• La Gravitea Café


    La Gravitea is a remarkable tea café with hundreds of selections of fine teas inspired by the travels of founder Avinash Dugar but aside from specialty teas, what makes La Gravitea special is that the young staff are all hard-working graduates of the local school for the hearing-impaired. Aravinda Anantharaman visits this tea café with heart.

    A virtual visit to La Gravitea cafe in Jameshedpur in the north Indian state of Jharkand

    Staff at the La Gravitea café L to R, in the front, Suraj Thakur, Chandra Prabha, Nandita. In the middle, Monika Mahato, Amit Kumar Singh, Amit Lahari. Back row, Shakuntala Hansda, Nikit Sharma and Navin Kumar

    For the Love of Tea

    By Aravinda Anantharaman

    Jamshedpur in the north Indian state of Jharkand is an industrial town famous for its steel industry. It’s closest link to the tea regions would be Kolkata, nearly 300 kilometers away. But one man here has succeeded in putting the town on the tea map with his café, La Gravitea. He serves a dizzying range of teas from special Darjeelings and Japanese matcha to iced teas and flavored blends alongside a menu packed with popular café dishes. But what makes La Gravitea newsworthy is that its staff is entirely hearing-impaired youth.

    Avinash Dugar who started and runs La Gravitea, talks about how it began. In 2015, he decided to step away from corporate life. He thought his calling lay in adventure sports but while travelling through southeast Asia he happened to visit a tea bar in Hong Kong. More used to India chai stops, this was a revelation in what a tea bar could be. Avinash returned to India, keen to start selling tea inspired by what he had seen. He set up a kiosk with 70 teas on offer, teas he had learnt to source from all over the world, brew and serve. He thought he would do for tea what the chain, Café Coffee Day has done to popularize coffee in India.

    Until one day, among his customers, he saw a hearing impaired young woman. He struck with a conversation with her brother who mentioned that there were no jobs available for the hearing impaired. This struck a chord with Ashish and he decided to expand his kiosk into a full-fledged café, and employ hearing impaired youth.

    The local school for the hearing impaired gave him names of their alumni who had not found employment. Avinash visited them and spoke to their families. Many were reluctant to send their daughters to work. But he went on to hire six girls, and trained them in running La Gravitea, from cooking dishes and brewing tea to operations and service. Six years have passed and the first set of girls have since moved on and he’s hired others, also hearing impaired. And tea? La Gravitea’s menu has since doubled and offers a range that includes several types of chai, tisanes, Darjeelings, and Assams to teas like Japanese matcha, sencha and Yerba mate. Along with tea, La Gravitea is is also fast becoming a museum for teaware.

    On a Saturday afternoon, I get a WhatsApp tour of La Gravitea. I spot a teapot shaped clock, several teapots from across the world, a prized Victorian moustache tea cup procured from Kolkata, samovars, some vintage teaspoons and several collectibles. Avinash talks about a consignment that’s made its way slowly through Customs, one that holds a 4.5 foot tall teapot from China which will make him the owner of the largest teapot in the country. He confesses to a great love for teapots, adding that he has a teapot tattooed on his arm. La Gravitea is an unusual tea café, which showcases all the things its owner seems to love – teas from all over the world, vintage teapots, the French language, a desire to do good for the community.

    What seems to tie it all together is that it’s all heart!

    Carmel Junior College
    Carmel Junior College students on campus

    Carmel Bal Vihar

    Sister Flavian, a former principal at Carmel Junior College in Jamshedpur, established the vocational program at Carmel Bal Vihar in June 2010. The school for the hearing impaired in Sonari, offers practical skills for its 130 students because “a Class X pass certificate is not enough these days as a lot of challenges lie ahead for differently abled students as they go out in the world,” sister Flavian told the Telegraph of India.

    “I decided to provide vocational training for students after some parents highlighted the employment problems faced by students after they left school,” she said. Graduates from Jharkand and many other states who attend the school have since found work as beauticians, tailors and, thanks to Avinash Dugar, in foodservice.

    Carmel Bal Vihar is affiliated with Carmel Junior College establish in 1997 and administered by the congregation of the Apostolic Carmel Sisters of the Catholic Church.

    Aravinda Anantharaman


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  • Q|A Jeff Champeau


    Sparkling 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.


    Listen to the interview:

    Rishi Tea & Botanicals VP Jeff Champeau on sparkling botanicals.

    Jeff Champeau, vice president of business development at Rishi Tea & Botanicals
    Jeff Champeau, vice president of business development at Rishi Tea & Botanicals

    Healthful Effervescence

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

    Dan Bolton: Jeff, is fizzy tea destined for mainstream consumption? Will authentic craft-brewed, plant-based, low-sugar, lightly carbonated genuine teas and herbal infusions overcome barriers to distribution to become a significant revenue source for the beverage industry?

    Jeff Champeau: Absolutely. And that is something that all of us in the tea industry around the world should be proud of and should celebrate. This is like coming home. This is a very exciting time to seesugared soft drinks, sodas and beverages being something people are turning away from en masse. They’re looking for more healthful alternatives. It is an awesome trend. Tea has been around for 5,000 years, it’s resilient, and there’s a reason for it. Tea speaks to our soul. It’s healthful. It enlightens us. It’s one of the most ancient plants that people have ever been connected to. And it’s about time that it hasmuch of the consumer market paying attention. It’s so delicious you don’t need sweetener to appeal to the everyday palate, the everyday consumer out there.

    Dan: Breaking the sugar habit appears to be a primary driver of sales.

    Jeff: If you’re using high quality ingredients, if you’re using skillful blending techniques you can deliver a very interesting complex taste without added sweeteners. That’s something that people can really feel deeply refreshed by ? not just satiated. Something that tastes good that scratches that itch to refresh my palate after food.

    Soda may satiate them in the moment, but you can’t have two or three or four of them without feeling it in your belly. Something that really has the kind of cleansing hydrating effect of sparkling tea — that’s something you can really feel refreshed by and drink several. That’s what we sought to achieve with the sparkling botanicals.

    Dan: Tell me more about the characteristics of the new line.

    Jeff: Our sparkling botanicals are brewed using real plants to deliver real virtue. They’re the same super premium direct trade botanicals and teas that we use in our loose leaf and sachet tea blends, many of which are certified organic.

    We microbrew them using proprietary brewing techniques to yield a really balanced and craft brewed tea that is sparkled up with a carbonated water.

    Using rare citrus and achieving a unique balance with teas with herbs, botanicals, spices, were able to develop, a two-year shelf life product with no added sugar, no added sweeteners of any kind, nothing artificial, only zero to two grams of sugar per can, using real infused fruits like berries or citrus.

    Craft brewed sparkling tea
    Micro-brewed sparkling teas and botanicals

    And these offer only 5 to 15 calories, which is really speaking to the fact that they have real plants.

    It all comes down to that part of the balance. You’re getting the balance of the polyphenols, the tannins that are extracted, whether that’s from tea leaves or from of the super fruit botanicals and fruits that we’re using in some of the profiles.

    We have six tasty profiles, with two more scheduled to be introduced online later this year for distribution next spring. Our MSRP is from $2.99 to $3.49 per 12-ounce can. Ordered online a 12-pack sells for $40. Subscribers pay $36.

    Schisandra berries
    Schisandra berries grow like a grapes on a vine. The taste is a balance of sweet, sour, salty, bitter and pungent.

    Dan: Will you describe the functional plant-based ingredients in these blends.

    Jeff: The Schisandra Berry from Northeast China is just amazing. It is an adaptogen that helps the body regulate physical and mental stress. It is used in traditional Chinese and Korean medicine. It’s also been used for centuries as a beauty tonic, to detox the liver, to maintain healthy skin and even an aphrodisiac.

    It is called the five-flavor fruit. The outside of the fruit is a little bit salty, the flesh is sweet and tart in a nice balance. The pit is bitter and pungent and a little spicy. It is a mood booster said to deliver energy to the five meridians and to balance chi. It has an amazingly refreshing character with a color like a sparkling rosé.

    • Schisandra Berry – An adaptogenic elixir crafted from a single ingredient: forest grown schisandra berry.
    • Turmeric Saffron – This is a blend of tangy Golden Berries from the Amazon, lush California lemons and fragrant saffron, the most expesive spice in the world. The ingredients are steeped with forest-farmed turmeric from Burma and jungle-grown green cardamom from Guatemala. The saffron delivers an amazing hue to the infusion. You can really see that there are real plants used to make these drinks.
    • Black Lemon – Black lemon is a high caffeine blend of black tea from from Northern Thailand with a combination of California dried lemon and black lemon from Guatemala. The Guatemala lemon uses an ancient Persian technique to ripen and oxidize the the lemon – a kind of food preservative. It has a bright, citrusy flavor with a malty finish. There are about 50 milligrams of caffeine per can.
    • Dandelion Ginger – My personal favorite contains dandelion root for detox and ginger. It is an anti inflammatory blend that also features a really cool type of tea called Kuro Koji, which is a Japanese green tea that’s fermented with the Koji yeast that’s used in fermented foods. The dandelion root is roasted and the ginger we use is prized for its pungency, aroma, and spiciness. The combination is craft brewed and combined with red chili and detox tonic herbs. It’s like a ginger beer with zero added sugar that offers satisfying depth and heat.
    • Grapefruit Quince – This blend elevates everyday replenishment with juicy hibiscus, aromatic yuzu and succulent quince. We were inspired by traditional Korean herb teas that feature quince to soothe and support easy breathing. Hibiscus is enjoyed throughout the tropics for refreshing, cooling energy and is widely regarded to help lower blood pressure, promote arterial health and support metabolism.
    • Patagonia Maqui – Wild-foraged maqui berry stimulates the palate with accents from red wine grape skins and forest berries to create a sophisticated flavor with an almost wine-like profile. Maqui berries are a prized source of antioxidants like anthocyanins and have been traditionally used by the people of the Patagonia for vitality and cleansing. The Maqui berry is harvested from the Patagonia region of Chile. It brings to life different kinds of health functions that are derived from a variety of ingredients. This one is great on the way to work, at mid-morning break or as something to go with lunch that offers a little caffeine to support digestion. At the dinner table it can be served as an alternative to wine.

    Dan: Will Camellia sinensis or herbal infusions win the race for market share?

    Jeff: I think herbals will lead in North America, there’s a greater variety and different colors, different levels of tartness, ingredients that appeal to the younger drinkers that are maybe newer to the category, but I don’t think that means that we should refrain from using real tea and in developing the lines out further.

    Dan: How will tea companies win over the hearts and minds of consumers with respect to the healthful benefits of tea?

    Jeff: Tea is part of a broader natural products industry in North America, and I think sometimes what we get wrong in the natural products industry is the too much hype around a particular tea or a particular botanical or herbal ingredient. Being on trend can be exhausting for the consumer. It can treat tea and herb like fashion. Tea isn’t fashion, but that kind of misses the real charm of tea. Tea is not fashion. It’s ancient food and medicine.

    Tea can connect us to the rhythms of nature and to the planet. It can access to people far and wide; the growers, the plucking teams, the artisans, and leaf processing teams, the worldwide traders and promoters of tea, the baristas, the grocery merchants, the consumers. But how can farmers and producers be sustained if their particular crops are hot in the market for two years, only to slow down as some other trends takes off?

    So, I think the question is, how do we how we choose to market tea and botanicals in a way that really encourages a deep and steady and earnest interest into infusing tea into our lives.

    Tea is an agricultural product. It has these different waves of the harvest that come throughout theseasons. Year to year those,harvests are going to fluctuate naturally as mother nature gives us what she can.

    If you ask most tea professionals, what’s their favorite tea, most will likely tell you what their favorite tea is, at that moment, because they’re plugged in to the harvest calendar, they’re tracking with what’s fresh and in season.

    Botanicals have their own harvest seasons and new areas of cultivation. If we cultivate a seasonal approach and recognize that, tea, herbal teas, botanical spices, a part of our broader choices in diet and in what we choose to consume.

    It’s good that we introduce variety into our diet. And it’s good that we introduce variety into our tea habits, too, and embrace that seasonal rhythm of the harvest.

    We have an opportunity to really cultivate a dynamic tea culture in North America that celebrates the seasonality of tea. Not every tea is going to be consistent. There’s a beauty in the variety and some of that unexpected that can come year to year and season to season. And we should have a reverence for the tea traditions, connecting us to the deeper philosophy of tea. But we should also feel a sense of creative freedom to draw inspiration from those traditions to offer the North American market new and exciting ways to infuse tea into their lives.

    In doing so we’re going to open up their minds to thinking about tea as something that they choose to drink and enjoy on the daily basis, maybe at some different occasions than we might expect.

    This interview has been edited and condensed.

    Sparkling Botanicals from Rishi Tea & Botanicals

    Sparkling Botanicals

    “We want to focus the passion and creativity of Rishi’s amazing team on something totally new and exciting — something that honors our enduring relationships with farmers and tea drinkers while transcending our core business of dried teas and botanicals. As a selector, importer and taste maker, our natural progression is to make beverages with teas and botanicals that are ready to drink. People love our teas but have less and less time to brew them. Tea drinkers are moving to bottled and canned teas to save their time but have few options that offer premium botanicals and high-end teas brewed without added sugar, sweeteners or acidic preservatives. Our new line of Sparkling Botanicals elevates RTD with craft brewing and meets this demand for real plants with real virtue.”

     -Joshua Kaiser, founder of Rishi Tea & Botanicals

    Sparkling Botanicals

    Rishi Tea & Botanicals
    185 S. 33rd Court
    Milwaukee, WI 53208
    (414) 747-4001

    www.rishi-tea.com


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  • Adaptogens and Tea


    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. Join Herbal Collective Magazine publisher Marilyn Zink, as she discusses with Maria the importance to overall health of herbal adaptogens and their role in blends with tea, itself an adaptogen.

    Maria Uspenski on the role of adaptogens and tea

    Goddess Women's Teas
    Goddess Women’s Teas blended for women in three stages of life.

    The Beneficial Role of Adaptogens and Tea

    By Marilyn Zink | Herbal Collective Magazine

    The Tea Spot is a Public Benefit Corporation and Certified B Corp that donates 10% of all profits in-kind to cancer survivor and community wellness programs. To date the company has donated more than 10 million cups of tea through its 10% For Wellness pledge.

    Marilyn: Maria, will you tell us how herbal adaptogens got started and why?

    Maria Uspenski: Adaptogens were classified in 1950s by a Soviet scientist who was looking at ways to reduce stress for combat pilots that came from being in rapid fire combat, but also because of being at such high altitude and dealing with such intense sunlight.

    And I thought, wow, that’s super useful and something that could be good for me, and I started reading very intensely about this and then, when the pandemic hit, “I’m like wow, this is it. We really need to nurture people with something that can be supportive.”

    Our Adaptogenic Chai came out with literally 12 different strong adaptogens, and so these adaptogens have the ability to bring balance to your body, regardless of which direction the stressor is coming from.

    So let’s go back to that combat pilot for a moment, so he may have an incoming threat for which he needs his energy level to go up for where his system is responding from a low point. He needs to be brought up. The adaptogen will give him that boost, or say he’s just been shot at and is a little frazzled and needs to back down.  The Adaptogen can bring him down, so that’s referred to as a nonspecific response.

    That’s the first requirement for being an adaptogen. The response needs to be nonspecific, and that means it can either bring you up when needed. It can give you the lift when needed, or as we say,  it can give you a gentle kiss on the forehead.

    Adaptogens

    The next requirement for an adaptogen is that it needs to be a natural substance, so a plant. So generally, we use herbs, flowers of herbs or roots or mushrooms in our adaptogenic blends.

    And the third thing is that it needs to be otherwise non-harmful, not affecting other physiological biochemical processes in your body.

    So those are the three requirements.

    Camellia sinensis is a secondary adaptogen. Secondary adaptogens are adaptogens which will support the effect of other adaptogens in your body. It has a very magical amino acid called L theanine and that is very good at balancing mood.

    So, it’s not a primary adaptogen in that it will give you that big boost or bring you down when needed, but it offers kind of a supportive aspect of that.

    Things like ashwaganda, chaga mushroom, reishi mushrooms, dandelion root, and Rhodiola which is actually my favorite adaptogen, those are all very strong primary adaptogens.

    We just launched the Goddess Collection, a line of three teas to support women in different stages of their lives.

    Venus Rising is one for women when they’re going through their PMS, part of their menstruation cycle, and the adaptogens in that tea and interestingly licorice, which is a strong adaptogen, fennel and St. John’s Wort. There are other herbs to help with cramping and digestive relief, but those are the three primary adaptogens in that tea that help with mood and centering and balance.

    The second tea is for new moms, for lactation, and it’s called Mamahood. The primary adaptogens in that tea are fenugreek seeds and oatstraw with blessed thistle, and alfalfa blended with non-caffeinated red rooibos.

    The final tea, I am most excited about, is a lemongrass blend. Lemongrass is not an adaptogen, but the strong herbal adaptogens in that tea are black cohosh root, which Americans have used for women going through the menopause phase of life for many hundreds of years.

    Dong Quai, which is also known as Angelica sinensis, is a traditional Chinese medicine for the symptoms of menopause. Most of these are for hot flashes and vaginal dryness. So literally, you know they have fetal-estrogenic qualities, so these are not teas that women should be drinking when they’re pregnant.

    Polyphenols in Tea
    Polyphenols in tea. Illustration courtesy of The Tea Spot.

    Marilyn: When you say that people who are looking for tea now, they’re not thinking tea is just something to drink?

    Maria: There are people that just look to tea to get them warm and have a delicious beverage, but statistically speaking, in North America 76% of herbal tea purchases are for whatever function that herb can bring people.? 

    Marilyn: Is there a certain amount that someone needs to drink or certain frequency?

    Maria: That’s a very valid question, too much of any good thing is not a good thing, right?

    Adaptogens are classified as not having a negative effect on other functions. It’s using it daily for a certain amount of time. 

    We don’t instruct people to make decoctions, to cook these teas on the stove, but honestly, you’re better off cooking it because you are talking about roots, cloves. You want to hit herbs with boiling water or as hot as you can get it in whatever environment you’re living in. And if you have the time and you have the tea loose, cook it on the stove. 

    I like to take our adaptogenic Chai loose and cook it on the stove for 10 to 20 minutes. I like to cook it and then those roots and herbs just keep on giving.

    In my mind it brings me back to center. In reality, it probably does that only because I drink it daily or every other day. 

    Marilyn: You talk about adaptogenic herbs for women, what about for men? 

    Maria: My species obviously needs to reproduce, but I don’t need to reproduce today, tomorrow, yesterday, in order to make it to next week. Those hormones that I need, you know, pituitary, thyroid, those hormonal functions that are most important are not for women only.

    Digestion is one of the symptoms that comes out of hormonal digestive problems. A large part of what we help with is called belly pain and digestive issues as well, which of course concern men almost as often as they do women. 

    Digestive health is just as important for both genders. In our Adaptogenic Chai, organic maca root and Slippery Elm are two of our favorite ingredients. Slippery Elm is amazing for digestion.

    Adaptogens that target reproductive hormonal function have also been shown to be effective for prostate health as men age. 

    Adaptogenic Chai
    The ingredients in The Tea Spot’s Adaptogenic Chai include organic roasted dandelion root, organic chaga mushrooms, organic ashwagandha, organic rhodiola, organic cardamom seeds, organic cinnamon, organic slippery elm, cascara shells, organic ginger, organic raw cacao nibs, organic cloves, and organic maca root.

    Marilyn: Isn’t it wonderful when you think something as simple as tea can be so healing for people.

    Maria: It’s fantastic. The biggest impact is when a customer will reach out and say, ” ‘you know, your teas and drinking them regularly has really changed my life.’ ” 

    The Tea Spot
    The Tea Spot blends a full line of functional whole leaf teas

    Empowering Wellness

    Loose leaf tea became an integral part of my recovery from cancer and continues to be a key component of my daily health regimen. The simple act of preparing loose tea is likely just as therapeutic as the tea itself. It gives me great joy to be able to share this with others and I am continually inspired by the people who courageously and actively fight to survive.

    The Tea Spot is committed to spreading health and wellness through whole leaf tea — every day. The company crafts teas of exceptional quality and designs innovative Steepware that empower people to lead healthier lives. Our customer community actively participates in this mission through our 10% For Wellness. As a “Best for the World” certified B Corp, our company is recognized for infusing the goodness of tea in communities near and far.

    Maria Uspenski, CEO & ovarian cancer survivor


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  • Q|A Ravi Kroesen


    “The perfect cup of tea is one shared with others.” This quote by legendary tea entrepreneur Steven Smith adorns oak paneling of Smith Teamaker’s new café in Portland, Oregon. It’s a café with a tea twist — the plant-based menu features dishes and snacks infused with the company’s premium tea.


    Listen to the interview:

    Teamaker Ravi Kroesen on Smith Teamaker’s new cafe concept.

    Portland's Smith Teamaker Cafe Photo by Andrew Vanasse
    Portland’s Steven Smith Teamaker Café. Photos by Andrew Vanasse.

    A Plant-based Food Café where Tea Reigns Supreme

    The intent of the new café concept, says Smith’s head teamaker Ravi Kroesen, is to “develop foods that reflect our ethos of plants, as well as utilizing tea as an ingredient.” Culinary Director Karl Holl developed the food menu, at the new café working with Kroesen to develop a menu that includes snacks, lattés, and iced concoctions with full meals that demonstrate how tea and food can live in harmony from leaf to cup to plate.

    Jessica Natale Woollard: Beets roasted in jasmine tea; quinoa cooked in Sencha; croissants filled with peppermint tea-infused chocolate. These all sound divine. What are these culinary delights?

    Ravi Kroesen: These are items we have started offering in our new plant-based café up on Northwest 23rd in Portland, Oregon. The concept is to further being a plant-based company, to further the concept in terms of developing foods that really reflect our ethos of plants, as well as utilizing tea as an ingredient.

    Jessica: What flavor combinations of tea and food delighted you the most?

    Ravi: I like the sheep’s cheese, sourced locally, used to make our white petal cheese. We blended in our white petal tea, a floral, slightly fruity white tea, and it creates this incredible new experience.

    Fat, as you may know, works in this process called enfleurage where it takes on aromas very easily. The fat and the cheese brings in all the flavors you find in drinking the tea, so they’re expressed very cleanly. We use that process in a couple different dishes. There’s one in a bowl that is a delight to eat.

    Interior Smith Teamaker Cafe
    Interior Smith Teamaker Café

    The sheep’s cheese comes from a local partner, Black Sheep Creamery. Karl Holl, our culinary director, was very specific in terms of working with local partners, so chocolate, salt, baked goods, those kinds of things, were specifically sought out to have local partners.

    Jessica: I imagine the process of developing the menu was filled with experimentation in your lab?

    Ravi: Karl spearheaded everything and worked with my team in the Tea Lab to fine tune a lot of the concepts. He already had some of the dishes worked out, but there were some that needed some fine tuning, and with our help — guiding and offering suggestions on how to best achieve the final outcome of a really wonderful dish — we worked together to create a wonderful menu. My team was integral, but certainly Karl is the genius in this whole process and the driver.

    Jessica: You just opened the café a few weeks ago, but can you share what menu item has been a popular choice so far? And what you think it is about that item that’s attracting customers?

    Ravi: We have a turmeric noodle bowl. Turmeric is such a recognizable ingredient; we’ve seen a rise in consumption in turmeric-based teas over the last five years. There is an understanding in the consumer consciousness on a broader scale now for turmeric being a beneficial and healthy ingredient. Leading with turmeric as part of the overall makeup of that noodle dish allows people to immediately get what they’re buying. The popularity of that dish shows that people who are coming to buy food at Smith, as well as drink teas, are health conscious as well as looking for new and exciting experiences.

    Jessica: What is your personal favorite item on this lovely menu? This is your chance to persuade us all to visit Portland!

    Ravi: I really do like the masala chai spiced cinnamon sugar bun. If you peel off the layers and eat them bit by bit, you’ll experience how well the masala chai is built into that baked good.

    I love to pair the morning bun with our black lavender latté, which is brewed using an espresso machine, or what we like to call a “teaspresso” machine. The machine’s high pressure combined with the heat creates a large amount of dissolved and suspended solids in the brew, which gives a much thicker, richer experience. That was the intention of espresso machines from the beginning, to create this quality of brew that you can’t quite get from brewing in other ways. We use a little bit of oat milk to top off the black lavender latté, and it is such a delight. It pairs so well with the masala chai morning button.

    This interview has been edited and condensed.

    Smith Teamaker Cafe
    Smith Teamaker Café

    Steven Smith Teamaker Café

    The café is located in Portland’s Northwest 23rd district, the same neighborhood where the company was founded in 2009 by the late teamaker Steven Smith.

    ? Jessica Natale Woollard

    Smith Teamaker Logo

    500 NW 23rd Avenue Portland, OR 97210
    (503) 206-7451

    Open 9am – 5pm daily
    @smithteamaker

    Tasting Room
    (503) 719-8752
    (800) 624-9531

    Email


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  • Q|A Amy Dubin-Nath


    Amy Dubin-Nath sees a bright future for specialty teas originating in India, “but I don’t think it is going to be a quick flip where people are only after high end teas.” Instead, the process will be gradual, following a path similar to fine wine. “Do I want to see the spectacular teas of India keep selling at a high price?” she asks, “Yes, definitely, as that elevates the perceived value, making it something precious. I believe that message should be spread throughout the world — including in India.”


    Listen to the interview:


    Amy Dubin-Nath
    Amy Dubin-Nath

    India’s Spectacular Specialty Teas

    Amy Dubin-Nath established Janam Tea in 2004 to showcase the rich array of teas produced in India, which she experienced firsthand during her self-guided travels. She began developing her palate as a teenager and came to tea appreciation by way of wine and whiskey. In 2005, she opened a tea shop specifically for single-origin Indian teas and in 2016 a tearoom in New York City.

    Dan Bolton: Are single-origin whole and broken leaf teas the future?

    Amy Dubin-Nath: Oh, that is that is such a fantastic question. I love talking about the future of tea. Because everything is possible in the future, right? When it comes to the future of tea, I see a broader range.

    We have tea at every level, the challenge is that we have been exposed as a society to teas of a certain style of a certain grade of a certain color. It creates a certain expectation.  If you like Lipton tea, great, drink it, I’m happy for anybody to drink tea, but there are other styles, there are other places that tea comes from, there’s other experiences that you can have.

    I think the near term future of Indian tea is in the excitement and curiosity around exploring India’s most spectacular teas. I foresee in the next 15 to 20 years, that people will have more facility with the language of tea and clarity around what they’re buying and be intentional about buying and be able to better discern what they want in the grocery store.

    I personally, in my professional experience, do not believe we’re there yet. It’ll take a little bit of time to expand people’s horizons, giving them more choices and some more opportunities to taste fine and specialty teas.

    Dan: The new president of packaged tea at Tata Consumer Products in April introduced a premium tea sold exclusively online and marketed exclusively to India’s domestic consumers. Tata’s 1968 tea in 50g tins sells for between 500 and 1500 rupees ($20 US). The company reports that sales grew by 59.6% in value and 23% in volume from January this year.

    Amy: The thought that one person has only one tea, and they only drink one tea 10 cups a day their whole life definitely does happen, but more and more people want different flavors, just like preferring to wear red one day or yellow another day. You just want novelty.

    However, I don’t know that you can attribute all of that to the desire for tea itself. Sometimes people want the best of the best just because it’s the best. And it doesn’t matter what it is. And sometimes people want something that looks posh, because it’s a really special gift.

    You can have the best, most gorgeous packaging in the world, and the best tea in the world, but that tea and the experience of tea are inextricable.

    Indians know what tea is, they already have a flavor expectation, they already understand what it is, but when it comes to long leaf, loose leaf tea, and whole leaf tea, most of that has been exported to Western countries.

    It’s hard to project success, but 1500 rupees for 50 grams in a handmade, beautiful, gorgeous wrapping, is still a tough sell, even in the highest end retail shopping centres in Delhi and Kolkata.

    Do I want them to keep selling at a high price? Yes, definitely because what it does is it elevates the value the perceived value of Indian tea as something that is precious, and it is and I believe that message should be spread throughout the world and including in India.

    The sustainability of our industry depends on getting consumers to wake up to the fact that tea is precious. The value should come up, the prices should come up so that our industry, as a whole, can come up.

    Dan: Will you discuss the pivot to online by tea retailers and the popularity of suppliers selling direct to consumers and share your expertise in marketing tea.

    Amy: So, to share with you a little bit about what’s happening in India in Assam alone there is something like 100,000 small leaf producers.

    Now there are also several smaller areas, gardens, where people are making tea and making experimental tea and some fantastic stuff.

    Amy Dubin-Nath
    Amy Dubin-Nath sampling a selection of Indian tea.

    People who are producing tea are aware that specialty tea is growing as a concept and that organic tea is growing as a concept. But expecting small growers and small producers to be attuned to the whim and whimsy of Americans in particular, is a pretty big ask.

    I would be very surprised to find producers who are rushing to meet the style demands of Americans. They make what they make and they know that their skill and their craftsmanship go into designing the best flavor, the best style for the leaf at that time, and they are trying to get the best prices for it.

    Aside from Janam Tea, TEAORB is the only outlet that I am aware of for small Indian growers. Their online marketplace and website is called TEAORB Marketplace. The site guarantees their teas to be fresh, and they get it to consumers, as close to direct to the from the producers as possible. It was established in 2016. There really isn’t anything that is perfect, pervasive, government backed, or the work of large organizations willing to step up to promote the teas from small producers.

    So far as I know, in India, TEAORB is ground-breaking. I don’t know of any other marketplace for small growers where you can find hand-rolled teas, dheki (mortar and pestle) teas and phalap (tea of Singphos).

    Tea Orb

    TEAORB Marketplace is a social entrepreneurship startup, working closely with small tea farmers and estates of India by providing a virtual platform in an effort to ensure a fair price for their high quality produce and to uphold the essence of sustainability by addressing real issues affecting people and the environment. ? Founder Jayanta Kakati, former secretary, Guwahati Tea Auction Centre.

    Dan: Tell me about your talk next week at World Tea Expo.

    Amy: This is going to be a very interesting week for me because I’m speaking at the World Tea Expo and the Global Summit for All Things Food, a completely separate show at the MGM Grand a couple days later.

    The World Tea Expo talk is all the things I love about Indian tea Indian tea, I feel has been a little bit underrepresented at World tea Expo, so my goal in going is to share with people how I got into it, how I developed my love for Indian tea over 20 years ago, how and why I changed my life to basically be a de facto brand ambassador for Indian tea in North America.

    People don’t realize they’ve been drinking Indian tea. They think of Indian tea as Masala Chai and are unaware that India produces so many different styles and types and varieties.


    Amy’s talk at World Tea Expo, Las Vegas, is titled: The Wild Expanse of Indian Tea: Hang on to your Tastebuds! at 1 pm Tuesday, June 29. Two days later at the Global Summit for All Things Food, Amy will accept an award as one of the 100 most influential food and beverage professionals.

    This interview has been edited and condensed.

    Bespoke Event  Planning
    Janam offers bespoke event planning featuring specialty teas.

    Janam Tea

    Amy is now making plans to open her third business selling Indian tea, a tasting lounge and gift salon in Columbus, Ohio. Amy is a tea curator, host of afternoon tea and a tea educator. She offers staff training and consulting services, introduces fine Indian teas to both corporate and private clients through bespoke events (both social and outcome-driven), and creates custom gifts.

    ? Dan Bolton

    Janam Tea
    Janam Tea

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