 varieties of tea.

    Hain Celestial Simplifies Tea Selections

    US grocery stores enjoyed a strong 2020 and in 2021 pandemic stickiness is apparent for e-commerce convenience and at-home meals, according to Coresite Research which reports that as of June US retail store closures are down year-over-year for the first time since the initial lockdowns.

    Half of Americans now say they would feel “very comfortable” shopping in a physical store during the next three months, compared to 29% in the year-ago period according to SafetyCulture. When they return, consumers will discover that higher ingredient costs, packaging, shipping expense and eroding brand loyalty convinced food manufacturers to simplify their offerings.

    General Mills anticipates raising its prices 7% globally over the next year. “We are ending one period of significant consumer disruption only to start another,” Chief Executive Jeff Harmening told the Wall Street Journal. “The next few months will be especially critical for our brands as the world transitions to a new normal.”

    Tea manufacturer Hain Celestial has a big footprint in grocery with thousands of SKU (stock-keeping units) – far too many according to Mark L. Schiller, president and chief executive officer. Schiller told investors that shedding 20 brands, discontinuing 1,000 SKUs proactively before the pandemic and really simplifying the way we operate …” were the cornerstones of a simplification strategy that has increased margins.

    He told Food Business News that he is transitioning the $2 billion Hain Celestial Group from a holding company to an operating company. The new focus is on innovation vs. additional flavor varieties, he said.

    “So, instead of ‘here’s the 37th flavor of Sleepytime tea,’ ” he said, “we’re bringing tea with energy, tea with melatonin, tea with probiotics and gut health and immunity and things that are much more incremental in the category, cold brew tea, K-cups, things that really are going to help the retailer grow their category and therefore, earn their space.”

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  • Reviving Darjeeling

    Selim Hill
    Selim Hill gets a second chance. Photo courtesy Dorje Tea.

    Brand Appeals to Domestic Consumers to Revive Darjeeling

    Dorje Teas, a Darjeeling brand launched in June, takes its name from the region’s Tibetan origins: Dorje Ling or Land of the Thunderbolt.

    Founders Sparsh Agarwal and Ishaan Kanoria are targeting India’s domestic market and offer a subscription model. The brand’s origins lie in Selim Hill, one of Darjeeling’s tea gardens that belong to the Agarwal family. Alongside the launch of Dorje Teas, Selim Hill is also reviving the Selim Hill Collective. Among other things, it has brought Rajah Banerjee, the man who built Makaibari tea gardens, back as chairperson of the collective and as a mentor to Ishaan and Sparsh.

    The Agarwals’ connection with tea spans four generations to a time when Sparsh’s great grandfather sold tea chests to gardens and became a garden owner himself. About 30 years ago, the family acquired Selim Hill, a tea estate located right below Kurseong. The estate cover 1,000 acres, rising in altitude from 1000 to 4000 ft. The lower division is forest cover, with a rich bio-diversity. “We have a lot of elephants here. Hornbills are spotted regularly. Leopards too,” says Sparsh. The factory is in the upper-division with a bungalow restored and rechristened as the Second Chance Home because Dorje Teas is about second chances.

    Sparsh Agarwal
    Sparsh Agarwal

    Listen to the interview

    Sparsh Agarwal on reviving Darjeeling’s tea gardens.

    Like many of Darjeeling’s tea gardens, Selim Hill has not been profitable for a long time now. The irony of Darjeeling is that despite being a producer of fine teas, its 87 gardens constantly struggle against a barrage of problems, from climate change to socio-political turmoil and, now, the pandemic. Darjeeling’s dependence on exports further compounds this. Sparsh explains that the gardens are run mainly by absentee landlords — referring to the fact that most garden owners do not reside on the estate — which he cites as a problem.

    When the pandemic arrived in 2020, the Agarwal family thought it was time to sell Selim Hill. The loss of the first flush, following the lockdown announcement, seemed like the final straw. “But Selim Hill also occupies a very special place in the hearts of a lot of family members, and also friends of family,” says Sparsh. He had just graduated from Ashoka University with a degree in political science and international relations. He was starting work as a Research Associate at The Centre for Policy Research when he asked his parents if they would be open to exploring ways to keep the garden and not sell it. They agreed.

    When the lockdown was lifted, he drove up to Selim Hill from the family home in Kolkata. From then on, he began spending every other week at Selim Hill.  These trips brought the realization that it needed a structural makeover if he needed to save the garden. He was joined by Ishaan Kanoria, “who also has an intimate connection with the garden,” and they began brainstorming.

    • Selim Hill

    During the next six months, they restored and repaired the assistant manager’s bungalow at the garden, “We needed to live in the tea garden itself if we wanted to revive it. We needed to live with the local community, understand what the problems are. Only then could those problems get solved. So we renovated the house. It’s a heritage structure, built in 1871. We were in contact with the former owners, to keep fidelity to the structure,” he adds. Sparsh’s mother renamed it “Second Chance,” symbolic of what they were trying to achieve when the building was completed.

    During these months, the Agarwals also reached out to Rajah Banerjee, who formerly owned the Makaibari tea estate in Darjeeling. Since sold to Luxmi Tea, the garden is legendary for its teas and for bringing bio-dynamic farming practices into mainstream conversation. Among other things, Banerjee built Makaibari as a formidable brand, one that still works in its favor today.

    Conversations ensued. As they began to articulate the problems that troubled Selim Hill – and indeed, most of Darjeeling’s tea gardens — a business plan for Dorje teas took shape.

    Darjeeling has been “inaccessible, unaffordable, or just unavailable,” to the Indian consumer, says Sparsh. Yet, his research showed that India has been a significant market for Darjeeling tea and that only half of the 10,000 metric tons of Darjeeling is exported. Kolkata has always been a market, but what about the rest of India? was a question that came up. Along with, ‘Why were gardens making losses despite producing excellent and rather expensive teas?’

    “The problem was in the four flush system that exists in Darjeeling,” says Sparsh. “The first and the second flush that gets exported sells for fancy prices. And yet, tea gardens are not able to break even. So obviously the problem lies with the monsoon and the autumn flush, maybe the monsoon more, and the autumn less.”

    Seasonal tea from Darjeeling
    Seasonal Teas from Darjeeling

    The other problem, they found, lay in the complex grading system of tea as whole leaf, brokens, fannings, and dust. The tea that comes out of the dryer or the Dryer Mouth Tea, continues Sparsh, is ready for consumption. But to create a uniform tea favored by the export market, this tea is cut and then graded. “To make the uniform whole leaf grade, we create the residue of the brokens, fannings and dust. Only 30% of the tea is sorted into the whole leaf grade and sold at a profit. So, we are not trying to cover the losses of the monsoon or autumn flush, but we are trying to cover the losses of the residue of the first and second flush themselves.”

    More research showed that this step of breaking the whole leaf tea was a recent addition – no older than 30-40 years, and not how Darjeeling tea has been made traditionally.

    Sparsh’s other dilemma was the hierarchy between the flushes, where the first flush is considered the best flush while the monsoon has suffered as the least preferred. He finds a high-fired monsoon flush tea with its smokey flavor “almost like a lapsang souchong” while friends and family in the tea business pronounced it a defect. Where he thought the tea worked well with a drop of milk, he was told you can’t add milk to a Darjeeling.

    The duo was determined to give every flush its rightful due, celebrating the unique flavour, aroma, and story they carried. They sought inspiration in how vineyards in the 80s created a model that allowed them to showcase every season’s produce but have a ready market for it, with a subscription model. “We don’t have to be dependent on the export market, which requires us to break and cut the teas. The customer gets a better product. The garden gets a better deal. And the best thing about this is that we’re able to make Darjeeling tea affordable,” says Sparsh.

    The pricing has been critical — the subscription costs INRs 2,300 ($31 per year), with four deliveries offered, one every season. Subscribers get 250g of whole leaf tea packed in a custom-sized bag, designed not to break the leaves. This pricing puts them closer to the most affordable Darjeeling in the market, which are Lipton Green Label and Makaibari’s Apoorva tea. At present, Dorje offers a black tea plan and a green tea plan, two tea types that have a ready market in India.

    Sparsh recalls that “many years ago I had the good fortune of working at the Islamic Arts Gallery at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. One of our projects was on a Persian carpet. And I remember Navina Haidar, the person I worked under, explaining to me the concept of tawheed and the oneness of God and how that is represented in the Persian carpet. And how the Persian carpet is supposed to be imperfect.” He draws this analogy to talk about the inconsistency of the tea leaves that go into the Dorje packets, insisting that in this inconsistency lies the charm of a fresh farm product.

    Dorje Teas is a new generation tea brand that takes the consumer even closer to the place of origin, recognizing the new-age Indian consumer as its audience while resetting the tea business to place value and quality at its center for both producer and consumer.

    Says Sparsh, “If Darjeeling is to survive, if there is to be a Darjeeling tea Renaissance, it has to be with Indians. Indians need to understand the handicraft of this industry and they need to want to support it, because this is one of the most phenomenal products that India has ever made.” 

    His vision may prove to be a new narrative for Darjeeling tea.

    The view from Selim Hill
    View of the Himalayas from Selim Hill

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  • Tea Biz Podcast | Episode 23

    Tea Biz Podcast Logo

    Hear the Headlines

    | Sri Lanka’s Clean Tea Ambitions
    | COVID’s Toll on Tea Garden Workers
    | Tea Day Auction Yields Record Prices
    | Nayuki’s Lucrative IPO

    Tea Price Report

    The worst of the pandemic’s second wave seems to be behind India as the number of cases have come down in many parts of the country, and lockdown restrictions are slowly being lifted. The focus now turns to production and prices across auction centres. Read more…

    Features

    Tea Biz this week travels to Boulder, Colo. where Maria Uspenski, founder of The Tea Spot explains the relationship of beneficial adaptogens and tea…

    …and then to Milwaukee, Wis., where Jeff Champeau, vice president of business development at Rishi Tea & Botanicals, explains that marketing seasonality is a great way to introduce craft-brewed tea into our lives.

    Maria Uspenski
    Maria Uspenski

    Adaptogens and Tea

    By Marilyn Zink | Herbal Collective Magazine

    Our guest this week is Maria Uspenski, a cancer survivor, and author of Cancer Hates Tea. In 2004 Maria founded The Tea Spot, a tea wholesaler and teaware design company in Boulder, Colo.  Read more…

    Maria Uspenski on Adaptogens and Tea
    Jeff Champeau, vice president of business development at Rishi Tea & Botanicals
    Jeff Champeau, vice president of business development at Rishi Tea & Botanicals

    Healthful Effervescence

    By Dan Bolton

    Tea is on a trajectory akin to small-batch, craft-brewed beer where carefully selected ingredients are individually prepared to showcase their best characteristics. Recipes emphasize balance, with efficacy and taste foremost. Excellence in blending and brewing preserves high concentrations of polyphenols and other beneficial plant compounds with minimum calories, nothing artificial, the convenience of cans – and the fun of fizz. Read more…

    Jeff Champeau on sparkling craft-brewed teas
    Jayampathy Molligoda, Chairman SLTB
    Jayampathy Molligoda, Chairman Sri Lanka Tea Board

    Sri Lanka’s Clean Tea Ambitions

    By Dan Bolton

    The Sri Lankan government’s ban on chemical fertilizers including nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium urea pellets, in favor of organic fertilizers is generating vigorous debate as the tea industry weighs methods for increasing yield.

    Jayampathy Molligoda, chairman of the Sri Lanka Tea Board, attributes the gradual decline in productivity in Sri Lanka’s tea gardens to continuous application of chemical fertilizer. In a 2,500-word article titled “Sustainable Solution to the Decline in Tea Production, Export Revenue and Livelihood” Molligoda advocates a “radical shift in our perceptions, our thinking, and our values.” He writes that the only viable solutions are those that are sustainable.

    His views are in sync with business leaders in Sri Lanka from many industry sectors, who are advocating a “green normal” in which companies collaborate to protect nature. One such coalition, known as Biodiversity Sri Lanka (BSL), is at the heart of building “truly sustainable economies and livelihoods.”

    Molligoda’s challenge is science as critics point to the myriad difficulties of switching from a compact, precisely applied plant food to a bulky and much more expensive alternate. Organic fertilizers are limited in their capacity to deliver nitrogen (12%) compared to chemical fertilizers (46%) and the price can be 50 times greater per kilo than synthetics that sell for less than $1 per kilo.

    Sri Lanka’s growers can produce enough fertilizer for 100,000 hectares and the nation’s 27 licensed domestic organic fertilizer manufacturers can provide enough fertilizer for 224,000 hectares. The country will have to import sufficient fertilizer essential for 500,000 hectares of paddy land and 600,000 hectares of other crops, including tea, according to a report in Economy Next.

    BSL is chaired by Dilmah Tea CEO Dilhan Fernando who writes that, “beyond the pandemic, we all face a threat that could literally suffocate, starve and extinguish humanity. The measures we must take now to assure our health, food security, and survival must be universal, science-based, innovative, and definite.”

    Biz Insight – The prize for Sri Lanka are teas that not only reflect the island nation’s extraordinary terroir but demonstrate in laboratory tests a level of purity no other tea producing country has achieved. In short, Sri Lanka will grow the cleanest teas in the world.

    COVID's Toll on India's Tea Gardens
    COVID’s Toll on India’s Tea Gardens

    COVID’s Toll on India’s Tea Gardens

    Last year the coronavirus pandemic plunged India’s economy into a recession for the first time in nearly a quarter of a century. Tea production, tea exports, and tea retail all suffered, but rural workers were largely spared the high death counts experienced in the nation’s crowded cities.

    That is no longer the case as the COVID-19 second wave crests. The tea industry employs 3.5 million workers who reside in small homes and who rely on crowded vans for transport, resulting in much higher rates of infection than in 2020. Currently more than half of the 800 tea gardens in Assam and 300 of the registered gardens in West Bengal report active cases. Confirmation in a single tea estate of 20 or more cases results in the designation of containment zones. There are now 3,000 active cases among tea workers in Assam, but deaths of tea workers are rare at 102. Kerala reported 331 deaths of tea workers with 11 in Tamil Nadu. On June 15 West Bengal reported 4,371 active cases and 84 deaths.

    The rate of infection has dropped significantly since May, but vaccine hesitancy remains ‘rampant.’ Fewer than 100,000 tea workers in Assam have received their first shot with only 6,000 getting the required booster so far. Globally only 10% of the world’s population had been vaccinated as of June. Read more…

    Jorhat Tea Auction Centre
    Jorhat Tea Auction Centre

    Tea Day e-Marketplace Auction Yields Record Prices

    Selections of Indian tea harvested on May 21, International Tea Day, sold at record prices this week on a cloud-based digital marketplace launched at the height of the pandemic.

    The auction was conducted by mjunction, India’s largest B2B e-commerce platform.

    A whole leaf tea from Pabhojan Tea Estate sold for INRs 4000 (about $54 per kilo US) with a specialty green from Diroibam earning a winning bid of INRs 1000 (about $13.50 per kilo US). More than 93% of the teas on offer were sold.

    Pabhojan Tea Estate INRs4000 Record Price
    The Pabhojan Tea Estate orthodox above brought INRs 4000 ($54 per kilo)

    Additional tea estates with lots sold includ Lankashi, Aideobari, Muktabari, Rungliting, Narayanpur Panbarry, Durgapur, Tirual, and Kathonibari.

    Since June 2020 the marketplace’s 300 registered users have traded 1.3 million kilos of tea. Read more…

    Nayuki’s Lucrative IPO

    China’s fresh-fruit, bubble, and foam-cheese tea chain Nayuki debuted with a $656 million valuation this week on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Shares of the initial public offering traded at nearly $20 and were 190 times oversubscribed. Husband Zhao Lin and wife Peng Lin opened their first store in Shenzhen in 2014. Each is now a billionaire based on their holdings.

    The company operates 500 locations in China with 300 more planned in 2021 and 350 in 2022. International locations include Japan and the US. The IPO debuted before a planned IPO by cross-town rival Hey Tea, a larger venture with 450 Chinese locations that has also established a foothold in the US.

    Nayuki introduces a new flavored tea weekly
    Nayuki introduces a new flavored tea weekly

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