That was the start of Schoenfeld’s long journey to meet the man who grows this tea at a single source – the stony slopes of Wu Yi Mountains in Fujian, China.

He writes of this journey in the May 2012 edition of Travel + Leisure where he names Seven Cups among six Best Places to Drink Tea in America. He recommends Liu Guo Ying’s da hong pao and notes “Hodge, the only American with a license to export tea from China, sources the best of the best from Wuyishan, Yunnan, Qimen, Anxi and beyond.”

When Schoenfeld tasted this tea at Seven Cups Teahouse it “altered my tea-drinking life,” he wrote. This tea is “rare, expensive, and frequently counterfeited, but this one was authentic. And it kept getting better – richer and rounder with every cup.”

Schoenfeld admits he is tea obsessive. After he tasted da hong pao in Tucson he flew around the world, guided by Austin Hodge who introduced him to Master Liu who consented to lead them to his mountain-top tea garden that few outsiders have ever seen. “Liu is a rock star in the Chinese tea world, the only grower to be awarded a citation by the government for innovation in a traditional art,” Schoenfeld wrote.

“I was there in search of the terroir of my favorite teas – just as I’ve flown around the world to see the vineyards and meet the winemakers so I can better understand my favorite wines.”

The character of tea is largely determined by where and how it is grown. However, the taste of tea also has as much to do with the skill of who’s brewing it, Schoenfeld noted.

At Seven Cups Teahouse the exotic da hong pao could well be prepared by Zhuping Hodge, a certified Chinese Tea Master and native of China. She’s Austin’s wife and currently is leading a tour in China. She often demonstrates a traditional tea ceremony and on most Friday afternoons offers complimentary tea tastings at a rare and intricate wooden tea table carved from a single root. The Tucson teahouse is located at 2516 E. 6^th St. in the historic Village of Sam Hughes.

Many of the teas available through Seven Cups have only been available to the Western world in the last 10 years. During that time, Hodge, founder and president of Seven Cups, traveled throughout China and cultivated relationships with tea farmers who use traditional methods passed down through the centuries.  Seven Cups currently source teas from 30 producers in 10 different regions of China, homeland of the world’s first and finest teas, Hodge said.

Seven Cups has solid relationships in China with tea producers, tea masters and government officials. This is the only American tea company to obtain a license to export tea directly from China with no middleman.

“From our beginnings, Seven Cups has been dedicated to open sourcing and establishing a direct connection between the artists who make the tea and the people who drink it. I hope that Bruce’s article will spur the tea industry to be more open about who makes their tea,” Hodge said.

Tea aficionados don’t have to travel to Tucson to discover da hong pao. Seven Cups sells Chinese tea online to connoisseurs in more than 90 countries. The company also supplies tea to other exclusive tea business in Denmark, Brazil, Canada and the United States. They also host two tea tours every year for tea professionals and enthusiasts.

Seven Cups was founded in 2002 to sell Chinese teas to aficionados worldwide and opened its first teahouse in Tucson in 2004. Last year the company launched an international brokerage service offering small tea companies access to its extensive network of connoisseur-quality teas direct from farmers in China at an affordable price and in manageable quantities.

Hodge writes a widely read blog and has been extensively published within China. In 2011 Hodge became the only foreigner given “The Top Ten Outstanding Persons of China” award. presented by the Chinese tea community for his contributions in promoting Fine Chinese Teas. For more information, visit www.sevencups.com.

To read Schoenfeld’s full tea report, visit http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/a-global-guide-to-the-best-tea.html.

When I think about tea trends, I am thinking over a ten year period and extending what I see going ten years into the future. Things have changed a lot in the past ten years from when we began our business. Twenty years ago getting any good Chinese tea was virtually impossible in the US. I had to get mine from a Chinese friend whose family was from a tea-growing region in China. At the time it seemed incredible to me that such a fine product could not be purchased, even if you had the money. That is not to say that you couldn’t buy any Chinese teas; you could certainly go to an Asian market and buy some poor quality tea, but that could not compare to the tea I was getting from my friend’s father. I started going to China to get my own stash, an act which, in 2002, developed slowly into a business. A lot has changed between then and now, both in the American market and in the Chinese tea industry, so I want to identify what I see as trends. As is usually the case, I want to point out that my orientation is weighted towards the China side of things, so just keep in mind my biases.

First let me start with China: ten years ago there were only five companies out of tens of thousands that had been organically certified. Now organic certification is relatively common. There is a misconception that China’s tea industry was/still is completely dependent on chemical fertilizers and pesticides, a misconception that is meant to hail the organic movement. Sure, chemicals are used but usually by large producers who, at that time, were government operations. Because the government had cleared a lot of fertile land in the seventies, they relied on fertilizers and pesticides to spur and maintain growth. However, this all was a very recent development in the two thousand year old history of tea cultivation in China, and these practices have since fallen into disrepute in the general Chinese tea industry. Chemically produced tea holds its rightful place in the lower-end of the commercial market. In 2008 the Chinese government beefed up their export laws to prevent contaminated food products including tea from being exported. All shipments actually get inspected if they are legally exported. China does not publicize their strict export laws, but surely China is a leader in insuring safely of food products being exported, and one of the worse countries when it comes to public relations.

It is difficult to convey just how fast China has been building its infrastructure, in fact, it’s hard to even imagine. The building projects that have been most relevant to the tea industry are road building. Some tea growing areas, where ten years ago the roads required a four-wheel drive vehicle to reach, are now easily accessible. Although roads indirectly impact tea production, the changes they have made in the industry are clearly visible. Comparing the state of the factories of before and after says a lot. Seeing the wide range of vehicles that are at the Anji farmers market says a lot. The size of the farmers market is amazing considering it did not exist ten years ago. Plus the farmers are getting top dollar when they sell to tea makers. All of these conditions certainly would not have been possible if it were not for better roads.  If you are someone like me, who has traveled over thousands of miles in rural China, roads change everything. As the roads improved, small town economies got better, tea making became more profitable, and more young people stayed home instead of becoming urban migrant workers because these traditional skills started paying better.

There are other factors driving this gradual shift in the market. Let’s get back to roads: as countryside travel becomes more accessible, more and more people, especially young people captivated by the tea experience, are wanting to go to China and get out into tea producing areas. In addition, a lot of these young people are learning to speak Chinese. Authentic information about tea is going to start flowing out of China onto the internet, which will make the demand for quality tea higher and higher. For centuries the middlemen, in both China and Europe, have been able to control information about tea. That has kept tea makers and consumers, literally, worlds apart. I predict that ten years from now, tea companies will be judged not only on the quality of tea that they supply, but also on the depth and veracity of the information about the tea and its producer. No longer will tea companies maintain their hold over consumers and producers by claiming sources as “trade secrets.” Hopefully that would give rise to tea makers being identified along with the cultivar, and the date it was made. Open sourcing will become the standard for dedicated tea drinkers, not the exception.

On the American side of the equation I have been out talking with small tea businesses along the West Coast as far north as Victoria and east into New Mexico. What I am hearing from all of them, without exception, is that they are unhappy with the quality of the tea that they have been getting from wholesalers in the US and Canada. They are concerned about distinguishing themselves from their competition, which is increasingly vast. You can even include many coffee roasters in that mix because they are selling a lot of tea alongside their high-end coffee. Inevitably, the need for better, distinguishable tea will point to China.

I think that future for tea drinkers and tea producers is going to get better and better- just as America’s food revolution is renewing taste in the menu, and is renewing the demand for skilled, small farmers, thereby adding invaluable quality to our day-to-day lives. Of course it will cost more, but so what? Why cap a price on the quality of life? What will happen to the tea plantations that follow the agricultural model (cheap products at the cost of human and environmental expense) established by European colonies? As I write this blog, those exploitive systems are breaking down in the tea plantations of India and the chicken factories of America. We want our broccoli to taste like broccoli, our chickens to be healthy, and our tea leaves to be unbroken. This is a trend that is going to continue and grow, as young people that are not susceptible to what has been traditional marketing get older and demand good food, sustainable agriculture, and transparency in the supply chain.

Austin

In this episode we visit Austin at the Seven Cups Warehouse to talk about choosing green puer cakes. Learn the basics for evaluating a cake in relation to the quality of the mao cha and whether it is made from an old tree. Austin shows how the color changes over time, gives tasting notes and information on appropriate storage. Check out our online catalog of green puer cakes in our teashop.

Today’s topic: Choosing Green Puer Cakes

Thank you all for your comments regarding our podcasts. We would like to create future podcasts on topics you all are interested in, so please contact us with ideas.

Zhuge Liang

Starting off a new year in China comes with the annual Spring Festival. During this season, China sees the largest migration of people in the world. It is a time of family that calls people home. In China, family is very much related to place. Most Chinese feel some kind of kinship to people from their home town. It is also a time of good luck, and the luckiest year is the Year of the Dragon. It is certainly my favorite time of the year when all of the possibilities are out in front of us. In the tea business, at least for us because China is so much a part of our lives, it is the most exciting time of the year. Seasons mean a lot to us because our business revolves around them.

2011 was a good year for us. I was in China for five months and Zhuping was there for three. We even took Julian, our youngest son, out of school in the spring and put him in a Chinese school in Chongqing for three months. Our son Josh, who is in college studying music and Chinese, spent a couple of months in Qingdao at the university there. It is my feeling that if your kids can speak Chinese and English, you really don’t need to worry about their future much. America and China will certainly be shaping the future for many generations to come.

20 years ago this year, I was first introduced to good Chinese tea, and it will make the tenth year that Seven Cups has been in business. China and Chinese culture have enriched my life on so many levels that I am unable to get my mind and feelings around how moved I have been by the experience.  Going into the new year holds just as much excitement for me as it did in the beginning, even though staying alive in business has been really challenging. It has been true for me and the people that work here that everyday is a good day to go to work. The tea never gets boring, the work is always challenging, and even though the market for high-end tea in the world outside of China is small, it is growing every year.

We tried to make this business as hard as possible. First of all we decided to sell a hot beverage in the Sonoran Desert in Southern Arizona, then we decided to never sell any tea in a tea bag. We also decided that we would sell tea that was quite a bit more expensive than people were used to buying. We decided to reveal all of our sources, information that other tea companies consider to be trade secrets. We decided that we would not engage in blending, a practice that mixes good tea with not-so-good tea to maximize profits. We also decided never to flavor any of our teas, and provide the deepest information we could dig out of China, an all consuming, never ending pursuit. We don’t buy tea from anyone that doesn’t produce it, and the only way we can be satisfied is by visiting the production area. We wanted to be able to offer all of the teas that had been distinguished as “Famous Teas,” and we wanted to get the best example of each one, both for authenticity and quality.  In short we decided to do business differently from every tea company that was successful that we knew of.

Thanks to all of our customers, producers, dedicated staff, friends and family that supported us, and for the support that we have received from the tea community, both in China, America and people from almost every country in the world.  We are looking forward to another year in business, taking it one harvest at a time.

We at Seven Cups wish you all good health, prosperity, and luck in the Year of the Dragon.

Austin

In this episode Zhuping talks about tea brewing basics for scented, black, puer and wulong tea. Check out the tea brewed in this podcast-Bai Long Zhu (Silver Dragon Pearls) Scented Tea, Sheng Tai Chen Xiang (Premium) Loose Leaf Puer,and Ma Liu Mi (Monkey Picked) Anxi Wulong

Today’s topic: Tea Brewing Basics

Thank you all for your comments regarding our podcasts. We would like to create future podcasts on topics you all are interested in, so please contact us with ideas.

In this episode Zhuping talks about selecting the best teaware for brewing green, white and yellow tea. She answers the question-”Cast iron for brewing tea?”. Now that you have your teaware ready why not check out the teas brewed in this podcast- Ming Qian An Ji Bai Cha (White Tea) Green Tea (Organic) and
Bai Mu Dan (White Peony) White Tea (Organic) 2011.

Today’s topic: Cast Iron for Brewing Tea?

Thank you all for your comments regarding our podcasts. We would like to create future podcasts on topics you all are interested in, so please contact us with ideas.

We want to show you how easy it is to brew tea. In this episode Zhuping talks about teaware and the ease and convenience of using Seven Cups Tea Jars. It is a myth that brewing good quality tea is difficult. As Austin pointed out in his blog, easy tea brewing just requires good tea, a glass and hot water. Learn more about our Seven Cups Tea Jars in the tea shop.

Today’s topic: Easy Tea Brewing with Seven Cups Tea Jars

Thank you all for your comments regarding our podcasts. We would like to create future podcasts on topics you all are interested in, so please contact us with ideas.

The Chinese Communist Party, which owns all of the land and has a hostile position towards democratically organized groups, no matter what the purpose, governs China. Do you think the Fair Trade USA is bringing democracy to the Chinese countryside? Do you think that the community as defined by Fair Trade USA is the Chinese government? It is true that the government is no longer directly running business, but it does mean that the owners of what used to be government business have most often gained the business through corrupt relationships with local officials.

Fair trade is in the news due to the new split between Fair Trade USA and the European FLO (as reported by Dan Bolton in the World Tea News), Fair Trade USA has furthered the gap between the original, core values of the founders of the movement and the marketing-focused business that Fair trade certifying has become, especially in the US. One of the main reasons for the split with the FLO was Fair Trade USA’s desire to certify large corporate plantations. Fair Trade has become a big business with a large and growing market in America, where consumers trust labels and certifications without worry. Does this mean that the large plantations Fair Trade USA would like to certify (now that they have split from the FLO) will organize their workers democratically, and they will get to determine how the money gets used?

According to the World Tea News in a separate article reported that Numi Organic Tea is the nation’s leading brand of Fair Trade certified tea and tisane imports. The article singles out a Chinese producer, Dazhangshan Organic Tea Farmer Association or DOTFA. Allow me to quote the article just in case you are not a subscriber to the WTN:
‘The certifier cited examples such as the Dazhangshan Organic Tea Farmer Association in China which was able to purchase new tea processing equipment to improve the quality of its tea and the living conditions of its members. “Members of the association, nearly 35 percent of which are women, now make nearly 20 percent more than other families in the area,” according to Fair Trade USA.’

So who supplied the statistics that Fair Trade USA used in the above quote? Do you think that Fair Trade USA freely interviewed the peasant workers to gather these stats about women and the surrounding workers that were making 20% less than the DOTFA workers were? Although it is certainly true that tea workers in China already do better than agricultural workers, for most other products, but that is true fair trade or not, and I don’t know where to get the stats, maybe the government.

Why is it that we don’t think through this kind of marketing, and we are willing to believe the absurd claims and buy the product based a logo on the back.

I had a bizarre experience in Yunnan this year when I happened to have a meeting with an ethnic group’s spiritual leader, the Bulong Ethnic Minority in the Jingmai area. The Bulong that have a culture where tea is at the heart of their spiritual beliefs, and have cared for an ancient tea forest for more than a thousand years, and have been advertised as a model of Fair Trade USA’s program in China for many years. They have recently disappeared from their website.

When I asked the leader of the Bulong about their dealings with Fair Trade USA and the affects of their involvement in the program, I heard a very interesting story. I was first surprised to hear that the group had never received a certification, or at least the document saying so, same with their organic certification. An American tea company had come by to spend the night on three separate occasions, each time dropping off some money, which the Bulong were very grateful for, and was put to good use, but what is completely bizarre, the tea company never bought any tea from them because they said it was too expensive to sell in the US. Tea from ancient trees hasn’t come cheap for centuries. So how did that exchange, as surreal as it sounds, end up Fair Trade USA certified?

We could look into other Fair Trade USA products originating from China and find some similar kind of bargain struck that at least doesn’t line up with what the purchasers of the product think the logo represents in principle. The Fair Trade USA website currently lists three Chinese producers, not many out of the 70,000 plus that exist there.

It is true that China has many poor farmers and workers. Is Fair Trade Certification going to actually change this reality? There will be no meaningful impact in China, but it sure makes selling products easier.

Where does that leave us as consumers in America? We can certainly stand to look past mere package labels. But perhaps Fair Trade USA only opened its certification to plantations and corporate farming to be more “inclusive” so companies like Honest Tea, a branch of Coca Cola, can get in on the deal. Fair Trade USA is also hoping to partner with Walmart, Target, and Costco.

This is further proof that the absurd can be effectively marketed in America. Keep in mind that the little extra you pay for a Fair Trade product from China may be deceptive marketing.  As a consumer it is a much better buying choice to reward quality. Don’t compare tea to coffee; wine is a more appropriate metaphor. When you look for quality you are rewarding skill at the source, and the team of professionals that produce a tea. There is no need for fair trade because skilled workers already are getting paid better than the unskilled workers that are making commercial grade tea. If you focus on quality in a global economy, you are, in the end, making a more meaningful purchase. Rewarding skill and substance always has more impact at the source; so don’t reward the clever marketing of middlemen.

Just as I was writing this blog, the WTN (Dan Bolton) published another article you should read if you are interested in this issue. It is about the confusion happening with vendors because of the break between FLO and FTUSA. Please note how the word “plantation” has now been substituted with the word “Estate”.  I can say without exception there is no tea being grown on “Estates” in China.

I sometimes hear a customer say, ‘I will only buy tea that is fair trade certified.’ Well, for all of those socially conscious consumers looking for logos, your options just got expanded.

It’s been raining here for days. That means there is no hot water because the solar water heating system hasn’t seen the sun in days. It is muddy in the tea gardens, and there is a distinct coolness pointed out to me by the locals, that indicates fall is coming. Fall here is kind of like fall in Tucson, it is hard to distinguish it as a separate season, but the local people still can feel it in their bones.

I first came to Yunxian in 2005 after a trip to Dubai.  I had been invited to Dubai to become a member of the newly formed Dubai Tea Trading Center. Dubai wanted to become the hub of tea distribution and was providing remarkable incentives for companies to set up business there.  I’m not very interested in commercial tea, then or now, but I am very interested in the distribution networks that affect the tea industry.

I made a couple of trips there and got a very good education about the inner workings of how international tea flows, under the tutelage of Sanjay Sethi, the director of the new center. Sanjay is a certified tea taster who comes from a family of tea merchants that has been involved in the tea trade almost from its beginnings in India.

Sanjay was tasked with setting up the center as part of the gold and diamonds department of the Dubai government, rating tea as being as valuable a commodity. During my short stay, I got to meet some of the world’s largest tea buyers and sellers, from India (Darjeeling and Assam), Africa, and Sri Lanka on the supply side, and Pakistan, Morocco, Iran, Syria, and Turkey on the buyer side. I learned that the Middle East consumed 25% of the world’s tea. This kind of quantity was way over my head, but it was fascinating to talk to these people, even though our company was too small to be at the tea trading center.

There were already plenty of traders in Dubai, in small dingy offices in the market place not far from by the largest gold souk in the world, along Dubai Creek where the sail boats were docked that had been sailing between Dubai, India and the rest of the middle east for millennia. Arab smugglers and traders were even known to sail as far away as ancient Canton, where an Arab pearl trader dropped a large Dubai pearl into the Pearl River, giving it its name. I’m sure many of those traders have relocated to the free trade zone by now, where the 21^st Century buildings don’t convey the same kind of romance as the old market.

The tea that I had brought for Sanjay to taste was very different from the tea being sold in Dubai, commercial grade tea that sold for a price partly driven by commodity traders, margins being in pennies per ton.  After visiting the docks and warehouses being set up in Dubai, I could see that the appetite for tea in the Middle East was massive, and it wasn’t hard to imagine European buyers finding it convenient to do business here as well. It was a whole different realm than the one I was familiar with. There was almost no Chinese tea to be found in Dubai, and what was there was awful.  Cheap gunpowder headed to Morocco and equally bad green tea headed to Afghanistan via Pakistan.

I told Sanjay that I would do some research into commercial tea in China, where I was headed at the time of my first visit to Dubai. The first place I went was one of the black tea producing regions of Yunnan. I was on my way to visit Dian Hong, the biggest single producer of black tea in China at the time. On my way to Fengqing, hometown of the Dian Hong factory, I stopped in a little town, where I am writing from now, called Yunxian. Quite by chance I met one of the best  known entrepreneurs in China, certainly in Yunnan, Liu Guanghan. In 2005 he was busy hiring people from the Dian Hong Company to work for his new tea venture, and one was a friend of my friend, so we stopped to say hello, and Liu Guanghan and I struck up a friendship.

As a boy (he’s now 63), he worked picking tea with his mother in the mountains close by here. As China moved from the economics of Mao to the modern high-powered capitalism, with communists at the helm (sorry Great Helmsman), that exists in China these days, Liu Guanghan was one of its first entrepreneurs. He worked the local market on the fringes of the marketplace starting peasant businesses that were not officially registered with the government. First with tea, and then with a primitive soda pop company, and then moved into producing a local alcoholic beverage made from papaya and pineapple. He struggled for a while in the 80’s when unregistered small companies were made illegal by the central government in Beijing. He expanded into beer making after he was sanctioned by the provincial government, and by the time that I met him, he owned successful breweries in many areas of Yunnan. He was respected nationally for his accomplishments coming from a peasant background and for improving the economy in very poor areas of Yunnan. He is a local hero for his dedication to his workers and the rural communities where he does business.

In 2005 he was investing heavily in the business that had been his family’s when he was a boy — tea. He bought his first CTC machine and was making green tea, black tea, puer, and a bottled tea beverage for the local market that was very good. These days he makes some very good quality black tea that he is proud of for good reason. Even though we didn’t do any business together at the time I have been visiting him ever since on my trips to Yunnan, just to say hello when I pass through the area.

During the times when prices were highest for puer, the Dian Hong Company, struggling to make the transition from a government-controlled company to a private company, made a major mistake. They shifted their emphasis away from black tea to puer. They were not able to completely fulfill their contract with Lipton. That left Lipton with a need to expand their purchasing in the area so that they were not dependent on just Dian Hong. That opened the door for other companies to participate in the contract, and Liu Guanghan was one of those companies.

This year he leased an entire county of incredible quality tea gardens, and is currently building two new factories located in that area. I think it is very ironic that the machines that will be used in these factories are made in India, the machines that are used in making the lower grade teas. With the changing global economy, the factors determining the market are continuously shifting.

For many years I have said that the Chinese should not even consider trying to compete in the commercial commodity tea market internationally. The cost of labor in China is higher than in Africa, and the plantation model that is the dominant model outside of China is geared toward high yields rather than quality. The international distribution channels favor those types of tea producers that were originally established by the British. But factors in the market are changing. The market demand is leaning towards quality, the plantation model is deteriorating, there are labor problems causing trouble in India that will eventually spread to Africa, and Kenya is already facing labor conflicts as its economy grows. If Liu Guanghan decides to open an office in Dubai and establish his own distribution channel outside of China (something Chinese companies have been reluctant to do), I’m sure he will find a few people knocking on his door. Perhaps China will be able to compete on the low end as labor costs rise globally. And what if he brings higher-grade teas with him to Dubai as well as his commercial grade teas? What if more Chinese companies follow him out of China? I am sure of one thing: China is going to be playing a greater role in the international market in the future, on all levels of the tea industry.

One thing is still true here in China, as it is in the US and Europe.  There is a growing demand for better quality tea, Chinese and otherwise, but Chinese certainly. It is probably an added irony that Chinese know so little about tea and tea culture, largely because of the Cultural Revolution, the fragmented nature of the market, the lack of national brands, but also because China has not been as focused on its own culture in the tornado of change that is happening here.  But that is also changing. With the larger economy creating more leisure for more people as well as more buying power, there is also a growing interest among Chinese for their own culture and history, and of course, products made in China. Tea, the Chinese national drink, will not be ignored.

He had been searching for a map of Shi Feng Mountain and noticed that some of our photos and content appeared to have been lifted from our website without our knowledge or consent.  Our content was being featured on JAS eTea.com to promote one of their Long Jing teas.  It looked remarkably similar to what we have on our Long Jing tea culture page.  It really irritated him to see this (us, too) because he does all of his own writing, photography, and programming for his website.  He’s had his images lifted to other sites as well.  I’m sure many other entrepreneurs can relate.

Plagiarism is an enormous problem for people doing business online.  It takes a lot of hard work and costs a lot of money to do your own research, take photos, and do the writing that goes on your website. Plagiarism is the opposite of hard work. It’s a crime of laziness. Competition among online tea merchants is fierce because the entry point for a basic website is very low — throw up a site, find a supplier or two, it’s not hard. Creating a unique website, by contrast, takes constant effort.

As egregious as plagiarism is, it brings up a larger issue facing all of us in this industry. The tea industry, especially in the US, often feels like a small town where what you say or do can come back to bite you. But what do you do when you see something that isn’t right? Do you say something and risk the backlash? Our friend debated whether or not to contact us.

In the end he decided to speak up. He didn’t want to intrude or come off as a “web policeman” and apologized in advance if we had an agreement with JAS eTea.com. We don’t, and we appreciate the heads up. We work hard at sourcing and we put a lot of effort into researching the story behind each tea. Publishing that on our website is our way of promoting our producers and bringing them out of the shadows and into the light where they belong, so that people can connect with them and have confidence that the teas are authentic. It’s an essential part of creating a market for these teas.

Unfortunately, putting all of that information out there means that others can copy/paste it. That’s a risk we’ve decided to take. We share this information openly with our wholesale and brokerage customers, in fact we encourage them to use it if it helps them promote the teas they buy from us. But when we see someone using our information who doesn’t have a relationship with us, then we need to put a stop to it, because they’re using that information in a false way to trick people. That undermines us, the producers, and the open sourcing model we’re trying to create, not to mention the information itself. Being a small company we don’t have a lot of time to devote to combing the web looking for this kind of thing, so we really do appreciate it when someone gives us a heads up.

But back to the question.  What do you do when you see something that isn’t right? It reminded me of the blog post that Austin had just written about leadership in the tea industry.  In my opinion, honesty, integrity, and openness are prerequisites if our industry is going to flourish in the right way.  More and more customers are doing a lot of research on the web before they buy, and they are demanding ever-higher standards from the companies they buy from. As our friend mentioned during our conversation, “the web is a surprisingly small place…even smaller for tea merchants in the US, and I think the only way to keep it on the up and up in terms of intellectual property is to work together.”

Leadership is work. Leaders in this industry are going to be the ones who do their own research, question what they find, and present the most accurate, honest account they can about their teas. Being a leader means doing this constantly, always questioning, always communicating, never resting. We are after all creating art, something that has never before been available, at least not outside of China. The shady marketing, half-truths, and outright deception that characterize much of this industry should be downright offensive to us. They should make us angry enough to speak up.

Speaking up is to deception what sunshine is to mold. Speaking up raises the bar and makes us better.

Let’s clean house.

Mikel.