People often ask me how a tea grower can start to sell their tea through Tealet. Although we didn’t have a set procedure for vetting growers in place when I first started to connect with our original network of growers, we have realized the importance of digging deep to learn the true story of the garden before promoting their teas. This lesson was reinforced on a journey my brother and I recently took to Asia to visit 14 different tea growing regions.
The vetting process now takes six months, on average, and involves multiple email correspondences, skype meetings, forms to fill, sampling, and cross referencing with our established network in the industry. One of the most exciting new gardens that has been discovered by our good friend Rajiv Lochan, Chabessey, is located just on the border of Nepal and India. The Chabessey garden is currently going through our vetting process as are dozens of other gardens.
I first heard about Chabessey from Rajiv over a month ago and have already received samples and video footage from the garden which was captured by Rajiv. My team has recently taken this footage and made a video. What we have learned is that this very modest family is cultivating and processing tea on a small scale, yet has the potential to build a brand for itself in the specialty tea market. We haven’t heard much from this garden before because their teas have been marketed under a different brand. This is a common story we have heard from Nepal as well as other regions. We look forward to welcoming many more growers to our network to learn their individual stories as well as promote and sell their teas. Be on the lookout for hidden gems similar to Chabessey coming from regions such as Nilgiri, Burma, and Kenya.
What is next for Chabessey? Now that we have a small amount of their second flush 2014 black tea, we will be sharing samples with experienced tasters and interested parties. Although we found the tea to be unique and promising there is room for improvement. We will work with our collaborative group of tasters and tea consultants to bring the knowledge and resources forward for this grower to optimize tea quality. Over time, we foresee putting these experiences together in a manual which can be used by other small-scaled producers to improve their quality.
We will continue to tell the story of Chabessey, and all the other amazing tea gardens we discover, and prepare their teas for introduction to the specialty tea market. If you would like to help in this process please email info@tealet.com to request more information and we will let you know how you can get your hands on some samples so you can taste the tea for yourself. I’m sure the Chabessey family will be happy to receive your feedback as they go on a journey to make world class tea for you.
I am amazed by what you’ve created Elyse. I love the idea the helping promising small tea farmers around the world to optimize their tea and make it available to tea lovers around the world. By allowing them each to develop their own unique identity, they can evolve a thriving tea company that will support their families and community while providing the blessing of excellent tea to their customers. Leaving out the huge agro businesses allows tea entrepreneurials to thrive.
Thanks, it’s magical how this has all come together. Really, it is all the growers and original members of the International Tea Farms Alliance that have come up with the idea. I admit that my team and I have worked very hard (Michael, Rie, Cody, Chris, Christian, and Hermano) to build the actual platform, the community and energy has come from everyone else. Thank you for your support along the way!
You can read the full story about Chabessey and see a video here: http://tealet.com/grower/profile/31
We work with about 50 producers and have back ups for each one. We visit them every year, check their farming practices, get to know the pickers and the packers, and the people that are also working to make the tea, not just the boss, the farmers, the local government officials and tea councils. The people selling and marketing the tea are the least important to know. We show up on our schedule. We pay up front and never late. It takes us about two or four months to make the rounds. We do that every year and have done that every year that have been in business, and made the rounds years before we started. Of course I’m talking about China, but I believe that that all top quality sourcing requires putting in the time locally no matter where, and no matter what product. Since we have been a completely transparent company for more that 12 years, it requires our constant vigilance, because it is our reputation. It’s not easy doing business this way as a small company, but it is the only way to be transparent with confidence. Keep doing what you did this year.