Idea 214 of 500. Cluster 10: Tea, beyond the auction
Iced-tea concentrate for restaurants, made here, branded here
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
Brew a concentrate in your kitchen at 3 strengths, bottle them, and take them to the owners of 10 restaurants and cafés near you. Ask them to make their own iced tea from it for a week and tell you what they would pay per litre. The proof is a strength they prefer, a price per litre and one standing order.
- Who pays first
- A restaurant or café owner who makes iced tea from powder or brews it by hand every day and wants something faster that tastes of tea.
- What leaves today
- Restaurants serve iced tea made from imported powders and syrups, while the leaf to make a better one is grown a few hours away.
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 214 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.