Episodes
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SPOTLIGHT | Revitalizing Kumaon
In the Himalayas of northern India, Kumaon Tea has opened its first farmer-owned and managed factory in a trailblazing partnership with US-based Young Mountain Tea. The region was one of the earliest to be planted by the British in the 1860s. A century ago, these high-mountain estates were abandoned, and the formerly productive tea fields lay fallow until an enterprising young entrepreneur marshaled the resources of US-based Frontier Co-op and USAID’s Cooperative Development Program to benefit hundreds of tea smallholders.
Joining us today is Raj Vable, founder of Young Mountain Tea in Marquette, Mich., who inspired the villagers of Kumaon to create a new era of economic resiliency and autonomy. The solar-powered factory with state-of-the-art equipment will process regeneratively grown certified organic tea in four styles available in retail locations by November. Vable writes, “We hope our model serves as a blueprint that can be replicated and improved upon so we can all collectively raise the bar on transparent sourcing, regenerative agriculture, and smallholder farmer equity.”
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Nepal Consul General Meets Indian Growers to Quell Crisis | Assam Experiencing Very Heavy Rainfall
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Lindsay Lohan TV Ad Advocates Office Tea Breaks | Suez Shipping Disruptions Intensify | Botanists Identify the Cause of Tea Leaf Droopiness
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"Think of us as a digital caravan of storytellers, bringing authentic, authoritative, and exclusive stories to you weekly from the tea lands.” – Dan Bolton
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HEADLINES – Lindsay Lohan TV Ad Advocates Office Tea Breaks | Suez Shipping Disruptions Intensify | Botanists Identify the Cause of Tea Leaf Droopiness
INDIA TEA NEWS – Nepal Consul General Meets Indian Growers to Quell Crisis | Assam Experiencing Very Heavy Rainfall
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Raj Vable, Founder of Marquette, Mich.-based Young Mountain Tea
SPOTLIGHT | Revitalizing Kumaon
In the Himalayas of northern India, Kumaon Tea has opened its first farmer-owned and managed factory in a trailblazing partnership with US-based Young Mountain Tea. The region was one of the earliest to be planted by the British in the 1860s. A century ago, these high-mountain estates were abandoned, and the formerly productive tea fields lay fallow until an enterprising young entrepreneur marshaled the resources of US-based Frontier Co-op and USAID’s Cooperative Development Program to benefit hundreds of tea smallholders.
Joining us today is Raj Vable, founder of Young Mountain Tea in Marquette, Mich., who inspired the villagers of Kumaon to create a new era of economic resiliency and autonomy. The solar-powered factory with state-of-the-art equipment will process regeneratively grown certified organic tea in four styles available in retail locations by November. Vable writes, “We hope our model serves as a blueprint that can be replicated and improved upon so we can all collectively raise the bar on transparent sourcing, regenerative agriculture, and smallholder farmer equity.
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Dozens of teas and tisanes were displayed at the 68th Summer Fancy Food Show in New York. Healthful, functional, and sustainably produced plant-based beverages with clean labels were in the spotlight—along with purpose-driven brands aligned with consumers’ desire for authenticity and social responsibility. Ethical Food and Beverage Marketer Gillian Christie, CEO of Christie & Co. in Santa Barbara, Calif., joins us this week to share her insights after three busy days maneuvering among the crowd of 30,000 walking the Javits Center show floor.
Gillian has been helping ethical companies grow for more than 30 years. As a former talk show host of a nationally syndicated green radio talk show, Gillian provides fresh, experienced, and dynamic insight and strategies to build companies into Iconic Brands based on value, meaning, and ethics. Gillian’s greatest passion is helping ethical companies succeed in making the world a better place.
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Assam Small Tea Growers Pledge To Grow Clean Tea | North India Tea Production Lower by 60%
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Consumer Sentiment Sags | Researchers Describe How to Boost Tea Consumption in China | Ceylon Planters Call for a Tea Stakeholders Summit: Debt Relief Brightens Outlook
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HEADLINES – Consumer Sentiment Sags | Researchers Describe How to Boost Tea Consumption in China | Ceylon Planters Call for a Tea Stakeholders Summit: Debt Relief Brightens Outlook
INDIA TEA NEWS – Assam Small Tea Growers Pledge To Grow Clean Tea | North India Tea Production Lower by 60%
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Ethical Food and Beverage Marketer Gillian Christie, CEO of Christie & Co. in Santa Barbara, Calif.
PLUS | Purpose-Driven Marketing | Dozens of teas and tisanes were displayed at the 68th Summer Fancy Food Show in New York. Healthful, functional, and sustainably produced plant-based beverages with clean labels were in the spotlight—along with purpose-driven brands aligned with consumers’ desire for authenticity and social responsibility. Ethical Food and Beverage Marketer Gillian Christie, CEO of Christie & Co. in Santa Barbara, Calif., joins us this week to share her insights after three busy days maneuvering among the crowd of 30,000 walking the Javits Center show floor.
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SPOTLIGHT | Assessing Tea Digitally
A half dozen critical tea supply chain handoffs require quality control assessments By producers and processors, traders, wholesale buyers, and retailers. Ascertaining and predicting tea quality at each step is time-sensitive, laborious, and expensive. Newly developed cloud-based predictive and prescriptive profilers powered by artificial intelligence are redefining transactions by offering buyers and sellers unbiased reference points. These portable devices expedite quality assessment by producing an affordable digital profile that is as unique as a fingerprint and traceable. Profiles combine tasting notes and test results on-site in minutes.
Tea Biz invited the development team at ProfilePrint in Singapore to describe their technology and its application to tea. Sherman Ho, Chief Science and Technology Officer, Ellis Chua, Chief Commercial Officer, and Hoe Phong Tham, Head of Corporate at Profile Print, joined us for the briefing with tea buyer Ravi Pillai, Director of Quality and Development at DAVIDsTea in Montreal.
ProfilePrint Founder Alan Lai is a pioneer in digital food identity as a service (IDassS), which uses AI-driven portable analyzers to gather complex molecular data from ingredient samples. The result is a digital fingerprint that establishes the identity and predicts the quality of rice, grains, seeds (including coffee and cocoa), tea leaves, spices, and oils.
Alan explains that the objective is not to replace tasters who manually evaluate hundreds of cups daily, combining art and skill beyond the existing technology. The hyperspectral analysis is comparable to an off-site lab, but buyers and sellers benefit most from combining an organoleptic assessment to create a model of what they want. Sellers create a model of what they offer in a digital marketplace where matches are made in milliseconds.
The analyzers also reduce repetitive and mundane tasks like screening out undesirable samples before the meticulous preparation required for cupping. “Our clients view ProfilePrint as an apprentice who is ready to learn and helps complete tasks the same way we would have done them ourselves, freeing us up to focus on the more complex tasks,” he said. “Industry professionals don't enjoy mundane and repetitive jobs, but they still prefer to personally complete them as much as practically possible because it's difficult to rely on others when they are ultimately still held responsible.” Trusting and training an apprentice takes years without the certainty that it will always succeed,” writes Lai.
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BBTC's Singampatti Group Ceases Operations at Oothu, Manjolai, Manimuttar Estates | ABLTMA Launches Mobile Testing Lab | New Tea Disease Discovered in Assam
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Summer is Off to an Extreme Start | British Authorities Recall Insect-Tainted Organic Infusion | Northwest Tea Festival will Host its 14th Edition in September
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HEADLINES – Summer is Off to an Extreme Start | British Authorities Recall Insect-Tainted Organic Infusion | Northwest Tea Festival will Host its 14th Edition in September
INDIA TEA NEWS – BBTC's Singampatti Group Ceases Operations at Oothu, Manjolai, Manimuttar Estates | ABLTMA Launches Mobile Testing Lab | New Tea Disease Discovered in Assam
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GUESTS – Sherman Ho, Chief Science and Technology Officer, Ellis Chua, Chief Commercial Officer, and Hoe Phong Tham, Head of Corporate at Profile Print, with tea buyer Ravi Pillai, Director of Quality and Development at DAVIDsTea in Montreal.
SPOTLIGHT | Assessing Tea Digitally
ProfilePrint Founder Alan Lai is a pioneer in digital food identity as a service (IDassS), which uses AI-driven portable analyzers to gather complex molecular data from ingredient samples. The result is a digital fingerprint that establishes the identity and predicts the quality of rice, grains, seeds (including coffee and cocoa), tea leaves, spices, and oils.
Alan explains that the objective is not to replace tasters who manually evaluate hundreds of cups daily, combining art and skill beyond the existing technology. The hyperspectral analysis is comparable to an off-site lab, but buyers and sellers benefit most from combining an organoleptic assessment to create a model of what they want. Sellers create a model of what they offer in a digital marketplace where matches are made in milliseconds.
The analyzers also reduce repetitive and mundane tasks like screening out undesirable samples before the meticulous preparation required for cupping. “Our clients view ProfilePrint as an apprentice who is ready to learn and helps complete tasks the same way we would have done them ourselves, freeing us up to focus on the more complex tasks,” he said. “Industry professionals don't enjoy mundane and repetitive jobs, but they still prefer to personally complete them as much as practically possible because it's difficult to rely on others when they are ultimately still held responsible.” Trusting and training an apprentice takes years without the certainty that it will always succeed,” writes Lai.
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SPOTLIGHT | Locking Carbon Away –
Shrey Agarwal grew up in Darjeeling, where his family owns the Selim Hill Tea Estate. Last year, he graduated from the well-known Birla Institute of Technology and Science at Pilani, majoring in mechanical engineering and chemistry. He founded Alt Carbon to permanently remove 5 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. He focuses on the Indian tea industry alone, using Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW), a geoengineering technique that speeds up the natural process of carbon removal from the atmosphere by applying crushed rock to soil. Editor Aravinda Anantharaman discusses his ambitions in this podcast.
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Assam CTC Fetches Record Price | Kochi Auction Sees Good Demand | TRA Tech Hackathon Winners Announced
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Iced Tea Demand Expands in Europe | Iran Shuns India for Sri Lankan Tea | Tea and the Stronger for Longer Dollar
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HEADLINES – Iced Tea Demand Expands in Europe | Iran Shuns India for Sri Lankan Tea | Tea and the Stronger for Longer Dollar
INDIA TEA NEWS – Assam CTC Fetches Record Price | Kochi Auction Sees Good Demand | TRA Tech Hackathon Winners Announced
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GUEST – Chemist and Mechanical Engineer Shrey Agarwal, founder Alt Carbon
SPOTLIGHT | Locking Carbon Away – Shrey Agarwal grew up in Darjeeling, where his family owns the Salim Hill Tea Estate. Last year, he graduated from the well-known Birla Institute of Technology and Science at Pilani, majoring in mechanical engineering and chemistry. He founded Alt Carbon to permanently remove 5 million tons of carbon dioxide annually. He focuses on the Indian tea industry alone, using Enhanced Rock Weathering (ERW), a geoengineering technique that speeds up the natural process of carbon removal from the atmosphere by applying crushed rock to soil. Editor Aravinda Anantharaman discusses his ambitions in this podcast.
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India’s Tocklai Tea Research Institute in Jorhat announced the winners of a Tech Brew Hackathon competition hosted on International Tea Day. The winning students received 50,000 rupees for tackling their choice of five industry challenges. Teams from 20 universities participated, submitting projects addressing tea waste, marketing and promotion, and climate change. A panel of nine tea industry experts judged the projects.
The top three teams are Team Orthodox, representing the Assam Science & Technology University with a novel non-chemical pest control solution; the second prize goes to Team Neuro Linga at the PSG Institute of Technology and Applied Research in Coimbatore for designing an integrated weather and crop health monitoring system. Team Doodle, also from PSG, proposed a network of sensors that monitor plant conditions for growers, signaling areas of concern. A resource website with a chatbot informed by a machine-learning AI model will assess their concerns and suggest remedies.
The winning students Pranjit Barman and Pragyan Sen Deka designed a drone-mounted hyperspectral imaging eye that roams tea gardens, searching for indications of pest infestations. Suspended below the drone is a smoke chamber that delivers natural fumigants that pests avoid.
Fumigating crops with low-hanging smoke is an ancient, effective, and non-chemical method of driving pests away. In this segment, winning team leader Pragyan Sen Deka narrates how a modern “Spectro Smoke” generator heats ferns and grass with electrically controlled nichrome wire, producing a downward-driven column of smoke that rises to the underside of leaves and drives away pests like the tea mosquito, one of several insects that reduces tea yields in India by an estimated 147 million kilos a year.
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Iran Halts Tea Imports From India | NETA Asks for Ban on Six Pesticides | Kangra Tea Seeks Interventions From State Government
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Good Riddance, El Niño, Beware La Niña | Tea Sales Globally Projected to Slow | African Tea Stakeholders Sign Pact to Combat Child Labor
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Good Riddance, El Niño, Beware La Niña | Tea Sales Globally Projected to Slow | African Tea Stakeholders Sign Pact to Combat Child Labor
INDIA TEA NEWS – Iran Halts Tea Imports From India | NETA Asks for Ban on Six Pesticides | Kangra Tea Seeks Interventions From State Government
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NEWSMAKER – Pragyan Sen Deka, student, Assam Science & Technology University, Jorhat, India
PLUS | Winners of India’s Tech Brew Hackathon Announced –
India’s Tocklai Tea Research Institute in Jorhat announced this week, the winners of a Tech Brew Hackathon competition hosted on International Tea Day. With their innovative solutions, the winning students received 50,000 rupees for tackling their choice of five industry challenges. Teams from 20 universities participated in submitting projects addressing tea waste, marketing and promotion, and climate change. Judging was by a panel of nine tea industry experts.
The top three teams are Team Orthodox, representing the Assam Science & Technology University with a novel non-chemical pest control solution; the second prize goes to Team Neuro Linga at the PSG Institute of Technology and Applied Research in Coimbatore for designing an integrated weather and crop health monitoring system. Team Doodle, also from PSG, proposed a network of sensors that monitor plant conditions for growers, signaling areas of concern. A resource website with a chatbot informed by a machine-learning AI model will assess their concerns and suggest remedies.
The winning students designed a drone-mounted hyperspectral imaging eye that roams tea gardens, searching for indications of pest infestations. Suspended below the drone is a smoke chamber that delivers natural fumigants that pests avoid.
Fumigating crops with low-hanging smoke is an ancient, effective, and non-chemical method of driving pests away. In this segment, winning team leader Pragyan Sen Deka narrates how a modern “Spectro Smoke” generator heats ferns and grass with electrically controlled nichrome wire, producing a downward-driven column of smoke that rises to the underside of leaves and drives away pests like the tea mosquito, one of several insects that reduces tea yields in India by an estimated 147 million kilos a year.
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Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy - Show more
