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Hear the Headlines for the Week of April 9

Features

This week Tea Biz visits the Nilgiri tea growing region in South India where Managing Director Supriya Sahu has harnessed the creative and collective energy of 30,000 small farmers at the INDCOSERVE tea farmer’s co-operative.

…and we discuss the challenges of timely tea delivery in the new harvest year with Jason Walker, spokesperson for Firsd Tea, the US division of the largest green tea supplier in the world.

Awakening a Sleeping Giant

By Aravinda Anantharaman

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. Read more…

Finally Under Way

By Dan Bolton

New harvest tea is on its way. Early harvests in China, India, and Kenya sent new teas to market early this year – a fortunate head-start. Unlike last year, labor availability is good despite COVID-19 restraints, tea regions report fine weather, and orderly processing is raising expectations of a bountiful crop. In this segment Jason Walker, spokesperson for Firsd Tea, the US division of the largest green tea supplier in the world, discusses two remaining challenges impeding timely tea delivery. Read more…

Tea News you Need to Know

A Sparkling Future for Fizzy Tea

Actor Brad Pitt is all fired up about fizzy tea. Specifically, small batch, cold-brewed, certified organic sparkling tea launched by Enroot in five flavors. Pitt invested in the 25-calorie, botanically diverse bottled blends of teas, herbs, fruits, and spices inspired by co-founder Cristina Patwa’s grandmother in the Philippines.

Enroot co-founders Cristina Patwa and Brad Pitt.

Sparkling teas are a small volume niche that grew nearly 10% each year from 2017 to 2021, according to 360 Market Updates. The category has matured in the past 15 years to include high-end, gourmet non-alcohol versions by Copenhagen Sparkling Tea sold at the legendary Fortnum & Mason in London and soon-to-launch innovations like Nomad Tea Soda, a concentrate from Maya Tea for bartenders and fans of SodaStream — an at-home carbonation appliance.

Biz Insight – Retail sales of ready-to-drink tea in the US totaled $7.9 billion in 2019, according to Beverage Digest. Volume has steadily increased for the past seven years to 860 million, 192-oz. cases. Sales globally are estimated to reach $25.6 billion in 2021 rising to $29.7 billion in 2024, according to market researchers MRFR, making RTD the most lucrative segment in tea. Carbonated beverages of all types this year will generate an estimated $255 billion in sales with RTD now contributing about 10% of global revenue.

See: A Sparkling Tea Suited to Fine Dining
and, A Sparkling Future for Fuzzy Tea

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Bubble Tea Drinkers are Frothing Over a Drinking Straw Ban

In 2020 China adopted several policies to make the Earth a better place, one of which is a ban on plastic straws in restaurants. The well-intentioned directive, however, drew the ire of bubble tea lovers forced to slurp tapioca balls through soggy paper straws. Alternatives include re-usable metal, glass, and bamboo but bubble lovers complain it’s just not the same. Plant-based plastics made of corn or sugar cane are emerging as an acceptable compromise. PLA decomposes into carbon dioxide and water and China’s king of straws now uses PLA exclusively. Milk tea chain HEYTEA which operates 450 stores in 35 cities made the switch to more expensive PLA. Said one satisfied customer, “We welcome the green shift, but not at the expense of spoiling our experience.”

Biz Insight – April 22 is Earth Day. This year’s theme is Restore the Earth, a concern shared globally. In China plastic bags and plastic cutlery are next on the list to be phased out. Xinhua news service reports that by 2025, China’s degradable plastics market will grow to 35.8 billion yuan (about $5.5 billion US), according to analysts at Huaxi Securities.

Vahdam Tea Partners with Goodricke

Direct-to-consumer e-commerce retailer Vahdam Tea and garden owner Goodricke Group announced they are teaming up to distribute single-estate teas from the well-known Castleton, Margaret’s Hope and Thurbo estates in Darjeeling and Assam estates Harmutty, Borpatra and Dejoo. Vahdam founder Bala Sarda said the relationship goes beyond procurement. Goodricke CEO Atul Asthana said he is delighted to partner with a dynamic and fast-growth new-age startup that has successfully created an Indian home-grown brand in more than 100 international markets.

Biz Insight – Vahdam, founded in 2015, reports annual turnover of $21.5 million to achieve profitability with growth of 110% in the past year. The company has expanded its distribution network to include many tea related products. Value-addition is done at origin and direct delivery eliminates much of the cost and delay of multiple supply chain handoffs. Sarda has been adept at securing outside financing to grow the company he started at 23 years of age. Vahdam earns 99% of its sales of 200 SKUs outside India. The company formally launched in India last year and has witnessed strong early growth, according to a company spokesperson.

Starbucks Introduces Rent-a-Cup

Take-away tea drinkers experiencing remorse after beverage retailers refused to fill reusable cups last year will be pleased to learn that Starbucks is launching a “borrow-a-cup” option. The trial at five Seattle area stores allows customers to order their drinks in a reusable cup with a $1 deposit.

When they return the cups at a contactless kiosk at the store or from home using the Ridwell closed-loop service they get their dollar back and 10 rewards points through the chain’s loyalty program.

Biz Insight – Americans discard 120 billion disposable cups a year, according to the Clean Water Action Fund. Plastic coatings that line hot cups often prevent them from being recycled. Starbucks has publicly committed to a circular economy that recovers and repurposes waste, pledging to reduce by 50% the billions of pounds of waste generated annually.

Learn more…

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Hear the Headlines for the Week of April 2

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Features

This week Tea Biz visits Scotland for a lesson on the history of tea clipper ships and a plan to revive the famous tea races from China to the UK with next-generation zero-emission sail craft that someday may enable shippers who switched from sail to steam 150 years ago to switch back to sail again.

…. and we explore a realm that knows no bounds — the imagination of tea book authors. Listen as Kyle Whittington, founder of the Tea Book Club, presents the first in a series of crowd-sourced book reviews

Clipper Tea Races Reborn

David O’Neill is director of Falls of Clyde International, a non-profit vested in preserving Scotland’s maritime heritage. The 200-foot-long Falls of Clyde is the last of the full-rigged, iron-hulled clippers. It is designated a US National Historic Landmark and moored as a maritime museum in Honolulu. However, the ship is no longer open to the public and needs $1.5 million in immediate repairs or it will be scuttled. Read more…

The Tea Book Club

By Dan Bolton

The Tea Book Club is a virtual adaptation of the popular Saturday afternoon tea and armchair get-togethers. Members meet monthly as either regulars or drop-ins. A new book is introduced every two months. The first session is social with a book-related theme or special guest. The second meet-up is to discuss the book in detail. There are two time slots to accommodate the global community with recordings available and a group chat on Instagram. Email prompts during the month help you keep on pace.

Tea Book Club founder Kyle Whittington is joining Tea Biz as a contributing editor responsible for reviewing books on tea. In this segment he introduces the club’s favorite book of 2020, Tales of the Tea Trade by Michelle and Bob Comins, two adventurous tea retailers from Bath, England who recount their travels to origin. Read more…

Tea News you Need to Know

Suez Ship-jam Delays Tea Deliveries

The reliability of ships arriving on time was at record lows before the March 24 Suez Canal ship-jam delayed significant amounts of coffee and tea mainly bound for Europe. The Van Rees Group, based in Rotterdam, continues to track 80 containers of tea on 15 vessels idling in the canal or re-routed at sea. Logistics firm Sea-Intelligence estimates arrival reliability declined below 35% in February and reports an average delay of 6.72 days for LATE ships. This marks the sixth month of double-digit, year-on-year declines in vessel performance and the “highest average delay ever.”

“With continued widespread port congestion, and with carriers still not letting off capacity-wise – especially on the major trades – not even for Chinese New Year, shippers might not see improving schedule reliability anytime soon,” writes Sea-Intelligence CEO Alan Murphy.

Refloating the gigantic container ship Ever Given within six days averted a crisis as year-end supplies dwindled at the start of the harvest year. Recovery will take a few weeks as 350 ships make their way through the canal at a pace of 80 ships per day. In addition, the blockage will prevent empty shipping containers from being returned to Asia, adding to a container shortage caused by rising demand for consumer goods during the pandemic.

Biz Insight – In the orderly world of logistics, nothing is going as planned. Ports are designed to unload ships at an even pace. Hundreds of vessels arriving all at once at the same Western European destinations will create bottlenecks at terminals in Antwerp, Rotterdam, and Hamburg where most tea is offloaded. Port authorities say they are now experiencing a lull before the rush.

Tea Stands Out in the Grocery Aisle

Staid and steady center-aisle categories like tea rarely accelerate at growth rates faster than advertising-driven Fast Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) categories – but that’s exactly what happened in 2020. Last April sales of tea bags in US grocery and department stores grew by 12.7% year over year, according to Chicago-based market research firm IRI. Growth held steady at 12.3% for the year. Sales of tea in teabags totaled $250 million in the 52-weeks ending February 2021, according to IRI. In Canada hot tea sales grew by 18% through January compared to 11% growth in fast-moving goods overall, according to Nielsen research shared by the Tea and Herbal Association of Canada.

Fraser McKevitt, Kantar’s head of retail and consumer insight in the UK, writes that “We’ve eaten an extra 7 billion meals at home since spring 2020. Office tea rounds meanwhile were replaced by brews in our own kitchens and we drank an additional 2 billion cups of tea in the house this year.”

Globally sales of packaged foods and beverages have fully recovered to pre-pandemic levels.

Biz Insight – Consumer surveys show that comfort and relaxation and lifestyle motivated purchases – with immunity and mental health and “just keeping warm” among the top five reasons people bought tea during lockdowns. Consumer trends toward self-care and convenience are now more prominent than in last year’s surveys but the desire to spend more to indulge in premium tea and to create pleasant in-home experiences remains strong. Overall, the US economy is still troubled. On Wednesday the Conference Board reported that 62% of US consumers, many of whom are facing economic uncertainty and income loss, are cutting back on spending overall. The survey found that frugality is one of three dominant household priorities along with a preference for digitally enabled convenience and spending on health and wellness.

Retail Realignment

Tata Consumer Products, owners of Tetley branded tea, announced it has sold its stake in two US-based joint tea ventures – parting ways with Empirical Group, a major foodservice supplier, and the Harris Tea Company’s Southern Tea. Tetley is one of North America’s highest grossing tea brands. Tata’s CEO said the company is consolidating to sharpen its focus in the US coffee and tea market.

In a release announcing the acquisition, Harris writes that the new company will be called Harris Tea Food Service, “offering foodservice customers innovative products, consistent quality, and service.”

Harris Tea Company is the largest blender and packer of private label teas in North America with two production facilities in the US (in Georgia and New Jersey), one in Newcastle, UK and, an affiliated factory in India.

Camellia Sinensis Will Close Emery Street Teahouse

Kevin Gascoyne, a partner and spokesman for Camellia Sinensis tea retail in Montreal, announced the company will close its Emery Teahouse after 22 years. Gascoyne said that like many firms the pandemic forced the company to re-structure and reinvent itself to survive.

“Had this been simply been a one or two months event would have weathered it out and carried on as before.  But now, after more than a year, we have come to realize that we will have to cut free a part of the company that is very close to all our hearts. We have decided to close the Emery Teahouse,” writes Gascoyne. 

“In early 2022 we hope to present a new space, offering a completely different client experience, a location where tea tasting, and discovery are at the core of each visit,” he said

“Naturally the Tea School and our passion for the art of tea will play an important role in this new project and, if all goes well, it will both seduce the senses and enhance the tea experience for all our clients,” he said.

The company’s Emery Street Boutique remains open for business.

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Hear the Headlines for the Week of March 26

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Features

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

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

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

By Dananjaya Silva | PMD Tea

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

Online Tea Education Club in a Class All its Own

By Dan Bolton

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

Read more…

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

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

Maruyama Tea: 21st Century Japanese Tea Production

Tea News you Need to Know

Assam High Court Halts Wage Increases

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

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

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

Kenyan Tea Factory Elections Suspended

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

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

Adapting to Climate Change

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

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

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

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

Read more…

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

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