Nigel Melican

President of the European Speciality Tea Association & CEO of Teacraft Technical Services

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My main interests
  • Educating consumers about tea’s cultural significance, health benefits, traditions, history.
  • Facilitating the exchange of best practices among growers, traders, and researchers.
  • Mechanical expertise in mechanization, equipment selection and maintenance and field and factory operations.
Examples of collaborations2025-TCL-Capability.pdf
Here is what most interests me in tea…

Forty-five years as a tea consultant helping clients to grow their tea better and process their tea smarter has only honed my enthusiasm for discovering more about the fascinating Camellia sinensis plant and its thousands of processed variants. It’s the realization that the more I find out the more there is to know that sustains my interest – that and the fact that the tea industry has within it a network of very wonderful people.

My comments on the most critical threats/opportunities facing the tea industry globally.

Climate Change & Extreme Weather Events
  • The Tea Industry is in Crisis. Climate volatility is getting worse – and the industry is mainly without a plan (headless chicken mode).
Supply Chain Disruptions & Geopolitical Instability
  • These are threats that could be solved by some adult joined up thinking but unfortunately this has mostly to be outside of the tea industry
Rising Production Costs & Labor Shortages
  • Like it or not, consumer prices just have to reflect the cost of production
  • Reducing product quality to maintain retail margins (as has so far been the main reaction) will kill the industry
  • Mechanization of tea growing must occur (as has been the case in all other crops). Regrettably mechanization is capital intensive and the tea primary production sector is under-funded
Changing Consumer Preferences & Market Trends
  • Consumerism fosters demand for constant product novelty – specialty teas have to solve this conundrum without losing their soul
Competition from Alternative Tea Sources & Synthetic Substitutes
  • The core tea industry needs to halt is decline into “commodity” and enhance an expectation of excellence in the consumers’ minds
Price Volatility & Market Speculation
  • The better the tea the more inelastic is the demand for it – only ultra cheap tea is affected by price volatility, Unfortunately the industry over the past 20 years has resorted to cheap tea as a survival tactic
Regulatory & Certification Challenges
  • Certification costs must be borne by the main beneficiaries – the packers and the consumers
Declining Tea Cultivation Areas (urbanization, deforestation, competing crops)
  • With galloping increases in global population these threats will only get worse. Ultimately, in human survival terms. tea is a luxury crop.
Technological Disruptions in Retail and Wholesale eCommerce (DTC, B2B, digital marketplaces, internet auctions)
  • These are not solutions – they are peripheral distractions from the solving the fundamental threats
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