Despite the heat, I roped my friend Marci into tasting a buncha organic, fair trade teas from Equal Exchange today. I’d suggested a coffee shop first, but she’s more of a tea person.
Thus, a tea tasting at casa de Siel :)
We kicked things off with 2 green teas: Organic Green Tea, “made from premium unfermented Darjeeling tea,” and Organic Green Magic Tea, a ceylon tea from the Small Organic Farmers Association in Sri Lanka.
The first was our preferred one — a nice, pleasant, basic green tea, which Marci thinks would be good to make iced tea. The “magic” tea was a lil bitter, with an unpleasant aftertaste, we thought. I wasn’t sure what the “magic” part was about, but I made a lil wish before sipping –
Our v. v. fave was the Organic English Breakfast Tea — made of a “blend of malty Assam and crisp Darjeeling teas.” Again, Marci thought this would make awesome iced tea (we were really hot — no AC at my place). “I would totally drink this everyday. If I were English,” said I. This tea tasted strong, rich, and full :)
And last but not least, the Organic Irish Breakfast Tea, which Marci described as “deep” and I as “smooth.” It’s made of a blend of black teas from the northern state of Dooars and from small farmers in the southern state of Kerala, India.
Just as an FYI — Tea plantations can be certified as fair trade (Coffee plantations cannot), but the vast majority a lot (see Rodney’s comment) of Equal Exchange’s tea comes from co-ops.
Anyway — You can tell by the review here that neither Marci nor I are serious tea connoseurs. Still, the impromptu tasting was fun and yum, and I also know what I’m getting Marci for her birthday next Feb…
I’ll ask Rodney of Equal Exchange if the tea’s gonna be avaliable loose anytime soon — cuz I know that’s how you real tea drinkers like it :P You can get the stuff via the Equal Exchange e-store :)
Siel,
Thank you for taking the time to check out the teas.
Re: loose leaf teas
Yes, we will be offering a selection of organic, Fair Trade loose leaf teas by the end of ’06, BUT they will be distinct from our current line of bagged teas. So don’t be expecting to find the same varities.
Re: the co-op component of our teas.
When we returned to the tea business in 1997 we did specifically choose as our main partner TPI (Tea Promoters of India)- a family run business that operates a number of organic tea plantations in Darjeeling and Assam because they shared our desired to incorporate their neighbors, a small farmer co-op called “Mineral Springs” (aka Samjukta Vikas) into an Equal Exchange tea program. For example, in the intervening years they have been very helpful in accomodating our wishes to increase the small-farmer component in our overall tea line.
And to be more precise, here is the current TPI/co-op break-out of our various teas:
EE TEA % from TPI % from a co-op
rooibos 0 100%
Green Magic 0 100%
Earl Grey 50 50
Irish B-fast 50 50
English B-fast 95 5
Green Tea 95 5
So you’ll see that its split about 50/50 overall, and therefore maybe not quite as co-op-y as you, or your readers, might have thought. However, both our plans and the trends over time are to keep shifting more of the sourcing to co-ops, limited only by their capacity to increase production of the necessary quality.
Comment by Rodney North — August 12, 2006 @ 5:17 pm
I bought a box of the Organic Green at the Fair Trade Festival and brought it to work, where my co-workers have gone crazy over green tea but are drinking Celestial Seasonings (or worse, Bigelow) instead of FT. I’ve put it out with a little note about the logo and why FT is good. Haven’t heard reviews from others, but I tried a cup this morning and it is yummy! with a kind of smoky, woody sensibility to it.
All Equal Exchange needs now is decaf Earl Grey and I am theirs forever :)
Comment by erin — August 15, 2006 @ 2:14 pm
Rodney — Thanks for the info — I put edits in the post to include it :)
erin — Why oh why are your co-workers into Celestial Seasoning? Is it cuz office supplies — including coffee and tea — come from somewhere like Office Depot? Ah — How’re we gonna get yum fair trade teas into offices reliant on large office supply retailers? …
Comment by Siel — August 15, 2006 @ 5:06 pm