SOUTH/WESTERN SEASON TEAS and CEYLON TEA PROMOTION
I am pleased to announce that the Guild of Fine Food together with the Sri Lankan Tea Board are presenting a ‘Ceylon Tea Masterclass’ at the IFE food show in London on 25th. March. 2015. We are honoured to have been asked to help with the promotion which is by invitation to the trade.
CEYLON TEAS – FIRST TO BE AWARDED OZONE FRIENDLY LOGO AND REGISTRATION OF ‘CEYLON TEA’
1. The Sri Lankan Tea Board have undertaken the registration of the name ‘Ceylon Tea’ plus the registration of names of the seven major tea growing regions – Nuwara Eliya, Dimbula, Uddapussellawa, Uva, Kandy, Ruhuna & Sabaragamuwa under the Geographical Indications of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) within the auspices of the World Trade Organization (WTO).
The aim is to deliver an authentic product to the consumer and achieve international status similar to other such protections such as the International GI ‘Blue Mountain’ for coffee or ‘Basmati’ for rice. Click our Facebook link
2. Sri Lanka is the first country in the world to be recognised as a producer of Ozone friendly tea. Methyl Bromide is often used extensively in pest management in agriculture warehousing and pre-shipment holding purposes. Methyl Bromide is an aggressive Ozone Depletion Substance (ODS). Registration of the Ozone Friendly Logo was undertaken by the Sri Lankan Tea Board in 30 tea importing countries 2011 – 2012 and this is now completed.
THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE TEA GROWERS AND THE U.K. TEA COUNCIL
It is important for consumers to understand that the relationship between the different tea growing areas and the U.K. Tea Council has changed. In the past the Tea Council received a contribution from each tea growing region and the role of the Council was to be an unbiased central information centre promoting ‘TEA’ in all its different regional forms and characters, the promotion of quality plus the monitoring of statements claimed by commercial interests. The Council has also been funded by those U.K. packers who wished to join the Council and here again the Council undertook to provide a set of standards that these packers would operate with and therefore buyers would supposedly have confidence in buying from those packers.
However in recent years the Council has been seen by many including myself to be promoting the interests of U.K. packers to the detriment of the interests of the growing regions and this has led to the growing regions withdrawing their contribution to the Council until we have the present situation where only Kenya contributes to the Council and I understand that even Kenya maybe considering their position.
The U.K. has progressively moved to the cheaper end of the tea market and is obsessed with the concept of convenience and yet calling convenience blended thick liquoring teas, quality. This has allowed the packers here in the UK to blend and pack to the price structure that allows them to react to the enormous pressure from the supermarket trade to constantly lower or hold prices in a rising market. Blending teas can have two aims, a) to use teas from different areas to provide a blend that suits the naturally occurring water in each area of the U.K. and that was the process used by the trade some years ago or b) to blend various teas to suit water that the major water companies deliver with added chemicals to a local supply that may be of hard or soft water and increasingly to a price structure. In my father’s time the UK purchased in the region of 85 % of total Ceylon tea production which at that time was about 220 million Kg, whereas to today the U.K. imports only just over one million Kg out of a total production of approximately 300 million kilos. Because Ceylon teas have a reputation for quality the Colombo auction has become the highest priced auction centre in the world with Calcutta coming second.
A few years ago the various tea growing regions approached the Tea Councils to see if they would co-operate in classifying tea as the product obtained from the bush Camellia Sinensis. Most food products these days have moved in that direction to protect the authenticity of their production. The Tea Councils were unable to support the move and in my view this was because of their loyalty to their packing membership who wished to have free rein as to how they were able to market the product which is why today the consumer is presented with a confusing array of what is termed tea with little or no guidance on the packet as to what the packet contains, after all Breakfast tea means nothing in production terms. The Camelia Sinensis is a plant that produces naturally developing characters and flavours depending on the soil, elevation and weather that it happens to grow in and as the trade moves more and more to the pressure of price, we shall see the amazing Ceylon high grown teas being abandoned and the horrifying prospect of ‘machine harvesting’ with hundreds of thousands of jobs being lost. Ask the ‘average UK consumer’ what tea they like and they will almost certainly reply a good strong ‘builders’ tea that takes milk and probably sugar. Who needs skilled tea-makers and skilled hand plucking to make ‘builders’ tea which is a combination of cheaper small leaf teas and teas from several regions such as Assam plus Kenya where the tea has a thicker liquor !! It is possible to produce a Ceylon thick tea if one combines several off-grades which are unmarketable as far as the Sri Lankan Tea Board are concerned but that is the level to which the commercial interests have taken us to.
TEA RE-PLANTING PROGRAMME IN SRI LANKA
I understand that the Government have decreed that all company estates must speed-up the re-planting programme from 2 % per annum to 3 % per annum. This is good news as it will hopefully increase estate yields from their very low point at present, leading to greater opportunities for the tea pluckers to increase the quantity that they can pluck which with the new increase kilo overbound bonus system will allow them to contribute directly to the profitability of the estates and the estates will then feel more able to continue to raise the living standards of their workers. The recent high wage awards without sufficient linkage to higher production have proved unsustainable. However this encouragement by the Plantation Minister is of little consequence unless the Minister controls the level of dividends paid by the 22 planting companies with stipulations that levels of capital sufficient to support the requirements of the estates to maintain yields and efficiency must be ploughed back to the estates.
FAIRTRADE IS IT HELPING?
For detailed information on the costs and any advantages of Fairtrade for this area you will find a separate document which appears under the heading Fairtrade on this website.
Fairtrade contributes nothing to the estates directly, the only function that it has in Sri Lanka is that of promoting marketing of teas from the auction level but not direct sale teas at the estates and it’s members contribute a small contribution to a workers fund but as we have seen Sri Lankan tea workers are highly paid with the recent negotiations and the worker fund can only be used for small items such as a mini bus or community hall which most estates already have in place from the government welfare trust or from direct estate contributions. The minus side of their contribution is that the estates are charged certification fees which keep rising and the office staff work burden is increased. Fairtrade organisations do contribute to worker welfare in areas like Kenya where the Government is not the owner of the land.
Under that document I have explained our decision not to certify with Fairtrade or Flocert as it is also known.
CARBON FOOTPRINT
Many consumers are concerned that the companies that they purchase products from, should be classified in some way to show that the company has made significant efforts to reduce their carbon footprint wherever possible.
As a business here in the South-West we have examined where we create a carbon footprint. Firstly we operate with the procurement of special manufactures of tea to our specific requirements. The fact is that tea is not grown in the U.K. at least not of any significance or the right quality so we are bound to work abroad and import the teas. Our operation will at all times where possible use containers and ship by the sea route. One ship will carry many hundreds of containers and it is the lowest footprint that is possible for imports. Occaisionally we get a client urgently requiring a batch of tea and in that case we may use air freight if it really is urgent.
Since we do not pack our teas here in the U.K. all that work is done in Sri Lanka before shipping and we try to use eco friendly packaging where possible with cartons etc being made from recycled materials.
Where small exports to Europe are required we have to supply from here but any large orders will be sent direct from Colombo by sea.
Finally I personally have always had an interest in woodland management from my planting days and as an extra activity to reduce our carbon footprint I have planted some 6 acres of new woodland on our own ground here besides having renovated 14 acres of run down woodland, re-planted it and sold it on.
This business will at all times in the interest of the environment and also in the interests of reducing costs strive to be as efficient as is possible.