Tea News for the week ending July 29
| Survey: Gen Z Describes Post-COVID Yearning for Quieter Activities
| Retail Frontline Workers Exhausted and Underappreciated
| India’s Tea Employment Plateau
| PLUS Emilie Jackson, founder of Emilie’s French Teas in Kansas City, Missouri, discusses the ongoing evolution of specialty retail at independent shops and tearooms.
Caption: Emilie (Potier) Jackson
Since its founding as a competition to showcase agricultural products, AVPA has expanded its services to include tasting workshops, technical support, and staff training for distributors.
Kesnia Hleap manages communication and development for Paris-based AVPA (Agency for the Valorization of Agricultural Product) a non-governmental, non-profit organization that judges edible oils, chocolate, coffee roasted at origin, and teas. Beyond the great classical origins (China, Japan, India, Sri Lanka …) the tea competition encourages consumers to discover new producers in Africa, Latin America, Southeast Asia and even Europe. A veteran marketer, Ksenia discusses the many benefits of participation.
Dan Bolton: Welcome to the Tea Biz podcast. How does AVPA, and specifically its Teas of the World Contest, benefit the tea industry?
Ksenia Hleap: AVPA exists now for 20 years. We created this contest to help the producers since the very first year. This will be our fifth edition of the tea contest. We have teas from all over the world, not only monovarietal teas [Camellia sinensis] but also herbal teas, infusions, and blends. AVPA enables producers to compete with the best from different countries and to obtain feedback from a very professional French-speaking jury. So, each time they enter and for every tea entered, producers have access to comparative jury scores and feedback. If they win the medal or not, they will have this possibility.
Dan: AVPA seeks to elevate awareness of tea producers globally, not just in France although French gastronomy is the framework by which judgments are made. Will you talk a little bit about AVPA’s recent initiatives such as the effort to increase participation by African producers and efforts to draw attention to European tea producers?
Ksenia: The contest is to inform the producer that we exist and to help recognize their work done. With the AVPA medal, producers receive recognition from an international organization that confirms the excellence of their products and reassures their standing in the competitive environment.
What we are doing after the contest for the producers, if they need our help, is to do help with marketing or strategy decisions. Our jury members are international consultants in the tea industry, tea experts. They can help the producers in Africa or Latin American countries for sure. We are always in touch, we are trying to be in touch with the cooperatives or tea associations in these countries. We explain why it is important to help the producers from PROM Peru for example and the Rooibos Council in South Africa.
The association helps not only tea producers but also coffee and chocolate producers to send the samples for the competition and after the competition to find the distributors.
The medal not only opens new markets – most important, it’s recognition of the producer’s efforts in the local market. It’s recognition for work well done.
Dan: AVPA then provides marketing support to contestants long after the awards ceremony?
Ksenia: AVPA support doesn’t end with the award ceremony. Once the contest ends, the producers are free to reproduce the medal on their packaging. But unfortunately, not every producer understands why they need to do this. So, we have some videos to explain. We scheduled zoom meetings with the winners after the contest and other resources describe at this link “How to use the Medal.”
I am an experienced marketer so I explain to the producers how they can use their medal not only on the packaging but in their communication strategy which is very important. Here is a helpful video on How to Use AVPA Medals.
Medals are a fantastic commercial instrument. For example, if producers need to apply for credit at the bank to buy new machines or funds to finance an expansion, it is very, very helpful to explain that they have a diploma and are recognized in Paris by an international tea contest. It is a reassurance to clientele during ongoing negotiations. It supports support favorable decision-making and improves the producer’s prospects.
Dan: You must love tea; will you share your preferences?
Ksenia: I love tea. Frankly, I prefer different herbal teas because, in my childhood, I used to drink a lot of herbal teas, but now with five years of experience at AVPA my passion is to taste the different teas from different countries. To find out new origins and tastes. I’m always looking for something very original, authentic.
Contest winners are announced in October. Winning brands receive a diploma and may display the award on their packaging.
2021 Winners (Camellia Sinensis)
2021 Winners (Herbal Infusions)
Monovarietal teas are evaluated by a jury chaired by Carine Baudry an expert in sensory analysis and founder of Quintessence.
Recognition, professional education programs, and contests build self-esteem and economic success that directs a larger share of the value chain to the country of origin. “This is why we cling to local transformation of agricultural products so that producers benefit from the pursuit of excellence,” says AVPA President Philippe Juglar. Read more…
Tea competitions that “speak” for their respective markets are great for the industry. In the tea lands, skilled growers and tea makers can infinitely adjust their pluck, style, grade, and sort for export – but first, they must understand market preferences. In France AVPA judges companies from around the world for excellence “based on gastronomic rather than standardized refereeing.”
Read more…
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By Jessica Natale Woollard
I opened the white self-locking pouch and shook chopped green tea leaves into my hand.
Some of the leaves were loose, others frozen together in small nuggets. I let the ice crystals melt in my hand until only the leaves remained.
They were shades of bright green, like finely sliced cilantro or parsley. They were fresh. Real. Raw.
Caption: Millennia Tea on display in the frozen food aisle of a Canadian grocery store. Photos courtesy of Millennia Tea.
Tea is not only a leaf to be steeped; tea is food.
That belief led a few dreamers in the small province of New Brunswick in Canada to create what is likely the world’s first raw, frozen tea.
Millennia Tea takes freshly picked tea leaves, and washes and flash-freezes them, taking them from farm to frozen in hours. Rich in antioxidants, the frozen leaves are ready-to-consume as steeped tea or added to smoothies, stews, and soups.
In June the Retail Council of Canada awarded Millennia Tea a Grand Prix for Best New Product in the Country, in the over-the-counter healthcare category.
Jessica Natale Woollard: You can imagine my delight when, looking through the frozen fruit section in my grocery store, I saw Millennia green tea right there by the strawberries, blueberries, and cherries. Why is that placement among frozen fruits a good fit for Millennia Tea?
Tracy Bell: We believe the mighty plant should be considered food. Instead of picking the leaves and then withering and processing them, like your conventional dried teas, we work with farmers to pick those same organic tea leaves, and then we treat them just like your frozen blueberries and strawberries. We harvest them and then we wash and freeze them on the same day, giving consumers the opportunity to enjoy tea in its most real, raw, and naturally powerful format.
Jessica: How did you get that placement in a grocery store, in the frozen fruit section?
Tracy: Our challenge is we’re asking consumers to imagine the most-consumed beverage in the world after water in a way they’ve never considered before: raw, fresh.
To say, “go find us in grocery” is already confusing.
When we met with our retail partners, we explained that consumers will be putting these raw tea leaves in their smoothies. We asked: can you put us with the other ingredients people buy to make or boost a smoothie?
And that’s how we ended up in the frozen fruits and berries section.
Jessica: Can you tell us about the conception of the idea to sell raw, frozen tea leaves and how it’s evolved into Millennia Tea?
Tracy: A few years ago we had a health scare in our family. It got us looking into things we hadn’t previously considered, such as the impact of free radical damage on our bodies. Tea kept coming up in our research, how good tea and matcha are for neutralizing free radicals and protecting cells from damage and disease.
After doing our research, we learned that EGCG antioxidants are highest in the tea plant in the hours immediately after the leaves are picked. We tried to get our hands on fresh tea leaves, calling tea plantations all over the world to track them down. But we couldn’t get it anywhere.
So we set out to create a new category of tea to be able to enjoy tea leaves in their purest freshest form. The proprietary process we developed with our partners became wash and flash freeze just like other frozen superfoods.
Jessica: What happens to those health benefits when fresh tea is frozen?
Tracy: Our hypothesis was that if we kept the tea real and raw, then that EGCG antioxidant, which in the tea industry is known as the “darling of polyphenols,” would be safeguarded at its highest levels.
When we got our hands on freshly frozen tea leaves, we sent samples in unmarked baggies to a third-party lab that is experienced in testing catechins in tea plants.
Our hypothesis was proven correct: it was true that the antioxidant was preserved in its maximum format in the fresh, frozen leaves. We’ve gone on to patent that process, and our patent is called the “process for maximizing EGCG antioxidants in tea leaves.”
Because our leaves are really real and raw, they’re just getting going on that first infusion. In lab studies, the first infusion is great, but it’s the second infusion that we actually spike in the antioxidants. They stay high on the third infusion, and then start to come down from there.
Jessica: How important is taste in the selection of leaves and preparation and development of Millennia Tea?
Tracy: Priority number one for us is to find the regions that are known for producing the plants that have high levels of antioxidants and that the right terroir and growing regions for producing really quality tea leaves.
We’re like green tea, but we don’t have that astringency that you often get at the back of the mouth with green tea. We’re light.
Something we found is that a lot of folks know they should drink green tea because it’s good for them, but the barrier is the bitterness. We’ve been able to bridge the gap, if you will, for them to get into tea.
If you serve us in recipes or in smoothies we act more like spinach or kale in the sense that you don’t notice the taste of the product in the smoothie, but you get that hit of energy and antioxidants you’d expect.
if you want to really maximize the benefit, have a cup of tea today, and then take the leaves and throw them in omelets, bone broth, soups, sauces, stews, or smoothies the next day.
Millennia Tea is available in Canadian grocery stores across the country. Learn more about Millennia Tea.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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You have been called to tea — as a tea sommelier, a blender, a farmer, or a small business owner.
You are an expert in your field. And because of that expertise, people want to learn from you.
Part of being a tea professional is imparting your knowledge to others, teaching the ways of tea, the history, the benefits, and the beauty of this ancient plant.
More than just being called to tea, you are called to educate about tea.
Are you ready to teach?
Caption: Suzette Hammond, founder of Chicago-based Being Tea tea school prepares tea for an online class.
A tea educator with more than 20 years of experience, Suzette Hammond — or Sooz — recognized a gap in tea training. Tea professionals, she realized, are not taught how to teach about tea, how to deliver meaningful programs in groups of all sizes, online or in person.
To fill that gap in the industry, she developed an eight-month professional teacher training course for tea professionals, offered through her Chicago-based tea school, Being Tea.
By Jessica Natale Woollard
Jessica: Can you tell us about a few people who’ve taken your program and how they’re using what they’ve learned to improve their tea business?
Sooz Hammond: It’s really special to see how folks are using this in very unique ways.
One of our students, Nicole Wilson, the founder of Tea for Me Please, recently published a tea recipe book. When she was developing that book, she told me she poured a lot of what she learned in Being Tea’s teacher-training program into that book in terms of her approach to teaching people how to make the recipes. She thought about accessibility, language, and structure. That was really inspiring cause to me because as a teacher, my framework is classes and workshops. But I realized that that’s not everyone’s format. Nicole’s main format is writing. It was amazing to see how she translated what she learned in the Being Tea program into writing.
See: The Tea Recipe Book by Nicole Wilson
Jessica: You mentioned small business owners are a large percentage of your students. Can you share the story of a small business owner who’s taken the teacher-training program?
Sooz: One student who comes to mind is Tehmeena Manji, who goes by the name Tea, which is really cute. She’s the founder of Muthaiga Tea Company in Nairobi, Kenya. She came to the program as a certified tea sommelier, one of the first in East Africa. She has a really deep tea background, a lot of it in field research and understanding tea cultivation.
I remember her saying to me that when she was getting started, it hadn’t occurred to her how important education would be, how in order to actually sell the tea, to move the tea, she would have to train people.
During the program, I’d see her make these connections. Because we’d have a session together, and then she’d train people through her work. She was applying her learning in real-time, and she was excited about that.
Jessica: You spent part of your career training tea professionals in a business setting. From that experience, you’ve seen all the different ways teaching moments can happen — one-on-one in a shop, in front of a group at a conference, in an online event, or even perhaps a media interview. How does the curriculum of Being Tea’s teacher training program reflect the different environments where education happens?
Sooz: One of the questions I’ve had from people who are interested in the teacher-training program is, what percentage of this program focuses on technical skills and logistics, and what percentage focuses on soft skills?
A very large percentage of this program is soft skills, in other words how we relate person to person. Even the logistical and technical component of the program, like classroom management, is taught through the lens of how we relate to people.
The first part of the program looks at what calls you to this work. We examine what we think a teacher should be, and what we think an educator should be.
Then we get into adult learning theory, experiential learning theory, and the building blocks of creating an engaging workshop or engaged program with somebody. We look at the environment, the room, the space, what happens when people step into that room? How do we handle the energy in the room as we’re teaching?
Then in the middle of the program, we transition to looking at some of those more technical and logistical components like time and lesson plan development. We look at logistics, and how you scale up or scale down a program depending on the groups that you have. We look at teaching online, teaching for different sized audiences and spaces. It all fits in with what we’ve been covering so far, keeping in mind the best ways that people are going to learn a very sensory subject like tea.
Sooz: One of my favorite tea people in the whole world is Donna Fellman who developed the World Tea Academy. She also developed a large portion of the program that’s taught for the Specialty Tea Institute. She’s retired now from teaching.
She’s someone who had a background in education herself, and I really loved the presence that she had in front of people. She was so comfortable and at ease in that moment in front of a group of people. It didn’t seem that there was a boundary between her and the classroom.
When you’re teaching in front of a large group, you wonder, how do you maintain a sense of intimacy? She could. I loved watching her in front of a group. It made me realize that you can bring that same quality of self to a small experience and to a big one. I think of Donna a lot when I’m teaching.
Jessica: Self-reflection is an essential component of self-improvement, which is why reflections are part of the Being Tea teacher-training program. Sooz, you mentioned your self-reflection on one-on-one interactions helped shift your view of those very private moments in teaching. Those moments are very private and very powerful.
Sooz: I initially didn’t think I would do much private teaching through Being Tea. But then when I looked at a lot of my own learning background, I realized I really do enjoy one-on-one work. I’ve had private yoga classes, private acupuncture, and private movement therapy. I really enjoy it when it’s just me and the teacher; I learn in a different way.
Now I do versions of the teacher-training program where I am working with somebody one-on-one.
So I ask my students to consider that. Reflect on your own experience of when you have benefitted from a one-on-one relationship with somebody who’s teaching you something. Consider how you can channel it into your experience when you’re sharing tea with somebody.
Learn more about Being Tea’s teacher training program.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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In Japan, it’s called genmaicha; in Korea, hyeonmi-cha. Tea Horse, a company based in Thunder Bay, Ont., brings you Canada’s version of tea blended with rice: manoomincha.
Caption: Marc Bohémier (l) and Denise Atkinson, co-founders of Tea Horse, pose in a manoomin patch in The Pas, Manitoba. All photos courtesy of Tea Horse.
Tea Horse co-founders Denise Atkinson and Marc Bohémier blend their teas with Canadian wild rice, called manoomin in Atkinson’s Indigenous language.
They developed a proprietary process to roast the wild rice, blending it with teas imported from Japan and elsewhere in Asia. The duo has launched four manoomin blends, one of which is sold through Canadian tea giant DAVIDsTEA.
A new chai blend is in development.
The husband-and-wife team, based in Thunder Bay, Ontario, joined us on Tea Biz to chat about their Indigenous Canadian version of rice tea.
By Jessica Natale Woollard
Inspired by Japanese genmaicha and other rice teas, Tea Horse blends tea with Canadian wild rice known as manoomin in the Ojibwe language.
Jessica: You have created a uniquely Canadian blend of tea. Why did you choose wild rice as an inclusion in your tea blends?
Denise Atkinson: I’m of Obijwe heritage, Anishinaabe,* from Red Rock Indian Band. Wild rice is called “manoomin” in my language. It’s been a big part of the Anishinaabeg culture forever, for time immemorial.
I’m somebody who always drank genmaicha for breakfast. I received a sample from a company, and it looked like it was blended with wild rice. I looked at Marc and said: we should try infusing manoomin as a tea, like a Canadian Indigenous version of genmaicha. We did some research and development, blended it with green tea, and voilà, we got this manoomincha.
We thought, let’s show people the versatility of this beautiful Indigenous grain.
The Ojibwe are an Indigenous people in Canada and the United States, who are part of the Anishinaabe cultural group. Their traditional territories extend from the Great Lakes.
Tea Horse is certified with the Canadian Council for Aboriginal Business.
Jessica: How did you come to develop your proprietary roasting process?
Marc Bohémier: I consulted with people in the coffee industry, the grain malting industry, and even the kettle corn industry. I developed a process to roast the wild rice that’s an amalgam of the different inputs I got. We can’t say more than that; the process is our secret.
Jessica: Do the Anishinaabeg have a history of any tea-like beverages?
Denise: I grew up in a traditional land-based home with my maternal grandparents. My grandmother was a trapper and a hunter and could not speak English; she only spoke her language, Ojibwe.
She always has a pot of tea on. When we would go blueberry picking, she would pick wintergreen, which is in the mossy area of the blueberry patch. She would make Labrador tea and cedar tea for my grandpa when he had bronchial issues. We used a lot of roots and leaves, twigs, tamarack twigs. It is quite large in the Ojibwe culture to infuse berries, leaves, twigs, and roots.
Marc: A lot of people don’t realize when the Europeans first came to places like northern Canada and the northern US, the Anishinaabeg would give them cedar tea to counteract the effects of scurvy because it’s high in vitamin C.
Jessica: Describe the taste of your manoomincha.
Denise: Manoomincha, our original blend, is very grassy and marine because we use Japanese green tea, and then we blend it with our roasted, kind of earthy-flavored roasted manoomin.
We have manoomincha dark, which is blended with hojicha, a combination of roasted green tea and roasted manoomin. It has a very rich, robust flavor.
We also have something called manoominabo, which in English means “wild rice juice.” It’s a tisane, so it is just the roasted manoomin that you infuse to make a beautiful caffeine-free tisane. It’s very comforting with a brothy flavor.
Marc: With our roasted manoomin, we want to honor many of the Asian peoples, like the Korean, Japanese, and Chinese people, who roast barley and create boricha or mugicha. They were our inspiration for creating the manoominabo as well. Our teas fuse the east with the west, western Indigenous peoples with Indigenous peoples from the east. As many of us know in the tea world, the caretakers of ancient tea trees, like the ones that produce Pu’er from Yunan, are Indigenous groups in Asia that have been caring for these forests for millennia. We’re trying to honor all of these different Indigenous people by fusing these amazing gifts that we have all been given into different types of teas.
*The Anishinaabeg are culturally related indigenous peoples of the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. They include the Ojibwe, Odawa, Potawatomi, Mississaugas, Nipissing, and Algonquin peoples.
Learn more about Tea Horse’s manoomin blends.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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