The 10th Edition scheduled for Aug. 27-30, 2021 at the Beijing Exhibition Center in Beijing, China has been postponed in a city-wide effort to contain the spread of the coronavirus.
The strong alliances and synergies resulting from this close cooperation with producing regions makes the popular exposition a benchmark in northern China by which other shows are measured. Attendees are highly qualified tea industry professionals and large-volume buyers including international representatives. A diverse show floor that includes every type of tea, plus processing and packaging machinery leads to many transactions and remarkable results.
The past nine years the Expo was co-organized by Pu’er city in Yunnan province, Xinyang city in Henan province, Lu’an city in Anhui province, Lincang city in Yunnan province, Huangshan city in Anhui province, Zunyi city in Guizhou province, Wuzhou city in Guangxi province, Xianyang city in Shanxi province, and Yiyang city in Hunan province, respectively.
The expo, which is approved by the Ministry of Commerce in China, is organized by the China Tea Marketing Association and the People’s Government of Xicheng District in Beijing.
Since 2012 the event has featured more than 3,000 exhibiting companies (90% are first-line brands), more than 1,000 media representatives generated nearly 30 million online searches. Visitors total 620,000, including 220,000 professional buyers. Exhibitors report a total of 7,282 projects, with turnover of RMB 5.9 billion. Tea delegations at the event are from a dozen countries including India, Sri Lanka, Kenya, Australia, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, Germany, Italy, and Argentina.
The expo annually attracts the best-known tea companies and tea brands in China. The 2021 exhibition covers 26,000 sq. meters with 600 companies participating. Brands include Zhejiang Tea Group, Xiangcha Group, Sichuan Tea Group, Dayi Group, Wuyi Star, Zhuyeqing, Zhang Yiyuan and Wu Yutai.
Education sessions spread tea knowledge and expose attendees to tea culture by showcasing local customs and heritage. A variety of tea cultural activities attract young and fashionable consumers seeking to better understand the tea industry.
Sessions also cover topics of interest to caterers, resort, and hotels operators, tea preparation and proper use of utensils, advice on selecting and properly utilizing water with an introduction to new style tea beverages. Many cross-border tea events are planned, revealing new trends that drive consumption.
The Beijing International Tea Expo has it all: popularity, extensive publicity, high standards, strong professionalism, a broad range of exhibition categories, international buyers, and good service.
A rigid definition of what makes tea special has eluded the industry. Professionals understand excellence in specific styles. For example, after 45 years of competitions there is consensus on the qualities that make an outstanding dong ding oolong as judged by the Lugu Tea Farmers’ Association in Taiwan. In France, the AVPA has demonstrated skill in determining the gastronomic qualities in tea that please the local palate. The International Specialty Tea Association posts a set of universal standards such as pluck and leaf quality. Consumers mainly differentiate by price. This week the European Speciality Tea Association announced a definition that is more aspirational than dogmatic. ESTA Executive Director David Veal explains how the association adopted this approach and why it will prove helpful.
David Veal, Executive Director of the European Speciality Tea Association on what makes specialty tea special. A field of tea in Japan
A New Definition of Specialty Tea
Aspiring to attain excellence in all aspects of tea processing and brewing from the bush to the cup
Dan Bolton – David, the European Tea Society that evolved into the European Speciality Tea Association did so initially without delineating specialty tea from the great sea of commodity offerings. That task is now complete. Will you share with listeners your process in defining the specialty tea segment?
David Veal – Three years ago, we didn’t really have a definition. [Association President] Nigel Melican had this definition in his head, but he’d never really put it down on paper. I’d been through the whole journey with the specialty coffee association of Europe. So, between us, we just lay down a fairly short definition that was open to people with different views in the industry to disagree.
We decided early on this year to set up a working group of very experienced tea professionals to really look at it and we covered a lot of ground.
Our starting point was to ask: Are we ever, ever, going to get a universally agreed definition of specialty which everybody will agree with? The answer, of course, is no, we weren’t going to do that. So, knowing that we weren’t going to achieve perfection, we looked at it from a different angle.
We still call it a definition because that has impact, but really it’s more of a description, an attempt to broaden understanding a bit and bring in words and descriptions and ideas and concepts that most people in the industry would buy into – knowing that not everybody would be happy with every part of it.
Dan – Will you summarize for listeners the fundamental concepts captured in the definition’s key phrase: “Aspiring to excellence in all aspects of tea processing and brewing from the bush the cup.”
David – We came up with a general statement that we feel is a fairly holistic view, about speciality in terms of it being a product, in terms of it being, you know the passion for excellence, the taking care at every step. Also, not forgetting the most important part is the actual sensory experience in the cup. It speaks to the education that we’ve indulged in to try and help the consumer understand more about what they’re drinking.
That indefinable subjectivity, the conceptual side of it, the community side of it, the aspirational side with the point that it is a movement as well. Speciality tea is something that some people get, and some people don’t get.
Merging all of this together we came up with a description that we feel will never be perfect for everybody, but it’s fairly close.
Dan –How will this definition make a difference?
David – Is it enforceable? No, but we’ve very firmly nailed our colors to the mast here. This isn’t just the work of the working group, it’s been endorsed by the whole of the board of European specialists, the association, and other peers as well. If you look at those parameters that we’ve actually put into the definition. A speciality tea would have to fit into all of those, for most people, I believe, speciality would have to fit into those parameters. But a tea that fits into those parameters isn’t necessarily a speciality.
Dan – Will you expand on the definition’s reference to “delicate and unique hand-crafted teas which can be categorized as speciality tea”? How does “hand-crafted” differ from “handmade” tea? Please also clarify the role of machines in processing specialty teas.
Nigel Melican [Association President] – “Hand-made” is an oft used descriptor more aspirational than actual, If it is applied in a strictly literal sense it potentially allows the inclusion of an appallingly bad tea made solely by hand while excluding a superb machine-made tea.
Personally, I have worked with a few CTC (cut, tear, curl) teas that I include as “Specialty” – due to their stunning make, bloom, grade, consistency, density – stunning to the senses even before cupping them: Rare occasional examples from a few factories in Rwanda and Mt. Kenya. Stunning enough to run shivers down my back in anticipation: but definitely not hand-made – no hand alone could produce that degree of excellence in a CTC tea. Tell me that an expensive “hand-made” Swiss watch is made without machinery – lathes, diamond drills and saws, precision jigs, CNC cutting equipment – and then I will agree to exclude machinery from the “hand-making” of tea.
Similarly, the use of novel selective plucking machinery that exceeds the leaf quality of hand plucking, such as now operating in the US to produce some supreme specialty teas would, if we use the term “hand made” too literally, exclude this excellent mechanically plucked teas from the specialty tea market.
I believe handmade is well understood by consumers to mean hand-crafted, using relevant tools of the trade: to the watchmaker his lathe and drill – to a tea maker his rolling machine and dryer. If the result is supreme excellence then it counts as a specialty, however, achieved.
For all these reasons the ESTA definition uses the term hand-crafted, not hand-made – and, to further distinguish specialty tea from commodity tea we place emphasis on attaining tea excellence from bush to cup.
Dan –The coffee industry successfully arrived at a definition of specialty leading to consumer enthusiasm that ultimately benefitted growers, but it took more than 20 years to establish the protocols that differentiate the highest quality coffees from commodity coffee.
David – I think we’re quite a long way behind the curve compared with the coffee industry. We haven’t achieved the penetration of education and level of understanding to consumers that the coffee industry does. People don’t have the correct understanding to be able to value atea as well as they do coffee nowadays. But it will follow without a doubt.
We don’t mention pricing. It’s inherent in what we believe that if we can help improve the quality that’s coming into consuming countries of specialty, then prices will go up. And hopefully, a lot of that extra margin will go back down the line to give people a better living and a better reward for putting in their love, care, passion, hard work, sweat, perspiration to make better tea.
We know that we’re up against the big, big guys, the multi-nationals, the centuries-old economic model, that drives the price down, and therefore quality with it. You have to believe that if you improve the quality and give the consumer a better experience that will give the producer a better price. We’re also aware speciality will be 5% to 10% to the market, maximum, maximum. But as it improves we’ll pull along other parts of the industry.
I had a really good conversation with a well-respected, experienced person who worked for so many of the big companies over here. He told me the other day that he believes that specialty will be the savior of the tea industry. As you can imagine, I quite like hearing that.
Editor’s note:Updated to clarify the use of mechanical devices in producing specialty tea.
The Definition
European Speciality Tea Association (ESTA) values the science and art of tea making at every level. We value the skill, dedication and care which has been applied to create delicate and unique hand-crafted teas which can be categorized as speciality tea.
We support the speciality tea industry in all aspects of tea production from bush to cup and recognise the farmers who are aspiring to attain excellence.
We also value the following factors which we believe help contribute to being able to distinguish speciality teas from commodity teas. These can include but are not limited to:
The known supplier, the known farm, the known location, the known production dates, the known processing method.
Speciality tea can also be defined by the quality of the five criteria below:
The dry leaf
The aroma of the dry leaf
The colour and clarity of the liquor
The flavour and mouthfeel of the liquor
The appearance and aroma of the wet leaf
At ESTA we also support the use of biodegradable and environmentally friendly packaging because this is an integral part of the tea industry’s future.
We believe that the consumer needs to be inspired from the moment they enjoy the aroma, liquor and taste of the tea and can celebrate in the plant’s personality, the origin of the tea, the care that has been taken in the processing and brewing of it; this being a speciality moment.
European Speciality Tea Association joins in growing an inspirational community, supporting the movement which promotes speciality tea and improving the quality of tea consumed. Speciality tea exists through the dedication of people at all levels of the tea value chain. We respect and support the person plucking the leaves, the person producing the tea to the consumer brewing the tea. Each person who touches the tea until it is finally sipped can affect the final cup and our aim is to support this and share knowledge that will improve the tea industry.
European Specialty Tea Association strives to value, support and promote the people who have this dedication and who are involved and passionate in providing perfection in every cup.
We value all of the above when considering what is speciality tea and we welcome like-minded people and or affiliates to join us in our quest for tea excellence at every level.
In summary ESTA supports and promotes speciality tea (Camellia sinensis), the community and the movement. We also support the botanical sector as an inclusive part of our organization due to its extensive synergy within the tea industry and with tea lovers and professionals.
We are a dynamic organization, we are aspirational for speciality tea, and we aim to have a positive impact on the wellbeing of all sectors of the tea industry.
The European Speciality Tea Association
European Speciality Tea Association is an inclusive organisation whose mission is to create and inspire excellence in the speciality tea community through innovation, research, education and communication.
With members from over 28 countries representing all parts of the tea supply chain from producers to tea baristas, European Speciality Tea Association is helping to generate a vibrant speciality tea community across the world and is dedicated to promoting great quality tea in all of its forms to create a new sensory excitement amongst tea drinkers. You can join by emailing us at [email protected]
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.
La Gravitea displays a large selection of teapots from around the world. Photos courtesy Avinash Dugar.
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 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.
Jorhat Tea e-Marketplace in Assam, India is the nexus of five major tea-growing districts with annual output of more than 200 million kg,
Tea Day e-Auction Highlights Boutique Teas
Buyers seeking quick turn-around of fresh tea from specialty and smallholder gardens in India bid record prices at a the first International Tea Day auction, the latest of 1.3 million kilos of tea traded since June 2020. All teas on offer were plucked May 21.
The e-Marketplace at Jorhat is cloud-based making it accessible to buyers around the world.
There are currently six auction centers in physical locations, each run by a separate committee which acts as the auction organizer, all sharing an electronic auction system pioneered by the Tea Board of India. About 500 million kg of tea out of India’s annual estimated at 1,350.
“We created India’s first e-marketplace for buying and selling bulk tea. Along similar lines, we want to develop an international e-marketplace where foreign buyers can directly buy fresh tea from the gardens in the shortest possible time with complete transparency” says mjunction managing director Vinaya Varma.
Vinaya Varma
The International Tea Day Special Auction on June 21 was organized by mjunction Services, India’s largest B2B e-commerce company. The e-Marketplace launched last year amidst the lockdown. India offers a wide bouquet of teas across the year and ships regularly to more than 90 countries. At a webinar on the occasion of International Day, Indian Tea Association Chairman Vivek Goenka said that India has set an export target of 300 million kg by 2023 — a 20% increase by next 2-3 years.
Mjunction is an equal joint venture of Tata Steel and SAIL (the Steel Authority of India), is India’s largest B2B e-commerce company and a leading e-marketplace for steel in the world. Since inception in 2001, mjunction has e-transacted over INRs 1,053,663 crore ($142 billion) on its various e-platforms (an Indian crore is currently valued at $135,000 USD).
Varma said there is a lot of excitement amongst stakeholders on the teas offered in the special auction and have got tremendous response and fetched some record prices. “More than 93% of the total teas on offer got sold. Buyers had logged in from Assam, West Bengal, Delhi, Gujarat, and Rajasthan,” he said.
Nilesh Divekar of Shangrila Enterprise, who purchased Pabhojan Orthodox at Rs 4,000 per kg, said he appreciates the efforts of the mjunction team to provide such a platform where best of the teas are available fresh and in small quantities without any hassles.
Most of the best marks of Upper Assam like Hookhmol, Lankashi, Diroibam, Aideobari Premium, Muktabari, Rungliting Tea Estate, Narayanpur Panbarry, Durgapur, Tirual, Arin, Kathonibari, Friends Tea and Pabhojan participated.
The Pabhojan Tea Estate orthodox tea pictured above brought a record INRs 4000 ($54 per kilo)
Pabhojan Orthodox tea was sold at a record price of INRs 4,000 per kg. Diroibam Speciality Green tea was sold at INRs 1000 per kg, and a Hookhmol CTC tea fetched INRs 510 per kg – also record prices in their respective categories.
Rakhi Dutta Saikia of Pabhojan Organic Tea Estate lauded mjunction’s efforts on the occasion. “I am very happy that Pabhojan has fetched a record price, and hope the mjunction platform continues the good work,” she said.
Dr. Nazrana Ahmed of Diroibam Tea Estate, whose Green Tea was sold at INRs 1,000 per kg, said, “Today’s special auction is of special significance to us, as we have received the highest bid for our Specialty Green Teas. We are happy with the professional approach of the mjunction team and the trust reposed on the platform by the buyers.”
He said the company is trying to make small tea growers’ tea available to the connoisseurs of tea worldwide.
“Our Jorhat office is in constant touch with the small tea growers segment. There is a lot of interest from STG to be part of our platform.
We are very well aware of their struggle and contribution to the tea industry in Assam as well as the rest of the country. “mjunction is also very well aware that many of these small tea growers are producing some of the finest handcrafted tea in the country. Some of the tea is also organic and there is a huge demand in the world market for such tea” he said.
He said in one year, it has been able to bring a lot of buyers and sellers who have been outside the purview of auctions till now. There are many first-time tea entrepreneurs who are now associated with our platform.
“We hold weekly sales. Our first sale was on June 1, 2020 and since then we have not dropped a single weekly sale. During the past year the e-Marketplace connected with hundreds of sellers and buyers across the country, fetched some record prices and received offerings of more than 1.3 million kg of tea from Assam, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh. Nearly 300 stakeholders, consisting of major tea buyers and sellers, are registered in this tea e-marketplace.
“The founding principles and processes of our e-marketplace and Tea Board are different, so a comparison is not really possible,” he said.
The event organized by mjunction elicited positive response from buyers and sellers alike. Kamal Sharma and Pradeep Sharma, Directors of Tea World who purchased Hookhmol CTC from the platform at INRs 510 per kg, said, “With shorter cycle time, teas sold on the mjunction platform are the freshest. We are pleased to have bagged Hookhmol. We have had our own packet with brand name Shree Mangalam since 2002, and we are committed to give our customers the best of Assam tea.”
“While the pandemic hit the industry adversely, it has also given us a chance to let go of inefficient and archaic systems. If we look around in the last one year, the adoption of technology and digital platforms has been wide, deep and rapid. Similarly, the industry leaders must think of ways to include technology in plantation, manufacturing, trading etc while focussing on delivering quality produce.
“I am optimistic about the Indian tea industry picking up using new-age processes and technologies,” he said.
“Many specialty tea producers from North East India have approached our Jorhat office for inclusion. We are going to have separate catalogues for specialty teas and we are expanding our buyer base of Speciality teas” he said.
He said the company will shortly be introducing Buyer and Seller Finance. Again this will be a first of its kind in the industry, as this shall be provided through the platform in a transparent manner. “We are also planning a B2B bulk packet platform, where single-origin and other packeteers may directly sell to retailers across the country, without intermediaries,” he added.
The company is focused on bringing down the sales cycle-time and making freshly produced tea available in the market, directly from the producing region in the shortest possible time. “We want to make the supply-chain efficient, and ease up the working capital burden of the stakeholders,” Varma added.
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
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.
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 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
“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.”
