Tea Emperor

BRAND TEAS LACED WITH BULK CTC TEA RUINS TEA FOR CONSUMERS

Taiwan’s authorities, namely Control Yuan, claim that some local tea brands are laced with imported leaves and sold under the name of Taiwanese tea, which hurts the interests of consumers.

Tea farm on the beautiful island of Taiwan. Photo by Harry Huang.

ORIGIN MATTERS

Controlling body points out that sellers can blend local tea with imported tea, but tea sellers should clearly indicate the ration of imported tea and local tea. To me this sounds like the complains of the Indian Tea Board that encouraged their tea plantations to grow orthodox specialty tea. The underlying motivator seems to be protectionism.

IMPORTED GREEN GOLD

Taiwan imports around 25,000 tons of tea every year, 74 percent of which comes from Vietnam. The imported tea ends up blended with local tea and sold as a Taiwanese product, this is “unreasonable” and “hurts the interests of consumers.” Although Taiwan imports 19,000 tons of tea from Vietnam every year, one cannot find tea labeled as Vietnamese on the local market.

OUT WITH THE BULK

Tea Board of India has asked north-eastern states to focus more on orthodox specialty tea aimed solely at the international markets instead of the bulk “crush, tear and curl” tea, which they are mostly producing at present.

A well-managed tea plantation in India on a scenic area by the railway with steam locomotives.

BETTER TEA QUALITY MEANS MORE MONEY

Tea Board has the idea that the states should follow the Sikkim model while maintaining quality close to that of the Darjeeling crop. In essence it would mean that India would be able to produce larger quantity of high quality teas, which in turn would fetch higher price on international tea markets. This is important, because of the strengthening international trend of tea consumption bodes lucrative markets for high-end teas.

Now there’s a challenge for cold Finnish winter conditions. However I am completely fascinated by the tea tree and that simply means one has to have a very own tea tree.

STARTING WITH SEEDS

Looks like starting from seeds seems to be the only choice for me as tea trees can’t be found from local shops not to mention tea tree seeds. I have to get the seeds from some online shop.

ONLINE SEEDS ARE HARD TO FIND

I found quite a few places that claim to sell tea tree seeds, but from a list of nine online shops only three actually had them in stock. None of those three places deliver to Europe, so I inquired this and now I’m waiting for the results. Hopefully I’ll get positive answers, but if not then I just have to spend more time looking for suppliers.

The case is about applying the right to use Geographical Indicators rule from the WTO. I’m sure that many of you tea enthusiasts also gulp down some bubbly every now and then so you might recall similar case done by France regarding the Champagne area. Now Sri Lanka Tea Board is on the job and we just have to sit back and wait… and possibly drink several hundred cups of tea while doing all that waiting.

GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATOR - WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

It could mean that only tea with the right to be called Ceylon tea would have to be grown in the island of the Sri Lanka and especially on those traditional tea growing areas. Now that could seriously dent the business of other producers and companies that make some kind of tea mixes with a hint of Ceylon tea and masses of some other crap.

Naturally the positive side of this is that in the future the brand Ceylon would actually guarantee, to a degree, the quality of the product. I would like to see that because it is so tedious job to try and keep updated on good Ceylon tea. Oh by the way, Kenilworth Estate Ceylon Tea is possibly the best Ceylon tea, which is easily available on the market and you can get it with a push of a button from here.

In my previous post I was writing about the upward trend regarding wholesale tea prices. One of the explaining factors was the increasing consumption of tea. It is actually becoming trendy to drink tea especially because there are so many varieties. You can shine among your friends if you manage to drop a fascinating tea brand in the middle of a discussion.

Image source: Starbucks online store

SO WHAT ABOUT THAT STARBUCKS?

Starbucks can spot a trend that’s why they became so big in the first place. They took light-roasted middle European coffee and introduced it in the States, then they took the rest of the world. Now they are planning to do the same with tea by introducing great tasting loose leaf teas into their brewing selection. Let’s see how the world receives Starbucks tea.