Cluster 10 of 28. Ideas 201 to 220
Tea, beyond the auction
The mechanism
The Colombo auction sells tea by the lot to a buyer who blends it under his own name. Every step after the auction is where the money is, and every step can be done here by somebody who is not a plantation company.
The 20 ideas
- 201Single-estate teas sold direct to consumers abroad by subscription, with the estate's story
- 202A tea sommelier course in Nuwara Eliya, certified, for the hotel trade of the world
- 203Tea tasting rooms in Kandy, Ella and Colombo run like wine bars
- 204Cold-brew and sparkling Ceylon tea in cans for the Gulf and Asia
- 205Matcha-style ground green tea from the upcountry, for cafés
- 206Tea cosmetics: creams and serums with a named estate's extract
- 207A picking-and-processing day at a factory sold as an experience, with your own kilo at the end
- 208Tea-flavoured chocolates, ice creams and liqueurs made here rather than in Europe
- 209The estate-workers' co-operative brand, where the pickers own the pack, sold to buyers who care who picked it
- 210Smallholder tea from the low country as a named origin, the way coffee has named regions
- 211Blending workshops for Sri Lankans abroad in their own kitchens: a kit, a video, three estates in a box
- 212Tea-bag manufacturing with compostable bags, since most of the world's are plastic
- 213A Ceylon tea museum with a shop that sells every estate, not one company's
- 214Iced-tea concentrate for restaurants, made here, branded here
- 215Tea-estate trail running and cycling events, with the estates as the course
- 216Kombucha from Ceylon black tea, which the health shops of Europe already sell at ten times the tea's price
- 217Tea leaf fertiliser and compost sold to the upcountry vegetable growers
- 218Tea-house franchising abroad: one format, Sri Lankan-owned, in the cities where Sri Lankans abroad live
- 219Rare and aged Ceylon teas, sold at auction to collectors the way Pu-erh is
- 220A tea-quality laboratory certifying estate origin, so that "Ceylon" on a packet in Hamburg can be checked