Vaideghi Kanan’s family has been involved with tea for decades. They grow the green leaf that is sold to one of the numerous tea production facilities in the Nilgiris. Many of the women who grow up in this region find themselves tending the terraced hill sides of tea plants, plucking leaves from the plants year-round in this prolific tea growing region. Continue reading

About four years ago I met Young Mountain Tea at a farmer’s market in Springfield Oregon. I had just wrapped up a season of harvesting seaweed along the California coast and was visiting a friend before trekking back to Minnesota for winter. As I walked through the late fall market something more unusual was illuminated amongst all the vegetables – a tea stand. Behind the candles flickering below the glass teapots stood Raj, founder of Young Mountain Tea. He happily welcomed people to his booth, pouring samples and speaking to the various teas with enthusiasm and care.

Over the past two years, I had spent time on both the east and west coasts learning about where food came from. In upstate New York, I spent time dabbling in vegetables, bees, and dairy while on the west coast I delved into permaculture, earthworks, and foraging. Despite covering a wide array of food and farming endeavors, one of my daily staples was missing from field and forest experience… and that was tea.

Up until this point, tea was a mystery to me. I knew I liked tea and preferred it to coffee. I often made a habit of going to the Asian grocery store buying teas with the most interesting names, or ones whose labels were in anything but English. I was well aware of the transformation the coffee industry was experiencing regarding direct-trade and total transparency in the supply chain – but did not see that mirrored in tea. Little did I realize that those flickering lights at the Young Mountain Tea table would be at the catalyst for that demystification.

I tasted every sample Raj offered as he described his experience with each grower, and how their teas were made. I learned that all tea came from the same plant and it was a matter of processing (among other factors) that accounted for their differences. I left that meeting with a bag of Indi’s Gold and returned to Minneapolis. Later, as the winter snows began to fall and my tea supplies needed replenishing, I emailed Raj with a proposition. “I think your teas would do really well in Minnesota. There are lots of people interested in socially responsible sourcing, and… it’s COLD here!” With that Raj and I decided to give tea sales in Minnesota a try. With no marketing experience - he sent me a kit of written materials, glassware, tea, a video clip of how he presented the teas, and with that, I became a traveling tea peddler of sorts.

Since then I have been working to bring Young Mountain Tea to tea drinker’s cups in the Midwest and around the US. My friends can hardly hide their surprise when they hear that their friend Ingrid, usually dabbling in gardening or sports, is doing SALES work. But I reassure them, “I don’t do sales … I do storytelling.”

Since day one, sharing Young Mountain Tea has been an opportunity for me to participate in the timeless ritual of pouring tea for strangers. Every time a grocery manager or café owner agrees to sit down with me, I realize I am treated to a rare and precious exchange – 2 people carving out time in our busy days to give a moment to an unscripted meeting. Sure, we will of course talk about tea and the people who grow it, but with a warm cup in one’s hand, it is easy to talk beyond the tea and laugh about a mutual experience or empathize with a difficult day. And as tea contains L-theonine, an amino acid responsible for producing a calming and relaxing effect on the body, I also believe that these mid-day tea interludes are good for everyone’s balance and peace.

Young Mountain Tea has given me friends around the world, connection to my community, and a deeper knowledge of the world’s most consumed beverage after water. It is a pleasure to share Young Mountain Tea with you. I hope we all keep our cups full and continue to pour tea for dear friends, family, and the occasional stranger.

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Play this short video to learn a little more about Young Mountain Tea.  The company's founder, Raj Vable, will describe the realities of the Indian tea industry, and present how Young Mountain Tea hopes to use tea as a catalyst for change in rural India.  Continue reading

Sit back and enjoy an afternoon chat with Raj Vable, Founder of Young Mountain Tea.  He will discuss the motivation for beginning Young Mountain Tea, and the social mission at the heart of the company's work.  Continue reading

 “In 2050, will there be Tea?” was the question being posed. Over 40 people had gathered at Tea Source’s warehouse on Father’s Day to hear guest lecturer Nigel Melican speak on the future of tea. This lecture was part of Tea Source’s Master Series to educate the public on relevant issues related to tea. Bill Waddington, founder of Tea Source, assured the audience that it would be a “sobering and heartening conversation,” to which the audience cautiously chuckled.   While it was clear that lecture would dip into the grim realities of climate change, urbanization, and a shifting face of tea, Melican said he would “steer the middle course between optimism and pessimism.” He would balance the doom and gloom through highlighting the possibility for change that could be achieved through human creativity and innovation within the tea industry.

Melican began by bracing the audience for big shifts in the tea industry to come. “I predict we will see more changes in tea during the next 30 years than we have seen in the last 300.” The major contributing factors he outlined were: urbanization, population growth, land scarcity, climate volatility, and technology. 

In 2010, the world’s population of rural inhabitants matched those of urban dwellers. Currently, 54% of the population lives in urban areas, and that number is increasing with the UN estimating as many as 70% in 2050. Many of the rural tea growing communities in India and China are suffering labor shortages as young people are enticed by urban job potential and higher wages. Tea pluckers – many of whom are 60-70 years of age – do not want the younger generations to go into tea. “Mother’s want their kids to be doctors or lawyers and make good money in the city,” Melican explained.

General population growth is making viable agricultural land scarcer. “We have more people alive today than have ever died,” Melican said putting population growth into perspective. Currently, only 3% of the world’s viable agricultural land is dedicated to perennial crops – which includes tea. Good land is becoming increasingly sparse, and more expensive, and it would be natural that beverage crops would lose out to food crops.

Climate change is evident worldwide, but especially in extreme environments like the Himalayas. Places where tea has historically been grown, may not be able to produce tea in the near future. Volatile weather patterns, that encourage pests and disease, erosion, droughts and record rainfall, are increasingly the norm and can wreak havoc on once productive gardens.

With the challenges rurally based tea production face, it is natural that technology must be incorporated to keep the industry viable. “Where there is money, there will be technology,” Melican said. Teas are already being produced in artificial environments, and can certainly be incorporated into creative urban design. However “… we will need to learn to mimic natural conditions and apply them under grow lights,” Melican said. For instance, naturally grown teas need to experience some sort of stress in their life, which contributes to their unique tastes. Melican predicted that these teas, on average, could cost upwards to 100 times more than their naturally produced counterparts.

On the India Tea Tour guests visited a research institute in Assam working on developing drought resistant varieties.

At this point in the lecture, Waddington asked a question on behalf of the forlorn faces in the audience, “So Nigel - is there hope for the future?” Melican smiled and, apologizing for the “spoiler”, said that yes, indeed, “There is hope.”

Melican described the 2050 picture evolving into two business models. He predicts there will be commodity tea producers fighting to provide low priced industrial tea using advanced technologies to stay solvent,” and “specialty tea makers using traditional and sustainable techniques with modern marketing to justify their high prices.” Then it will be up to the consumer which type of tea they select and why.

“Tea has been around for 5,000 years…. While Darjeeling and Assam teas are on their way out, soon we will be drinking teas from Myanmar and Rawanda,” Melican said. Hopefully, it will be around for another 5,000 more…

Nigel Melican will be leading our annual India Tea Tour. Designed for tea professionals – this experiential trip gives participants a comprehensive look at the Indian tea industry from crop to cup. The trip is likely to fill so reserve your spot today.

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In early April, Young Mountain Tea and International Tea Importers (ITI) put together the first ever India Tea Tour – a comprehensive experiential learning trip designed for tea professionals. Taking a deeper dive into the Indian tea industry, this trip would cover everything ranging from tea processing, cultivation, importing, and exporting to the science behind tea’s transformation from leaf into beverage.  Continue reading

Earlier last week we were thrilled to receive the Tea Sustainability Award at the World Tea Expo in Las Vegas. “We see receiving this award as a vote of confidence for our work from the community and industry we are a part of,” said Raj Vable, founder of Young Mountain Tea.  Continue reading

When asked what was it about tea that got him into this business, Nigel Melican simply shrugged his shoulders and shook his head, “Well, as you know tea is a beguiling mistress and she gets to you…” He spoke in a way that assumed we had all been seduced by the charmed elixir and did not regret it. Continue reading

What makes a cup of tea taste good? Is it flavor notes? The feel of the loose leaves in your hand? The memory of the place where you bought it or of the person you brought it to you?

For many, the story behind the cup of tea is as important as the taste. The faces, personalities, and landscapes we associate with the teas are woven into the steam wafting from our cups and enhance each cup we sip and share.

As part of our annual sourcing trips and cultural exchanges to India and Nepal - I was lucky enough to visit the people growing, plucking and processing one of my favorite teas, Darjeeling Long Leaf Green, through a homestay program at the Makaibari Estate. These homestay programs allow visitors a chance to step deeper into the lives of tea garden workers and communities. In addition, fees for the program go directly to the host families where women can earn additional income outside their professional garden work.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      We arrived at Makaibari one late October afternoon.   After riding the narrow mountain roads, tossing honks back and forth with the other skilled Himalayan drivers, I was happy to have my feet on the ground. Upon arrival, our things were whisked away and brought to our respective residences for the next few days. Mine was a house right off the main road belonging to Manju Devi, a household where three generations and a drum-set lived together overlooking the steep terraced slope. The matriarch immediately set to work preparing lunch, a noodle dish that tasted less Indian and more Nepali, a testament to the Ghorka’s (the Nepali ethnic majority) living in the region. While we waited for the vegetables to cook, we were serenated by her son who had a drum set. A skilled musician, his hands danced wildly over the apparatus as I watched in awe. Soon Manju Devi summoned us for the meal. 

After lunch and a little rest, we were invited to walk the tea fields with estate owner Rajah Banerjee and other guests. The realities of Himalayan life were immediately apparent - nothing is flat here. Life on a tea estate is a test of leg strength and lung capacity as work on the mountainside means two things: up and down. 

The tea gardens were a landscape of their own; polycultures of waist high tea plants among towering jungle forests. The mountainside was cut with rivulets running perpendicular to the terraced gardens, oasis’ of bird life and big mammals (including panthers). Rajah proudly described his gardens as “a sea of forest surrounding islands of tea”, highlighting the various hues of green invigorating the mountainside. 

We returned from the walk as the sun dipped low and the sky relaxed into that light blue of dusk. I walked into our home where Manju Devi was squatting on the floor beside her small roti rolling platform. I spoke to her in English explaining I wanted to help make roti. She understood my smile and hand gestures and handed over her tools. I was able to slowly produce imperfect rounds that kept her laughing as she pulled them over to warm over a pan and then sear quickly with the flame. We swaddled the roti in cloth as they came off the fire, and when a sizable stack was produced we sat down for a delicious gobi (cauliflower) stew.

Despite the well-traveled day, my first night sleeping in the mountains was fitful. Whoever said that roosters crow first thing in the morning was wrong. With hiked up plumage billowing over their chicken skinny legs, these proud poultry ignore all midnight sensibilities, their tenner solos accompanied by howling choirs of dog-song, a sound track to the starry sky above. 

I lay awake and watched the light to tiptoe into the house. From the wooden bed tucked in the corner of the living room where I slept, I could hear the waking of human activity outside: pots banging, the sweep of the broom against the steps, and morning greetings, “Namaste”. At home, rising at the crack of dawn sends shivers up my spine, however the sun coaxed me from my sleep and I joined the grandfather on the steps as he stood there watching the day roll in. I wondered how many mornings he had done that.

Manju Devi was outside doing last nights’ dishes, squatting low at the bottom of the stairs leading to her house. We smiled at each other and I made the motions of exaggerated yawns and stretches to communicate I was waking-up slowly. She smiled back and said something in Hindi which made me feel like she understood. She asked “chai?” and I said “haan” meaning yes. She had already prepared tea and went inside to pour it from a thermos. She gave me a cup steaming in the light; a floral, unsweetened black tea from the very hillsides I watched being revealed in the morning sun.

This was my first of three mornings at Makaibari as part of the homestay program. Each night I slept better, and each day I learned more about the tea and culture of the Himalayas. The homestay program is a special opportunity to engage with other, not over profession or language, but by the laugher that comes from sharing smiles, chuckles, fumbles over communication, and the ever-present roti rolling that are staples of Himalayan life.

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Chai is India's national drink.  Although in many languages “chai” refers to pure “tea”, in India it refers to the aromatic and tantalizing concoction of warming spices and black tea. Continue reading