Idea 212 of 500. Cluster 10: Tea, beyond the auction
Tea-bag manufacturing with compostable bags, since most of the world's are plastic
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
Buy a small quantity of compostable bag material from a supplier, fill 100 bags by hand with a named estate's tea, and ask 5 tea exporters or hotel buyers whether a compostable bag would change their order. Ask each what premium, if any, they would pay per thousand bags. The proof is a price and one buyer willing to trial a carton.
- Who pays first
- A tea packer or hotel group that is being asked by its own customers to get plastic out of the cup and has no local supplier.
- What leaves today
- Tea is bagged abroad or with imported materials, so both the bagging margin and the answer to the plastic problem sit outside the island.
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
- 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
Idea 212 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.