The rugged Canadian Rocky Mountains thrust nearly 20,000 feet into the sky, a haven for hikers that inspired a unique style of high-mountain tea houses built to provide warmth and shelter along the trail. In Banff, Alberta, Tea Biz correspondent Jessica Natale Woollard visits Jolene’s Tea House – a refuge for mind and body.
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Jolene Brewster on the re-launch of her retail brand.Jolene Brewster, left, and partner Jess McNally in front of the tea house located in the historic Old Crag Cabin. Photo by Gareth Paget, courtesy Jolene’s Tea House
Customers Enjoy an Educational, Interactive Experience
Jolene Brewster’s new tea venture is the culmination of years of passion and business experience, along with a healthy dose of contemplation, courtesy of time spent in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. About 15 years ago, the entrepreneur from Banff, Alberta ran a tea café. Then she moved into selling tea exclusively online and at farmer’s markets. Now she’s back with a new business partner, a refined business concept, and a new name — Jolene’s Tea House.
Jessica Natale Woollard: Jolene, our listeners from around the world may not be familiar with the tradition of taking tea in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. Tell us a bit about the history of tea in the Banff region?
Jolene Brewster: We live in a place where tea houses are unique to Canadian culture. They are a part of history here in Banff. The tea houses that we have were built by Swiss guides to be a refuge for hikers and explorers travelling and enjoying this countryside.
And with the spirit of that, with the spirit of people having tea, drinking outside, having tea on the trail, over the fire, climbing a peak, and having a rest along the way. We’re still doing the same thing today. We are still a place that people come to enjoy this incredible atmosphere, the mountains, to find what their looking for, to explore, to have their, honestly, to have their minds explode with the beauty around them. And tea is the beverage of choice. That’s what you take in your thermos out in the mountains. And I really believe that whether you’re at home in front of your computer, working all day, we need those moments of pause, of presence, of introspection, of enjoyment, and a good cup of tea can give you all of that.
To avoid distractions, the shop offers only dry tea. Photo by Gareth Paget, courtesy Jolene’s Tea House
Jessica: Your original tea retail store closed in around 2010. Eleven years later, what lessons learned have you carried into your new business venture?
Jolene: One hundred percent, the model of our retail business going forward is so similar to what I’ve done at markets, at farmer’s markets, and I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of local markets around Alberta, British Colombia, and across Canada. I’ve been to huge gift shows like the One-of-a-Kind show in Toronto, which is magnificent. And a lot of work!
It was successful, and the interaction we had with people, it worked. I love that people can come into our shop; they can sample different teas, they can smell. It’s an educational process. The one thing that surprises people, especially because we’re promoting the culture of tea houses, and we’re making that as much an interactive experience as possible within our own beautiful heritage cabin here in Banff, we don’t serve tea. We don’t do food and beverage. I learned doing the markets that if I want to be able to talk to people and make it more educationally focused, we’re not able to constantly be pouring cups of tea and have that business and distraction. We’re not creating a to-go environment.
Jessica: How is the business of tea different today than it was your first time around?
Jolene: I think there’s been some amazing companies, like DAVIDsTEA, who’ve really made tea fun for people. They’ve brought people who normally wouldn’t be interested in tea, they’ve brought teenagers in, they’ve made it a modern exciting environment, and I think that has opened the door for us to go to the next level, to delve even deeper into the organic, the quality, the minute differences.
Jessica: Paint a picture of the ideal Jolene’s tea drinking ritual.
Jolene: Outside. if you can take a moment in your backyard, on your balcony, after your morning run. Something with activity outside. I’m an avid horse rider and trail riding in the mountains is one of my passions, and to be able to take a small saddle bag and pull out my thermos and have a drink of tea after my ride is incredible. My partner Jess would most likely run up a mountain and have a cup of yoga chai up at the top.
To discover how the Canadian Rocky Mountains are infused in Jolene’s business, visit: Jolene’s Tea House 211A Bear Street Banff, Alberta CANADA 403-985-5500
Located in Banff National Park, Lake Louise was named in 1884 after the daughter of Queen Victoria. In 1899 the Canadian Pacific Railway hired mountain guides from Interlaken, Switzerland to lead tourists on excursions into the mountains. It was these guides who built tea houses for refuge on the trails beginning in 1901 with the Lake Agnes refuge and later at Abbot Pass and the Plain of Six Glaciers.
A recent development in tea in India has been the rise of new brands, many that have their roots in tea regions. Almost all of them seek to bridge producers and consumers. Most rely on the narrative that accompanies a product from its place of origin. For consumers, it’s in part vicarious living and a window to another world. This is as good as it gets for those who want to know who made their tea and where it comes from.
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A conversation with Subhasish Borah, co-founder Folklore Tea, AssamBirinci Borah at Folklore Tea
Exceptionally Local Teas that Connect with Consumers
By Aravinda Anantharaman
Emphasizing the local characteristics of Assam (instead of crafting tea to the expectations of export markets) shows respect for the land, customs, and artisanal craft, according to Folklore Tea co-founders Subhasish Borah, an urban planner, and Bidisha Das, a business management grad.
Folklore Tea, based in Guwahati, actively works with farmers to become something more than a marketing platform for their teas, explains Borah, 30, and Das, 29. The couple run the Kohuwa Collective, a space that comes with a slow food café and tea room, with rooms for collaborative clothing and pottery workshops – concepts that seem to drive their work. They launched Folklore early in 2020 and, as a brand, are keen to carry the farmers’ stories.
Folklore is anchored in the idea of storytelling and connecting to consumers intimately. Each tea acknowledges the farmer who grew it. Each tea is given a name, and a poem accompanies it.
Each eco-friendly packet is numbered with a handwritten note addressing the recipient. And while this helps connect with the drinker, it’s not Folklore’s unique sales proposition. That lies in the experiments and work they do with their farmers.
Folklore works with three small growers, Beeman Agarwalla, Birinsi Borah, and Tarun Gogoi, who collectively cultivate about three hectares (seven acres) of tea. They also run Prithivi, a farmer producer company that now includes 56 members with farms ranging from 0.2 to 3 hectares in size. All the growers are geographically located close to each other, making this a community enterprise. Beeman, Birinci, and Tarun have chosen organic farming and work with the other members to convert inorganic farms to organic. The process takes a long time, up to five years, during which farmers have to face a loss in yield and income. The association supports them by way of small scholarships for children and providing compost from a small vermicomposting unit.
“Behind it all, there are real people – small tea growers whose innovation improves the craft and whose land stewardship protects the environment and the quality of your tea. It is their passion that makes the tea taste better.” – Folklore Tea
In Assam, small tea growers sell their green leaves to bought leaf factories that manufacture and sell tea. Most of these factories make CTC tea, which is bought and blended for the domestic market. Farmers adopting organic cultivation find no advantages in price as CTC factories are not always organic. Here, the tea is mixed, and the source and style of cultivation are lost. With no advantages to producing organic tea, the farmer has no incentive to stay the course. And this is something that Folklore is trying to address.
Subhasish describes a proposed project for a mini-community factory that will be used to manufacture organic CTC with leaves sourced from their own farmer community. Currently, they have six small units where their tea is made. These units are not heavily equipped with machinery, and even the CTC is made using traditional wooden tools.
“Right now, there are 56 growers who have joined us. So, collectively, whenever we will be able to set up the factory then we have a huge leaf bank. If we get this funding, which I’m not sure we will get, then of course we go for CTC as it will help not only these three people but all 56 families. That means almost 180 people will be benefited with this factory, it will be huge change in the village,” he said.
“Whatever we can do in terms of packaging, design, or marketing will help them,” he said.
Folklore’s association with Prithivi is a close and mutually beneficial one. Prithvi and its farmers brought knowledge of cultivars and tea making, along with market intelligence. Says Subhasish, “Most of the small tea growers with whom we are working started back in the early 1990s. They planted whatever tea bushes they could get from nearby tea gardens. The knowledge of cultivars was not very prominent at that time.”
The Folklore team decided to study tea and brought knowledge and the willingness to experiment in tea making. Their experiments are with clones, leaf-to-bud ratio, and processing methods such as pan-roasting and naturally scenting tea. Only a small volume of made tea, not more than 300-350 kilos, is sold under the Folklore brand, primarily black and oolong whole leaf tea and some CTC.
On average a small tea grower can pluck 6-7 kilos of unprocessed tea daily to make 3-4 kilos of finished tea.
They are experimenting with rolling techniques to improve appearance, experimenting with blending to get the right flavor. And they have also taken on the immense challenge that oolong brings to tea making.
Artisanal tea making is still has a niche market within India. Folklore seems conscious of this, taking a B2C approach for India and a B2B platform that caters to a global market, with customers in the US, Canada, UK, and Australia. Since the scale is still small, the brand can sustain its relationship and customer base.
As Subhasish says, there are two main challenges and opportunities of Assam’s tea industry: people who live in the tea areas of the state don’t know enough about loose leaf teas. The irony of producing one of the finest teas and yet sending them to faraway markets is the story across India’s tea-growing regions.
“It’s very sad,” says Subhasish, “because people in their own region, especially in the villages and towns that are surrounded by tea gardens, the people don’t know much about loose leaf teas. It’s absurd that mainstream media is promoting the concept of green tea in Assam. Green teas have been grown here for years. It is supposed to be the other way around,” he says.
“Paying 500 rupees for a kilo of tea is not a thing here,” he says. The economic status is not very high. Assam’s annual per capita income is INRs 119,155 ($1,700 compared to the all-India average of $2,100 per capita).
“People collectively have less money so marketing loose leaf teas at a higher price is difficult. It takes a lot of effort to make loose leaf tea and if you’re selling it for let’s say INRs 300 to 400 rupees per kilo then it’s not giving me anything.
“Consider that you can get a kilo of CTC for INRs 90 to 100 rupees ($1.20). In this scenario everyone is going to buy CTC but it’s weird. In Assam the culture of water-based tea is also very high but that water-based tea is made using CTC, not loose leaf teas.
“Most of the growers face difficulties here, they don’t have the human resources or the financial resources to do marketing or packaging. Many people who start making teas go back to selling fresh leaves so that they don’t have to think about marketing again. And many people go back to inorganic because if they ultimately have to sell the leaves to bought leaf factories then then there is no point in maintaining organic because the factories are not certified to process organic tea,” he said.
Due to financial limitations, few of our growers can afford the expense of the organic certification process, but the growers are far beyond it. They preserve ancient processing traditions and care deeply about their environment. They put their heart and soul into the teas they make naturally, says Subhasish.
As much as the conversation is on branding and experimentation, ultimately, what will make a brand like Folklore work is its impact on the community. Already there are plans to set up a bamboo cottage on one of the tea farms open for experiential travel. Assam has a lot on offer, from textiles to food, and of course tea. “We want to bring people,” says Subhasish. We want to show the things that are going on here. That it’s not only tea, but a lot of associated cultural elements too.” He talks about the vision to make the area an open museum, where “the entire place can act as a museum, all the houses can act as a museum and the traditional tools which are used in the processing are living heritage.”
Subhasish describes Folklore as a “passion project.” Perhaps that’s what Assam needs more of, passionate marketers who can join hands with farmers to create quality teas and find a market for them for the greater good of the community. And if it includes nudging local preferences towards better tea for their consumption, that’s a bonus.
Trouville Black Tea
People have spun stories on my genesis. Was it a monk who discovered me? or Was it a king who dropped me in boiling water? Yet my origin is unknown Since then, I have grown And grew and grew some more Moving across spaces and borders A living chronicle of several cultures. I’m Trouville. I was found through pure chance.
— Subhasish Borah
Assam oolong
Cupping
Finished tea
Folklore’s artisanal teas are hand-plucked and hand processed. The company publishes a poem for every tea. The name Meraki means to incorporate one’s soul within their work.Birinci with his wife. Small holder farms ranges from a half an acre to seven acres.
Have you ever noticed a colorful sheen on the surface of your tea? It appears brittle, breaking like ice floes in the Arctic as the tea cools. Researchers once thought it formed from waxy substances in leaves released during steeping. That is not the case. The delicate film is an interfacial interaction of air, tea polyphenols, and calcium carbonate ions in water. It does not form on white, yellow, green, or lightly processed oolong teas; it is only black tea. Soft water in many parts of the world prevents the film from forming. Is tea film a fleeting glimmer of color to enjoy or an unsightly scum that dissipates with a squeeze of lemon? Or does it? Caroline Giacomin, a student at ETH Zürich in Switzerland, joins us to explain the physics of tea film from a study she and colleague Peter Fischer recently published in the Physics of Fluids.
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Physicist Caroline Giacomin at ETH ZürichCaroline Giacomin explains the physics of black tea film
What Causes the Film that Floats on Black Tea?
Caroline Giacomin is a Ph.D. Student at ETH Zürich in the Department of Health Science and Technology. Her early research focused on optimizing a fluidized bed reactor within a CO2 direct air capture system. She previously worked on the rheology of sugars and most recently published her studies on the interfacial rheology of tea.
Dan Bolton: Thank you so very much for joining us on the program. The topic is fascinating, and I see that it’s already getting some press attention. Let’s talk first about what made you curious about what some consider tea scum?
Caroline Giacomin: I was working somewhere where the water was particularly hard, and one of my colleagues said, during our afternoon teatime, that he doesn’t drink tea anymore because he doesn’t like the stuff that is floating on top of it. He’s from Taiwan and had never seen tea scum before or tea film.
I had never really thought much about it. Sometimes it was there. Sometimes it hadn’t been there.
I went home and looked up how to get rid of the film for him. Turns out you can add lemon juice. Everyone on the message boards will say that it’s not a particularly scientific answer but obviously a traditional one.
I didn’t really worry too much about that at the time. It wasn’t in my realm of research, but when I came here to start my Ph.D., our professor shared a list of ideas he thought might be interesting to investigate. We studied interfaces in this group, and on his list was tea interfaces. And I said, “Hey, I think that’s an interesting topic, and I’ve looked into it before.”
So that’s how.
Tea film in a cup of black tea
Dan: What a lovely story. And I applaud you for thinking broadly. In science, it isn’t just narrow routes; it’s a wonderful opportunity to appreciate broader everyday applications in the world around us. So, how did you determine what caused the film?
Caroline: A researcher from England in the 90s wrote a 14-part tea series, six or seven of which were about the tea film. And so I followed in his footsteps. He was studying the components of the tea film, and since we work with interfacial, I studied the strength of the film that forms on tea and with tea with additives like lemon juice, sugar, milk, etc. He did the composition now we’re studying physics instead of chemistry of it.
I based the choice of add-ins on his research.
Rheology is the study of weird fluids. Think about oobleck, the cornstarch and water mixture kids like to play with, or slime [Popularized on Nickelodeon]. Or you about measuring how shampoo or molten plastic flows. That’s rheology, and bicone interfacial rheometry means we’re dealing with the rheology at the surface between two phases.
In our case, we’re dealing with liquid tea and air phases. Interfacial rheology uses a metal device with a disk that contacts the surface. Then, we carefully control the movement of that disk. A motor controls the movement, and a sensor detects exactly how much force the motor applies. That can tell us how brittle or how elastic the film is. When you know exactly how much force is needed to break the film, you can determine the depth of the film, the thickness of the film, and its elasticity.
Dan: The thickness, then, varies with the amount of carbonate in the water, but it isn’t the critical factor. It’s the viscosity, the resistance to movement of the metal plate. How do you describe the film regarding its physical characteristics instead of its chemical components?
Caroline: In our field, we use the phrase moduli. The elastic modulus describes the film’s elasticity, flexibility, and stretchiness. If you move the film a tiny bit, will it reform itself back into its original position? The loss modulus gives you the brittleness of the film.
Dan: You’ve described the physics. The chemistry was previously described as tea polyphenols bonding with calcium carbonate ions at the surface to create a colorful sheen. Are there practical industrial applications for your research?
Caroline: Conditions forming the strongest film, chemically hardened water, may be industrially useful for preferable shelf stability in packaged tea beverages and for emulsion stabilization of milk tea products. Conditions forming weakened films by adding citric acid may be useful for dried tea mixes. You are not likely to see the film in bottled tea because the bottles of iced tea you find at the store generally have citric acid or other preserving acids to extend the shelf life. But, those same acidic components cause many of the purported health benefits of tea to be dramatically reduced within the first 24 hours after bottling.
If you had a pure tea product on the shelf in a bottle with no preservatives, no sugar, no citric acid, you would see little bits of the film sticking around at the top of the bottle, which most people would find extremely unpleasant — like you’ve got mold growing in your bottled beverage, and that wouldn’t be good.
Also, it may be helpful to market teas with citrus in certain areas with very hard water. If you compare cups made with the same water, Earl Grey would have less of a film than pure black tea because it has bergamot, which is a citrus component.
Dan: When making tea, should I be anti-scum? Should I dissolve the scum to get rid of it? Or should I appreciate it for what it is and not worry? Is tea scum an indication that I need to do something with my water? Based on your research, what practical guidelines do you suggest for making or enjoying better tea?
Caroline: It depends on what you think is best for tea because the film, especially when you don’t add milk, the film is quite beautiful. (I’m a scientist describing tea scum as beautiful). But when you add milk to tea, it is often not visually pleasing. It can look gross. The film that appears after adding milk is different from the tea film. It’s made of very different components. This is why, in my research, we couldn’t measure the resistance of the milk film because there’s too much oil and fat in it to be measured by our device; it caused too much slipping, essentially. So those two films are different.
Now that I know what it is, I like to see it. If you like the appearance, you don’t have to do anything to your daily practice.
If you don’t like the film, make black tea with lemon, and you won’t see it. There will still be a physically strengthened film there, but you won’t be able to see it. If you are making tea to have milk, put the water through a filter. If you’re living in a place where the water isn’t particularly hard, that shouldn’t matter too much, and you won’t have much of a film anyway. That’s all that really matters at that point.
There’s nothing harmful about it. The film doesn’t affect the flavor. It’s more visual than it is olfactory. It won’t affect the aroma and the taste of the tea. It’s just a quirk of drinking tea.
— Dan Bolton
Tea samplesRheometerLab samples were brewed to measure the breaking point of the thin film at the interface of air and black tea.
Episode 35 | Researchers once thought tea film was due to waxy substances in leaves released during steeping. That is not the case. The delicate film is an interfacial interaction of air, tea polyphenols, and calcium carbonate ions in water.
The Rainforest Alliance’s Director for South Asia, Dr. Madhuri Nanda explains that while sustainable farming ensures that agricultural practices do not negatively impact and degrade the environmental, social, and economic aspects of the surrounding ecosystem, the focus shifts in regenerative agriculture towards making the system better by adopting an ecosystem approach to enhance biodiversity and improving soil health through increased microbial activities that build resilient systems capable of withstanding adverse climatic scenarios.
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Rainforest Alliance’s Director for South Asia, Dr. Madhuri NandaMadhuri Nanda, Director South Asia with the Rainforest Alliance
Regenerative Agriculture: A Holistic Approach
Madhuri Nanda, Ph.D., lives in New Delhi where she has served since January as Director South Asia with the Rainforest Alliance. A researcher with a doctorate in environmental science, she has diverse expertise in sustainable agriculture that includes resource management, nutrient management, vulnerability assessments, and climate change mitigation. She is former head of strategic development for KBS Certification Services and a graduate of Delhi University.
Dan Bolton: Is there an accepted definition of regenerative agriculture?
Madhuri Nanda: The term regenerative agriculture may be somehow new, as it was coined in 1980s by the Rodale Institute, then disappeared and surfaced again from 2015. However, we need to keep in mind that the concept behind is not recent. It draws from the principles of agroecology and holistic ecosystem management, both at the farm and landscape level. We, at Rainforest Alliance, believe this is part of a broader umbrella of climate-smart agriculture. Hence, our standard includes many regenerative agriculture principles and practices, in addition to other key dimensions of sustainability for instance, traceability, living conditions, child labor, forced labor, etc. Taking an agroecology and integrated system management approach, regenerative agriculture aims to increase biodiversity, enhance ecosystem services, and increase agroecosystem resilience thus leading to resilient livelihoods.
Dan: How do best practices in regenerative agriculture differ from sustainable farming?
Madhuri: Sustainable farming ensures that the agricultural practices do not negatively impact and degrade the environmental, social, and economic aspects of the surrounding ecosystem. This is a journey to move from sustainable agriculture to regenerative agriculture, which is more of a natural progression where the focus shifts towards making the system better by adopting an ecosystem approach to enhance biodiversity, improve soil health through increased microbial activities in the soil, thereby building resilient systems that can withstand the adverse climatic scenarios. Hence, regenerative agriculture is a holistic approach accounting for all ecosystem services. At Rainforest Alliance, over more than 34 years, our sustainability standard has incorporated many of the principles of regenerative agriculture, such as soil health management (including composting and mulching), integrated pest management, biodiversity conservation, agroforestry, and a focus on climate-smart practices.
Dan: Will you discuss the Rainforest Alliance’s view of intensive farming and mono cropping common in tea?
Madhuri: Some tea producers have already innovated over the years and started intercropping with spices to diversify their produce from the estates. Hence, intensive farming is moving towards diverse intercropping in some cases, also to support greater revenues, in addition to tea tourism. The need for shade trees due to extreme climate conditions is bringing a shift towards agroforestry, too. Thus, we find that farmers are moving away from intensive farming as they already are aware of the deteriorating soil health of their farms and are willing to explore alternative solutions. Adopting our certification program brings these regenerative agriculture practices for building resilient farming systems in today’s world of changing climate.
Dan: What are the most pressing challenges facing the tea industry?
Madhuri: The tea industry in India and globally is grappling with significant issues that challenge its survival. Changing climate with untimely and unprecedented flooding and droughts coupled with increased pest infestations have led to significant crop loss. To add to this, supply chain disruptions due to pandemic, absenteeism, shortage of labor, increase the cost of production and unfavorable market conditions have contributed to loss of business for many key players. Further, the plight of tea smallholders that now contribute more than 50% of tea production in India is beyond comprehension given the limited resources at their disposal. We find those players who already had sustainability ingrained in their business practices, for instance fair wages, better life quality of workers, sound agricultural practices in their estates are resilient and better able to sustain themselves.
The tea sector in Bangladesh is expected to return to near pre-pandemic production levels after setbacks in 2020. Like neighboring Assam, Bangladesh experienced a spring drought, high temperatures, aggressive pests and the onslaught of the pandemic. Despite these challenges production through July is ahead of last year’s totals and estimated to reach 86 million kilos.
Caption: A monument known as the Tea Daughter at the entrance of Moulvibazar district at Srimangal, Bangladesh. Photo courtesy Faizi Tea Estate, credit: Shomoyeralo.com
Pluckers at Finlay Tea’s Consolidated Tea Plantations. Photo courtesy Mohammad Musa.
Tea Gardens Benefited from Timely Government Actions
By Dan Bolton
Mohammad Musa, manager at Finlay Tea’s Consolidated Tea Plantations in Habigonj, and Moulvibazar, Bangladesh, writes that “Plantation work never stopped during the Pandemic. Workers were kept isolated in the tea estates itself and there were many more safety programs. Government support was encouraging, which really enabled plantations to continue running of the tea estates activities safely during the pandemic.”
Cyrus Anushirvan Faizi, Executive Director at Faizi Tea Estate, reports that the first seven months of the year brought favorable weather.
“Tea production has been consistently increasing thanks to the favorable weather and initiatives undertaken by the [Bangladesh] Tea Board,” he writes. “The distribution of fertilizer at subsidized prices started in the gardens at the right time this year,” Faizi explains.
In spite of the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, data from the Bangladesh Tea Board shows the nation’s 167 large and small tea gardens produced 86.4 million kg of tea last year, exceeding the 75.9 million kg targeted. During the past 10 years annual production has increased from 60 million kilos to a 166-year record of 96 million kilos in 2019.
The International Tea Committee in London ranks Bangladesh 9th among the tea producing countries. The industry employs 100,000 permanent workers and 30,000 casual workers. There are approximately 5,000 small holders producing tea. Exports by value fell 5.7% to $3.2 million, according to World’s Top Exports which reports International Trade Center data.
Early this year the Bangladesh Tea Board projected tea production will reach 77.8 million kilos. Halfway through the harvest year growers are optimistic they will exceed that total. “About 51% of the target has already been produced in the first seven months,” writes Faizi.
In 2020 production was greatly hampered due to the pandemic, a severe drought and insect attacks. A nationwide lockdown was imposed by the government in March 2020 to curb the spread of COVID-19 resulting in a drop in crowds in hotels, restaurants, and tea shops as well as a precipitous decline in tea sales.
“However, even during the pandemic, the tea estates were fully staffed and running smoothly which helped the industry to meet its production target,” writes Faizi.
The online tea auction at Chattogram saw good volume recently as favorable weather brought increased yields after a difficult 2020. Prices at Sale 16 in Chittagong averaged $2.25 to $2.55 per kilo for leaf grade teas, dust grades use to make tea bags reached $3.42 per kilo. “Sale averages are still tolerable for the industry considering the COVID situation,” writes Mohammad Musa. Photo courtesy Faizi Tea Estate.
“Plantations are mostly in isolated from the city or localities,” explains Musa who oversees 8000 hectares of tea producing 12 million kilos annually. “Workers were kept isolated in the tea estates itself and there were many successful safety programs against the COVID at the tea estates. Plantation management arranged harvesting on daily basis by observing all safety measures for the workers against the COVID and continue to make sure that workers wear masks, wash hands before and after starting the work,” he writes. Safe distances were enforced during leaf weighing and in the factories all sorts of safety precautions were strictly maintained and continued manufacturing of tea, writes Musa.
Musa writes that “logistic and supplies were interrupted during the pandemic though the plantation management somehow managed timely payments for the workers. Tea plantation really faced acute difficulties about the materials for the estates day-to-day activates.”
Masks were mandatory at Finlay Tea, workers wash frequently and keep a safe distance during leaf weighing. Factory workers were strictly monitored.
Tea production was also hampered by unfavorable weather and insect attacks during the first five months of the 2021, resulting in a 10% decrease compared to the previous year.
Musa writes that “one of the main adversities is drought. During the past couple of years tea plantations in Bangladesh experienced the equivalent of six months of rain less days every year.”
“This tropical region climate is already hot, sometimes it goes beyond tolerance for the tea bushes,” he explains. “To tackle this situation most plantations in Bangladesh are using shade trees to block at least 40% of sunlight over the tea bushes. During the drought plantations used irrigation systems ( mostly overhead sprinkler irrigation systems of various sizes). These irrigation sets were mostly used with the perennial water. Plantations also use mulching to reduce evaporation of water from the soil. Some are using subsoil watering to minimize damage,” writes Musa.
Tea producers in Bangladesh are now at a crossroads, according to Faizi. Improving their marketing performance in both the domestic and export markets has become crucial for survival and growth, he writes.
“Old saplings have been removed and new saplings have been planted. The tea planters have increased the scope of tea cultivation by making new investments,” writes Faizi, adding “If the trend of increasing production continues like this time, then there will be no need to import tea in large quantities.”
“The tea sector has lost its name and fame in recent years, but in light of such challenges, strategies have been adopted in the coming year to meet the demand for tea in the domestic as well as global market.”
— Cyrus Anushirvan Faizi
Faizi Tea Estate, Bangladesh
Faizi Tea Estate
Tea was first sowed in 2015 at the Faizi Tea Estate in Kulaura, a small village in Moulvibazar District in Sylhet, not far from where the first commercial tea garden was established in 1855 at Malinchhara Tea Estate.
Faizi, the garden’s executive director, is a lawyer and consultant with a degree from the University of London. He writes that “tea is a potential export product of the country with high demand abroad. There’s a lot that can be done for the development of the tea industry and the welfare of tea workers. The production will increase if the necessary support is provided, exchanging views with entrepreneurs in the tea industry.”
Faizi explains that “the tea industry has undergone a number of changes in the last decade. The government and tea planters have taken a number of steps to achieve record production in tea (2019). The government announced a roadmap in 2016 for the development of the tea sector, setting a production target of 140 million kilos annually by 2025.”
He writes that “The tea industry is currently making a significant contribution to the country’s economy through export earnings, contributing to a trade balance as well as generating employment. New tea estates have been established in new areas where the climate is suitable for tea plantations. Large corporate groups have begun investing in tea plantations in response to the rise in consumer demand. Bringing large corporate groups into tea farming is helping to increase production, as well as introducing more knowledge and technology. “
— Dan Bolton
Bangladesh is famous for its Seven Layered Tea also known as Seven Colored Tea. The recipe is a secret. Every year tourists visit the city of Srimangal in Moulvibazar just to taste this tea paying from 70 to 100 Taka ($1) a glass.
Seven layered tea
Bangladesh is surrounded on three sides by India and shares a border with Myanmar. Source: Banglapedia
