Starter Kit. Idea 124 of 500. Cluster 6
Herbal tea ranges: cinnamon, lemongrass, ginger
The mechanism, from the book
Dilmah says it earns over 3 times the national average price for tea, because it does its own blending, branding and packing. The proof has been sitting inside the industry all along.
The first step
Blend three teas from what grows near you, cinnamon, lemongrass and ginger, and pack 20 of each in plain pouches with the source written on the label. Send a sample box to three Sri Lankan grocers abroad and put the rest in a guesthouse shop. Ask each grocer for a trial order. Whichever blend they reorder becomes the anchor of the range.
- Who pays first
- A Sri Lankan grocer abroad whose customers want a herbal blend that tastes of home and says where it was grown.
- What leaves today
- Cinnamon, lemongrass and ginger leave as raw bark, leaf and root; the blend, the pouch and the brand are added abroad.
Ask first
- Sri Lanka Tea Board. Ask whether herbal blends sold as tea need registration with them.
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask what labelling standard herbal tea should meet.
Check before you spend
That every herb is safe and clean, that health claims are avoided, and that labels meet the rules of each market.
Find out these three numbers
- What do shops abroad pay for a box of herbal tea?
- What does one box cost to make?
- Which herbs can be bought steadily at good quality?
A comparison from the book
Ceylon tea. Chapter Four
"does its own blending and branding and packing says it gets more than 3 times the national average export price"
Doing your own blending and packing earns several times more than selling raw leaf.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.