STiR coffee and tea magazine

8 STiR coffee and tea | 2024 Issue 3 (June / July) earning more customers around Europe and soon we plan to open a showroom in The U.S as well. I'm looking to sell as much tea as possible so I can buy more from the farmers so they can keep the forest and biodiversity. That is the point of my company. Then, we can make tea at every level, from high-end tea and tea bags to blends. But we can't just create teas; we must make teas people like to buy. Volume is everything we need to protect biodiversity. Tourism and education are also important to us. Before [Covid-19], we took people up the mountains to show them the tea trees and discuss sustainability and the importance of biodiversity in the area. Now, we are starting that again. We will have four tour options for the next high season and are opening a new River House location in Chiang Mai to offer more educational experiences so that will start to grow again. STiR: You mentioned that you only buy from farmers who maintain or add to their biodiversity. How do you check for that and ensure they abide by your guidelines? Kenneth Rimdahl: Until now, it's only been my close connection with the farmers, ensuring that they maintain and promote biodiversity. One very important thing we're doing now is partnering with the Asia Institute of Technology's AI department to develop my idea about an app that tracks and rates biodiversity. Before, I could only tell what areas were forest-friendly by physically going to the land and looking at it with my own eyes. From what I could see, this looks like it has a lot of biodiversity, but I always wanted to take measurements to be more exact. So, I've created the Rimdahl Scale to accurately measure biodiversity in tea plantations and tea forests. This has been in development since before [Covid-19], and now we're devising ways to measure every area we work in. We will rate the tea with a trustability system through a smartphone app that the pickers, farmers, and processors must use. Then, in every area we source tea from, we have a measurement system that uses the latest AI technology and microphones to listen to the surrounding animal, bird, and insect activity. The AI reads what bird or insect is making that sound, how loud it is, and the amount of birds or insects in the area. We will also do soil tests. For example, we can see fungus and microbial properties. We're looking into the best way to read the flora. It's easy to check the upper trees, but there are different ways to document the under vegetation, so we're developing that. We also have a biodiversity specialist helping us determine the best proce- dures. In general, we will measure the high trees and the lower undergrowth, insects, and soil, and then every living thing by sound. In the future, every tea we sell will have a number from one to five, rating how much biodiversity it grows with. One is a typical tea plantation, and five is the most biodiverse forest-friendly area. We're also considering charging a higher price for higher levels of biodiversity. That way, the customer knows how much biodiversity grows around every tea. The farmers will also understand that they'll earn more money as they increase biodiversity around the tea. But for me, it's not important that forest- friendly is a thing of "yes or no." It's a process. We just have to increase biodiversity in every place where we produce tea. This way, we can work with the farmers to make more money as they increase biodiversity and stop mono-crop- ping. You offer more incentives to create more biodiversity. We're not just protecting the forest; we're actually adding biodiversity back to the land and reforesting the area. STiR: Regarding the EU deforestation regula- tions – would this app also help growers and suppliers prove that their coffee or cacao does not come from deforested land? Kenneth Rimdahl: We are prepared for that because now we can prove it. Before, I could say this is forest-friendly but with this new system, we can prove what we are doing. In general, it's the same technology that can also be used for rubber, coffee, or cacao. We work with tea, so we'll start with that, but we will absolutely make the app adaptable to other markets as well. We've been working with Left Hand Roasters to help increase and measure biodiversity in coffee. One important thing to note, especially with all the talk about shade-grown coffee and biodiversity, is that I've seen many places where Monsoon Tea Company's new biodiversity tracking app will help other tea, coffee, and cacao businesses increase biodiversity around their lands and eventually reforest the mountains of northern Thailand and beyond. Photo courtesy of Monsoon Tea Company Bundles of hmiang fermenting in a barrel in northern Thailand. Photo courtesy of Monsoon Tea Company

• Cover