HEAR THE HEADLINES – Tea Harvest Gets an Early Start | Traditional Medicinals Unveils First Certified Biodegradable Tea Wrapper | American Botanical Council Launches a Public Database of Natural Products that Meet Natural Health Science Foundation Standards | Historic Goomtee Estate Bungalow Burns | The 1899 structure took three hours to extinguish, a total loss

| NEWSMAKER – Saeed Al Suwaidi, Director of Agri Commodities at Dubai Multi Commodities Center

| FEATURE INTRO – After a five-year hiatus, the Dubai Multi Commodities Tea Center is hosting its biennial Global Tea Forum on April 25-27 at The Address Dubai Marina Hotel, with discounted tickets now available. Saeed Al Suwaidi, Director of Agri Commodities at DMCC and a respected executive and technologist, shares with listeners his perspective on some of the issues to be addressed during the DMCC Tea Forum.

Unpacking the Future of Tea – The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, founded in 2002, is the world’s largest and most successful free trade zone, now supporting 18,000 companies from many industries and sectors. DMCC’s Tea Center, founded in 2005, is a global hub for value addition and the top tea re-exporter in the world.

Saeed Al Suwaidi, the Director of Agri Commodities at DMCC Dubai, says, “It’s amazing how everything in this industry is starting almost like a reset. People are looking at it with fresh eyes, t think. I mean, one of the things about this year is it’s not an exceptional year. The past five years for us have been very different with COVIO lockdowns, and everything that has happened during those years changed us, I think, forever. So there’s much eagerness for everything to resume almost normal.

Suwaidi says, “People call it the poor man’s drink because it’s accessible to everybody. And it’s widely traded, you know, and it’s over $50 billion worth of trade annually, and this is going up by at least 30 to 35 to 40% in the next ten years. And so there’s a lot of opportunity.”

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Resort and Hotel Developers Submit Proposals to Expand Tea Tourism in Northwest India | The West Bengal Government is Evaluating 16 Projects Valued at $170 Million | TeaTeaMe has launched a beta version of its app for Tea Tourists and Traveling Tea Professionals | Hindustan Unilever Names Rohit Jawa Managing Director and CEO

| NEWSMAKER – Yangdup Lama, founder of the Sidecar in New Delhi, ranked No. 1 among India’s 30 best Bars in 2022

| FEATURE INTRO – South Asia Editor Aravinda Anantharaman chats with India’s top bartender. Yangdup Lama grew up in Darjeeling in the 1980s playing among the tea bushes, an experience that influenced his professional career as an award-winning mixologist with a special talent for incorporating tea into signature drinks.

Influential Bar Owner Yangdup Lama's Vision for Darjeeling – Yangdup Lama is India’s most famous bartender, recognized by Drinks International as one of the Bar World’s most influential people in the beverage industry. He’s a Darjeeling guy, born and raised in Darjeeling. He has bridged his two worlds in recent years via his tea cocktails. Here, we catch up with him for a chat on Darjeeling, tea, bartending, and what a cocktail named Darjeeling would be like.

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – World Tea Expo Names “Best of” Award Finalists | Tea Tycoon Competitors Announced | Teaware Manufacturers Adopt Consumer to Manufacturer (C2M) Business Model Pioneered by Fast-Fashion | Study Suggests an EGCG-based Therapy for Treating Alzheimer’s

| GUEST – Wendy Weir, founder of Libre Inner Peace

| FEATURE INTRO – Tea nourishes and inspires. It is the most ancient of plant-based medicines — simultaneously energizing the body as it soothes the mind. This week join Tea Biz correspondent Jessica Natale Woollard and Wendy Weir, the founder of Libre Inner Peace, in a two-minute meditation with tea.

| Two-Minute Meditation With Tea – You’ll want a cup of tea by your side for this special live meditation on the Tea Biz podcast. In my porcelain cup is a white vanilla coconut tea from the Banff Tea Company in Alberta, Canada. It’s one of my go-to blends and scents the air with a lovely fragrance to complement the moment of peace we’re about to relax into. In just a moment, we’ll get right into the meditation with our guest, Wendy Weir, but keep listening after the meditation—I’ll chat with Wendy in a few minutes to learn more about her meditative practice and its connection to tea. So, pause what is occupying your mind, rest upon the nearest comfy chair, and let Wendy lead us on a two-minute journey of our home within.

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Pakistan’s Economic Crisis Threatens African Tea Trade | Kenya open to rice for tea barter to release five metric tons of tea stranded in Karachi | Asahi Launches SOU its First New Tea Brand in Decades | Tatcha Skincare Unveils a Virtual Forest Bathing and Meditation Experience

| NEWSMAKER – Narendranath Dharmara, an independent strategic and operations consultant in tea and agribusiness

| FEATURE INTRO – Narendranath Dharmaraj has developed a tea processing technique that yields the taste and aroma of orthodox with the intense color and fast brewing characteristics of cut, tear, and curl tea. The process results in a hybrid that can be blended to enhance the aroma and flavor of conventional CTC. The tea substrate can also be die-cut to resemble broken-leaf grades or 3D printed into myriad shapes and sold at a premium.

Tea Processing Reimagined – Since the 1960s, innovation has been limited to the development of machines that deliver economic efficiency, packaging, convenient formats, and flavors. It is time to explore new processing techniques. A makeover of the product paradigm is imperative. It's time to give camellia sinensis a new lease of life to boost consumer appeal for tea. Let’s shirk off the baggage of a 150-year-old mindset and get set for some development work that will change the rules of the game. Heritage is valuable. A stubborn mindset built over time diminishes value! 

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Kenya’s Parliament Orders an Inquiry into Allegations of Sexual Abuse on Tea Plantations | Commentators are calling the investigation the #MeToo moment for tea | Pakistan Tea Imports are Piling Up in Karachi | Several Teas are Among the Top 10 Best-Rated Non-Alcoholic Beverages in the World according to the TasteAtlas

| GUEST – TeaBookClub Founder Kyle Whittington

| FEATURE INTRO – The True History of Tea is a meticulously researched, readable 280-page book that takes you back in time. Kyle Whittington, founder of the TeaBookClub in London, describes the work of sinologist Victor H. Mair and journalist Erling Hoh as “one of those rare instances where, rather than the dry read that the title suggests, the reader is instead treated to an engaging and captivating page-turner.”

A Definitive and Entertaining History of Tea – “If there was one thing that this book did better than any other tea history book,” writes Whittington, “it presents us with new areas of knowledge and different tellings of familiar stories in the great and long history of the plant, beverage, and tea customs. From the Mongolian tribes to the Australian outback, we were taken to lands, explored customs, and followed the humble leaf’s progress in rarely explored areas.”

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Resilient Turkish Tea Culture Offers Comfort | “Keyif” is a Turkish word describing the pleasure and enjoyment of tea. After last week’s catastrophic quakes, Keyif takes on new meaning as hundreds of ad hoc groups organize to support the homeless and hungry. | Vietnam Reports a Surge in Tea Exports | Pukka Tea Joins Canopy’s Pack4Good Initiative

| GUEST – Poorvi Chordia, co-founder of Herbs & Kettles tea, Atlanta, Georgia

| FEATURE INTRO – Poorvi Chordia is a physician, tea sommelier, and avid traveler whose frequent visits to India inspired her and her husband, Abe, to directly source small-batch artisan teas from sustainable mid- and small-sized growers.

Veda Wisdom and Authentic Tea Wellness – Small growers rightly focus on cultivating and crafting great artisan tea. They need more time and resources to brand and market limited quantities of unique teas such as Khalap, an ancient Nagaland tea. The Naga tribe picks wild leaves to pack in hollowed bamboo before aging in smoke. Khalap is in demand locally along the Myanmar border with India, one example of several boutique teas in collections curated by Poorvi Chordia at Herbs & Kettles. Poorvi is an educator, tea sommelier, and avid traveler. An online retailer of teas worldwide, Herbs & Kettles specializes in loose-leaf teas sourced directly from Indian farms they know. Herbs & Kettles contributes to the Prameya Foundation’s Red Panda Conservation Initiative to preserve endangered wildlife, prevent poaching, and restore habitat in the Singalilia National Park in Darjeeling, West Bengal.

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – T2 Closes its US and UK Retail Locations | Stores in both countries close on Feb. 19. Online sales end on Feb. 22. The Australian company announced it would focus on markets closer to home.| Turkey’s Tea Growing Region Spared During Massive Twin Quakes. | Tea Comforts Quake Victims. | The Global Iced Tea Market is projected to Double in Value by 2030

| GUEST – Tea Book Club founder Kyle Whittington

| FEATURE INTRO – Pairing tea with food is a less well-known art than wine pairings, but every bit as rewarding for cooks and connoisseurs. This week, Tea Book Club founder Kyle Whittington reviews Mariella Erken's cookbook, Tea: Wine’s Sober Sibling.

| REVIEW – TEA: Wine’s Sober Sibling by Mariella Erken

Rich with detailed analysis and mouth-watering recipes, the considerate arrangement of this book draws us in from a place more familiar, the pairing of wine with food. Indeed, the comparison tables on tea and grape varieties were so enriching that I realized that as a wine novice, I could choose a wine based on my tea preferences. If that’s got me excited, then for sure, it works the other way around. Seventy recipes, each with three suggested pairings, make this a book equally worthy of a place on our tea bookshelf as among the cookery books in the kitchen.

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Tea Lies Safely Dormant as Temperatures Plummet to Record Lows Across Asia | Growers in China, Japan, South Korea, and India are coping with a polar vortex that caused record lows in the tea lands. | A Free Webinar Monday by the Colombo Tea Traders Association Will Explain the National Plan to Make Sri Lanka’s Tea Industry More Resilient | The FDA Will Not Regulate CBD as a Food or Supplement.

| FEATURE INTRO – This week, Aravinda Anantharaman takes us to Karnataka, India, for a stay in the Nilgiri Mountains at the Sinna Dorais Bungalows on the Kadamane Tea Estate.

Sinna Dorai Bungalows Balance Comfort and Old World Charm – Sinna Dorai is how assistant managers were addressed on turn-of-the-century tea estates: Small manager, that’s what it translates to, suggesting a hands-on level of involvement with garden operations. There are three Sinna Dorai bungalows at the Kadamane Tea Estate, located high in the Nilgiri Mountains in Karnataka, India, about 250 kilometers west of Bengaluru. Kadamane was planted nearly a century ago; its bungalows are old, charming, and well-preserved. The interiors have been tastefully restored. The rooms are modern and comfortable but have retained that old-world charm, and that’s a delicate balance. The estate offers a glimpse into a way of life that is no longer relevant but reveals a vibrant, fascinating history worth recording and preserving. There’s no restaurant, just a kitchen and a dining room where you go for mealtimes like the Sinna Dorias, sharing hearty meals made with local produce and delicious bread. The vistas are boundless, and the forest streams are lovely to explore. It is a perfect stop, a great example of tea tourism done right because it’s indulgent without being excessive. - Aravinda Anantharaman

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – USDA National Organic Program Strengthens Enforcement | The revised NOP rules, published Jan. 19, expand certification requirements to brokers and traders at critical links in the organic supply chain. | World Tea Expo announced its lineup of Speakers | Early discount deadline is Jan. 31 | Kenya Tea Production Falls to Five-Year Low

| NEWSMAKER – Elyse Petersen, Founder, and CEO of Tealet in Las Vegas, Nev.

| FEATURE INTRO – “Peace Elyse” Petersen has spent her days live streaming about her life in tea for the past two years on POCOCHA, a novel, non-commercial Japanese marketing app.

Marketing Tea Livestream – Elyse Petersen is an empathetic storyteller whose knowledge of tea preparation and teaware stands out on the Pococha live streaming platform in the USA, where she is one of the platform’s top broadcasters.

Live streaming has proven to be an effective and profitable way to sell products, especially in China, where two-thirds of consumers have reported buying products via live stream in the past year. The market for livestream shopping has grown rapidly, from $3 billion in transactions in 2017 to more than $171 billion in five years. US transactions via live streaming will be expected to reach $56 billion in 2023. The global market for live-streaming services is valued at $1.03 billion. McKinsey Digital predicts that by 2026, up to 20% of all eCommerce sales will be done via live stream, indicating that live streaming is not just a temporary trend but a long-term shift in how people shop online.

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – The New Year Brings Predictions of a Global Recession | Two-thirds of the world’s top economists predict economic weakness globally in 2023, according to the World Economic Forum, meeting this week in Davos, Switzerland. | Argentina Celebrates its Tea Centennial | Toronto Tea Festival Returns

| NEWSMAKER – Dan Bolton, Founding Editor/Publisher Tea Biz Blog | Podcast

| FEATURE INTRO – This year marks the 10th anniversary of the Tea Biz Blog and the 100th episode of the Tea Biz Podcast. Listeners in 117 countries have downloaded at least one of the 36,474 streams since 2021. The podcast is most popular in these countries in this order: The United States, India, Canada, Great Britain, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, Japan, France, and Ireland, with Bangladesh, Sweden, China, Kenya, and Sri Lanka making up the top 15.

Tea Biz Podcast Year in Review – In 2022, all the most frequently downloaded episodes aired during the year's first six months. No wonder: COVID surged in January. Changing consumer behavior led Coca-Cola to discontinue its Honest Tea brand. Logistics were in disarray globally due to lockdowns in China. In February, Russia invaded Ukraine leading to sanctions and the closure of Black Sea ports realigning the tea supply chain. Tea exports from Sri Lanka sharply declined as tea plants were starved of fertilizer amid economic turmoil that led the country’s prime minister to abandon his post and the country’s president to resign. Nepal exports plummeted, and Kenyan tea prices were flat. China experienced a merciless heat wave while Assam flooded. Headlines described restaurants clawing back toward normal against the headwinds of inflation and labor shortages.

There was good news as well.

Tea consumption globally continued to expand. Japan tea exports set a new record, and a Shizuoka hand-rolled tea brought a record price at auction. Researchers presenting at the Tea and Human Health Symposium revealed compelling new science-based benefits that may lead to the inclusion of tea in US dietary recommendations. The world’s largest tea company named a woman as CEO and rebranded as Lipton Teas and Infusions. The International Specialty Tea Association announced innovative tea evaluation protocols. India’s Tea Research Association revised its best practices to enhance sustainability. India realigned the priorities of its tea board from regulation to promotion, and Kenya implemented progressive policies legislated in the Tea Act of 2020. The Mombasa Tea Auction transitioned to digital trading. Brazil held its first national celebration of tea culture. In May, on International Tea Day, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said the tea industry could transform the agrifood sector globally.

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Ekaterra Rebrands as LIPTON Teas and Infusions | CEO Nathalie Roos says rebranding will strengthen the company’s position as the world’s number one tea business | The First of Several Agriculture-Focused Satellites is Safely in Orbit | The Specialty Tea Institute Ceases Operations

| NEWSMAKER – Mou Dasgupta, founder of Brook37 Thé Atelier

| FEATURE INTRO – This week, Tea Biz travels to Princeton, New Jersey, where Mou Dasgupta created Brook37 Thé Atelier, a new premium brand run by an all-woman production team. During our conversation, she describes her vision of a new era in tea.

Fresh Thinking for a New Era in Tea – Mou Dasgupta is pursuing her passion for tea after 25 years of trendsetting corporate leadership in the financial services industry. She developed a love for fine-quality tea while living in West Bengal, India, where she attended university in Calcutta. She trained in the sciences and holds a master’s degree in software engineering. She says Brook37 is proud to bring fresh thinking and an ethical and sustainable mindset to all we do,” she says. “Our unparalleled tea selection of flavors, aromas, and colors from around the world, along with exquisite packaging, help you choose a positive and aspirational lifestyle.”

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Easing COVID Restrictions Leads to Uncertainty in China’s Tea Industry | Millions of urban Chinese will return to their ancestral homes in rural China for the Lunar New Year, raising concerns about outbreaks and possible labor shortages in tea regions as the spring harvest begins. | The World’s Top Black Tea Producers Experience Export Declines in 2022 | Speakers at the January 19 Global Tea Initiative Colloquium at the University of California, Davis, to discuss Tea and Value. What do We Value about tea, and How Do We Value It?

| NEWSMAKER – Adam Thatcher, CEO of Grace Farms Foods

| FEATURE INTRO – Grace Farms Foods is introducing a line of ethically and sustainably sourced teas that CEO Adam Thatcher says will give back 100% of profits to help end forced labor worldwide – forever.

Steeped in Purpose: Grace Farms Seeks End to Forced Labor - According to Grace Farms Foods CEO Adam Thatcher, “even though slavery was abolished globally nearly a century ago, more than 28 million people are trapped in forced labor worldwide. Poverty and lack of access to education create opportunities for those who stand to benefit from the exploitation of vulnerable men, women, and children. In modern times forced labor takes the form of work with little to no pay, fear and coercion, and restricted freedom of movement. This often occurs at the beginning of the supply chain when our food is harvested, our clothes are made, and the materials used in our buildings are extracted.

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – EU Bans Imports that Drive Deforestation Including Coffee and Cocoa | tea on forest land cleared after 2020 cannot be imported | Hindustan Unilever Shortlists Two Potential Chief Executives | Falling Yields Hold Down Kenya Tea Prices

| NEWSMAKER – Sandip Thapa, founder and CEO CuppaTrade

| FEATURE INTRO – This week, Tea Biz travels to Kolkata, India, a global hub for tea commerce, where South Asia Correspondent Aravinda Anantharaman discusses innovations in digital trade with Sandip Thapa, founder of CuppaTrade, an eMarketplace that enables small growers to sell their tea in bulk tea online.

An Online eMarketplace for Small Tea Producers – "CuppaTrade is primarily an online platform," explains Thapa. "We are developing an eMarketplace focused on the small tea grower cooperatives, the bought-leaf factories, and the small producers. Our goal is to expand the market by identifying secondary and tertiary buyers. We connect small growers with a huge number of small buyers across the country. In phase two, we intend to open up cross-border transactions, wherein we focus on exports."

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Iran Has Suddenly Stopped Importing Indian Tea and Rice. The abrupt halt remains unexplained | A World Bank Report Predicts Unbearable Heat for India | China Eases COVID Restrictions

| NEWSMAKER – Sabita Banerji, Founder, and CEO of THIRST

| FEATURE INTRO – THIRST has completed its initial assessment of human rights in the global tea sector and is now seeking to understand the root causes. THIRST founder and CEO Sabita Banerji says the non-profit will conduct confidential surveys of tea producers during the New Year.

Understanding the Tea Supply Chain and How it all Works – The voices of producers are, in fact, quite rarely heard, says Banerji. They are often blamed for circumstances beyond their control. This is the analysis phase; the third phase will be action planning, where we bring together multi-stakeholders and international players to discuss what should be done. The fourth phase will be accountability, where we support the tea industry in monitoring those action plans and their effectiveness and whether they need adjustment. "We're not blaming brands and retailers for how they do their purchasing practices. We just want to understand how it all works, where the levers for change may be, how the current situation might be driving some of the undeniable problems in the tea sector, and what could be done by those players to address those problems.

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Black Friday Lives Up to its Name | US shoppers set in-store and online sales records | UNESCO Inscribes Two Tea Traditions on the List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity | Australian Study Shows Elderly Women Benefit from Tea Flavonoids

| NEWSMAKER – Andrew McNeill, Business Development Director Seven Cups Fine Chinese Tea

| GUEST – TeaBookClub Founder Kyle Whittington

| FEATURE INTRO – Tea Biz travels to Tucson, Arizona, for the grand opening of a 2200 sq. ft. combination tea shop, tearoom, warehouse, and online fulfillment center. Andrew McNeill, Business Development Director at Seven Cups Fine Chinese Tea, says that stay-at-home tea drinkers experimenting with specialty teas are eager to share the experience of tea discovery face-to-face.

Tearooms Rekindle Cultural Experience Face-to-Face – Seven Cups Fine Chinese Tea is typical of well-established shops that survived the pandemic. The direct-trade retailer is 20 years old, located in a second-tier city, and generates revenue online and in-store from packaged sales, tea service, and wholesale supply to coffee shops, cafes, hotels, and restaurants.

Packaged tea has fared well since 2019. A spike in sales jammed tea cupboards with direct-from-origin and exotic teas purchased online. The growing consumer preference for better-tasting tea favors retailers with quality selections, including herbal infusions. Retailers are remodeling to promote in-shop sampling as it encourages social interaction and repeat business among enthusiasts eager to experiment and learn from experts.

Seven Cups founder Austin Hodge says, "When you enter a traditional teahouse, in China or Tucson, you step into a cultural experience that separates you from your daily problems. It’s a teahouse tradition for tea drinkers to be treated with respect and dignity, whatever their outside problems might be.”

REVIEW: Tea & Empire, James Taylor in Victorian Ceylon

Angela McCarthy & T.M. Devine

This fascinating book illuminates the all-too-often overlooked tea region of Ceylon, present-day Sri Lanka. The authors draw on the letters of James Taylor, pioneer and founding father of the Ceylon tea industry, to explore the life of a Scottish migrant who, through experimentation and determination, forged a new industry out of the ruins of the coffee blight. This uniquely complete collection of correspondence reveals this pivotal time in tea history through the eyes, thoughts, and actions of a key player. - Kyle Whittington

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – The Tea Industry Welcomes The Climate Summit’s Damage and Loss Fund as wealthy nations agree to pay to repair monumental damage | Solidaridad Asia Hosts India’s First International Small Tea Grower Convention | Japan Expands the Reach of its National World O-CHA Festival

| NEWSMAKER – Rudra Chatterjee, Managing Director, Luxmi Estates

| FEATURE INTRO – Rudra Chatterjee, the dynamic managing director of Luxmi Tea, has expanded and diversified the venerable 30-million-kilo bulk tea producer into direct-to-consumer retail. Luxmi, which operates 25 estates in India and Africa, has shortened the supply chain to deliver fresher tea and now sources herbal infusions and inclusions for blends locally. South Asia Correspondent Aravinda Anantharaman in Bengaluru discusses Chatterjee’s vision for rebranding the company as Luxmi Estates.

Luxmi Embraces Estate-Direct Tea Retail at Scale – In our last interview, Rudra Chatterjee, Managing Director of the 110-year-old Luxmi Tea, spoke about adding retail to the brand’s offerings as COVID brought more consumers online. Two years later, the Luxmi Estates was launched as a retail brand offering a range of teas and a subscription program as a significant business vertical. We catch up with Rudra to hear about the rebranding and his plans.

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – India Tea Exports Rise as Sri Lanka’s Decline | Comparisons of export data through the first eight months of the year reveal a significant shift in the global market for orthodox processed black tea | Extreme Heat Concerns are Raised at the Ongoing COP27 Climate Summit in Egypt | Founder Sandip Thapa Explains the Cuppa Trade Tea eMarketplace

| NEWSMAKER – Seth Goldman, CEO of Eat the Change, founder of Just Ice Tea

| FEATURE INTRO – Tea Biz visits Just Ice Tea founder Seth Goldman this week in Bethesda, Maryland. Seth launched the new low-sugar, organic, Fairtrade tea brand in a remarkably rapid 90 days after learning that Coca-Cola would discontinue by year’s end the iconic Honest Organic Tea brand that he co-founded in 1998. Shocked that Honest Tea would be discontinued, Goldman tells how tea suppliers rallied to support his long-term commitment to organic, fair trade tea.

Seth Goldman’s Encore – Coca-Cola’s Venturing and Emerging Brands group invested $43 million in 2008 to acquire a minority interest in Honest Organic Tea. This low-sugar organic bottled tea dominated the premium fresh-brewed tea segment in natural grocery outlets, including Whole Foods Markets. Seth Goldman and co-founder Barry Nalebuff had grown the company to +$20 million in annual sales since brewing the first batch into five thermos bottles in Goldman’s kitchen. What they needed was national distribution. Coca-Cola’s investment catapulted Honest Tea to the list of Inc. Magazine’s fastest-growing companies. Earnings grew to $70-80 million. Coke’s Big Red trucks soon delivered 100 million bottles nationwide, and in 2011, Coke purchased the company. Goldman joined the behemoth bottler as an ardent champion of flavorful teas and herbal infusions. During the decade that followed, Honest Tea generated hundreds of millions of dollars at far greater margins than commodity brands, where the raw cost of tea is about a penny per unit. He bought eight million pounds of organic tea annually at that time and spent millions more on organic sugar and ingredients.

In 2019 Goldman left Coca-Cola to establish Eat the Change after working as executive chair of Beyond Meat. Eat the Change, “a snack company of the future” launched by Goldman and celebrity chef Spike Mendelsohn, will manage the fledgling tea venture. Just Ice Tea has reunited vital staff and suppliers that built Honest Tea into a half-billion-dollar brand. In June, Goldman announced that Eat the Change would launch a new organic tea brand, and by September, the first bottles were served in restaurants.

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Funding Initiatives at the UN Climate Summit are Vital to Tea as prevention gives way to funding repairs | Bangladesh Production Rebounds After Strike | New Tea Tourism Handbook Elevates Immersive Travel 

| NEWSMAKER – Michael D. Ham, co-founder and company president of Wild Orchard

| FEATURE INTRO – This week, Tea Biz explores the exotic Jeju Island off the coast of South Korea, where Wild Orchard Regenerative Tea is grown. Michael D. Ham, co-founder and president of the company, describes in detail the cultivation and multiple washings during the processing of these award-winning teas. He said the result is a clean, authentic taste as nature intended.

Regenerative Tea – Jeju Island lies 130 kilometers off the southern coast of South Korea in the Korea Strait. Dormant for the past 5,000 years, Hallasan Mountain is a 1,950-meter volcanic wonderland of craters, cinder cones, and giant lava tubes that dominates the densely foliated island. Popular with tourists for its national park and scenic beaches, the island is also known for its tea.

Wild Orchard sources all its tea from a 1000-acre garden planted in 1999. The nutrient-dense soil, gentle mists, and abundant wildlife led growers to plant tea seeds on hillsides that were not terraced or cleared of native plants. Irrigation is solely by rainfall. There are no fertilizers, pesticides, or herbicides applied and the soil is never tilled. The farm was certified organic in 2007, and the Wild Orchard brand was established in 2019. In May of this year, the brand became the world’s first Regenerative Organic Certified tea. It was selected by Noma, the World’s Best Restaurant, to be served on their NYC menu and will soon be available for sale at the Rare Tea Counter at Fortnum & Mason tea shop in London.

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Pricing Tea in a Slogging Economy | Indicators suggest a recession is imminent | The International Tea Academy “Leafies” are Awarded | Sales of Herbal Infusions are Expected to Double this Decade

| NEWSMAKER – Professor Sylvain Charlebois, senior director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia

| FEATURE INTRO – Canadian Economist Sylvain Charlebois sees a lot of positives for the tea industry but cautioned that inflation is an economic disease that will linger. Supply chain challenges remain. The macro-dynamics around commodities are getting more complicated, he said, “The fall is not going to be an easy one."

High Inflation is an Economic Disease – "When you look at global issues. When you look at where the market is going, I see a lot of positives for your product in particular," Professor Sylvain Charlebois told attendees at the North American Tea Conference in September. Two immediate challenges confront the industry, inflation and the global supply chain. "So let's talk about inflation. Inflation is an economic disease. In this case, it's self-inflicted," he said. "Inflation is a big problem, but we have to deal with inflation. When people go to the grocery store, they are absolutely spooked because they know everything is more expensive everywhere. In the grocery store, it's even worse. Much worse. Consumers are trying to recalibrate their budgets just to make sure they have a roof on the top of their heads and to feed themselves, so that portion of their budget is increasing by the day. And we know the fed is going to increase its benchmark," he said. "So, in the tea business, I would ask myself, OK, are we going back to 3.5% inflation? The answer is: not in the near future."

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HEAR THE HEADLINES – Sri Lanka’s Tea Sector Opposes Doubling Corporate Tax | IMF bailout forces bankrupt government to collect more revenue | Vietnamese Tea Exports Experience Slow Decline | Kenya Expands its Orthodox Tea Capability

| NEWSMAKER – Joydeep Phukan, the Principal Officer and Secretary of India’s Tea Research Association

| FEATURE INTRO – Joydeep Phukan, the Principal Officer and Secretary of India’s Tea Research Association, discusses a unified agricultural standard for tea fields and factories. The new standards are aligned with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. Introduced in September, the standards will be fully implemented in January 2023.

India’s New Tea Sustainability Standards – Growers worldwide adhere to the Tocklai Tea Research Institute’s Good Agricultural Practices (GAPs) and Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs) standards. The standards date to the early 1900s with frequent updates. The latest revisions align closely with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. New standards are necessary to help growers and manufacturers improve soils, protect natural ecosystems, encourage diversity, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and establish a more climate-resilient tea industry. Joydeep Phukan has managed the research institute for the past 16 years. Before that, he was assistant secretary of the Indian Tea Association and managed the Guwahati Tea Auction Center. He holds a master’s degree in marketing from the TASMAC School of Business.

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