Idea 202 of 500. Cluster 10: Tea, beyond the auction
A tea sommelier course in Nuwara Eliya, certified, for the hotel trade of the world
The mechanism, from the book
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.
Every idea in cluster 10 uses this mechanism.
A first step
Write a 2-day syllabus: estates, elevations, grades, brewing, pairing with food, and serving tea in a restaurant. Send it to the food and beverage managers of 10 hotels in Colombo and Kandy and ask one question: would they pay for their staff to be certified, and at what fee. Then ask a tea taster in Nuwara Eliya whether he would teach it. The proof is a named hotel and a fee.
- Who pays first
- A hotel's food and beverage manager who sells wine by the glass with a trained sommelier and wants the same authority on the tea list.
- What leaves today
- Hotels across the world serve Ceylon tea with nobody able to explain it, and the teaching of how to sell it happens nowhere near the estates.
The idea and the mechanism are from the book. The first step was written for this site as a suggestion; if you know a better one, say so.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
The only test any idea on this site has to pass. The four rules that go with it are here.
In the book
- Ch. ElevenThe Mechanisms
The auction and every step after it - Ch. TwoAn Island Nobody Has Counted
Tea whose name the world has known for 200 years
More from cluster 10
- 201Single-estate teas sold direct to consumers abroad by subscription, with the estate's story
- 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
Idea 202 of the 500 in the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? Every one can be started by one person, one family or one small firm.