Starter Kit. Idea 208 of 500. Cluster 10
Tea-flavoured chocolates, ice creams and liqueurs made here rather than in Europe
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.
The first step
Make 3 test batches in a home kitchen: a tea truffle, a tea ice cream and a tea syrup, each made with a named estate's leaf. Take them to 5 hotel pastry chefs and gift shop owners and ask which they would buy and at what price. The proof is the one product that gets an order, and the price it gets it at.
- Who pays first
- A hotel pastry kitchen or airport gift shop that wants a flavour guests cannot buy anywhere else and will pay for it on a regular order.
- What leaves today
- Tea-flavoured chocolates and liqueurs are made in Europe from Ceylon leaf, so the value of the finished product is added abroad.
Ask first
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what a small kitchen needs before selling chocolates and ice cream.
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask which standard covers chocolate or ice cream made with tea.
Check before you spend
Whether your kitchen has food approval, and whether a liqueur needs a separate licence from the chocolates and ice cream.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a box of tea chocolates sell for in a hotel shop?
- How much tea flavours one batch properly?
- How long do the chocolates keep in the heat?
A comparison from the book
The chocolate line. Chapter Four
"Don't ask for chocolate. Ask how the chocolate is made."
Make the chocolate here, and the margin that went to Europe stays on the island.
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.