STiR coffee and tea magazine

24 STiR coffee and tea / Issue 5, 2018 (October / November) Tea Report: Peter Keen CANADA Davids Tea Now in Grocery Liquid tea has led sales growth in the center aisles of grocery stores the past couple of years and now dry tea in sachets is following that trend. In August Montreal-based Davids Tea, the largest tea chain in North America with 240 stores, signed a distribution deal with Loblaws Compa- nies, the largest grocery retailer in Canada. The teas will be stocked nationally at several banners including Loblaws, Value-Mart, Atlantic Super- store, Dominion, Fortinos, and Provigo. Loblaws is a $45 billion company employing 136,000 workers in Canada. Tocklai Tea Research Center Longjing drones taxi tea CHINA Longjing's Drone Air Taxi Drones are sure to become as essential to the tea farmer as smart phones within the next two years. The latest example of innovation is emblematic of a new era of fusing the best of the old heritage of tea with technology that adds to it instead of automating it in ways that reduce character and quality. This is the air taxi equivalent that picks up freshly harvest- ed leaves from mountain elevations and delivers them to the tea processing center within two minutes, instead of an hour. The leaves are undamaged and just off the bush. What makes this emblematic is that the tea is Dragonwell and the tea gardens are in Longjing. Dragonwell, one of China's famous 10 teas, is grown and processed via the very best of artisan methods that date back 1,200 years at least, on terroir that has been well protected. The very best is not exported for general sale. The rarest imperial grade leaf is plucked up on Lion's Peak only on the first of the 10 days of the pre-Qing- ming festival, just before the seasonal spring rains begin. The drones preserve quality and improve costs and productiv- ity – heritage plus technology. Drones are, like smart phones, general purpose tools that provide fast and quantifiable payoff at low cost. That makes them today's innovation and tomorrow's necessity. Proven applica- tions include: • Spraying: water savings of up to 90%, chemicals reduced 30-50%. • Weeding: labor savings amounting to a factor of 10 and up, 5 times faster than tractor application of pesticides • Planting: decrease in costs of 85%. • Infra-red plant diagnostics: signs of plant stress apparent through sensors ten days before the physical damage is visible. • Satellite and aircraft imaging: halving of costs for farms smaller than 20 hectares. Drone prices and capabilities range widely. The ones used here are basic and reliable, with a limited carrying capacity of up to 15 kilograms, and no cameras or communications equipment. Prices for such drones that handle core functions of aerial surveys, light spraying, crop monitoring, tracking of water levels, weed growth, etc., are as low as $1,800. Ones with multi-device and extra payload capabilities are in the $15,000 range. Operating costs are low. Maintenance, training, and other costs add up for the more complex systems and can be as high as 25% of the capital costs per annum. But the Longjing tea limo is inexpen- sive and effective. And, far from being "technology," it is really a "natural" extension of the best bio-management and artisanal production. INDIA Kerala Floods and Mudslides Record flooding in South India killed nearly 500 and forced 1 million into shelters during the late summer mon- soon. Damage to the region's 86 tea plantations was estimated at $27 million. The estates employ 40,000 workers. Kerala's coffee, tea, and pepper crop sustained $82.5 million in losses. The region produces about 18% of India's tea. Kerala grows about half the southern total, accounting for 95 million kilos in 2017-18. Inundation was brief sparing many trees, but mudslides proved devastating in several districts. Tea prices spiked at local auctions in the weeks following the floods but have since returned to seasonal averages. Infrastructure is expected to take many months to repair. Tocklai Partners with UC Davis The Tocklai Tea Research Institute, located in Assam, India, is the oldest and largest tea r&d center in the world. It's also one of the most financially stretched, unable to meet salaries in early 2018. Government funding for research has been cut back and the Institute's management parent Tea Research Association has made it clear that it is very much on its own and must com- mercialize its research outputs. The University of California at Davis is well-financed. It is rated in surveys as one of the top five agricultural research universities in the world. It is reported to have spent $900 million on its cumulative work. In early 2017 it announced its Global Tea Initiative, a multidisciplinary research and education program address- ing the many dimensions of tea cultures, agriculture, social issues, climate, and arts. At the end of 2017, the two institu- tions signed memorandum of understand- ing that established a commitment to form a collaborative relationship for joint research. While the Davis program is still being set up, there is every reason to welcome this as a combination of capabilities that can leverage so many aspects of the tea industry.

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