Starter Kit. Idea 216 of 500. Cluster 10
Kombucha from Ceylon black tea, which the health shops of Europe already sell at ten times the tea's price
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
Ferment 3 batches of kombucha from a named estate's black tea, bottle 40, and give them to the owners of 5 health shops or cafés to sell or taste. Ask what price they would put on the shelf and whether they would reorder. Note which batch they choose. The proof is a shelf price and a reorder.
- Who pays first
- A health shop or café owner who already stocks imported kombucha and would take a local one made from the island's own tea.
- What leaves today
- Ceylon black tea is sold as cheap leaf to kombucha brewers abroad, who take the whole margin between the leaf and the bottle.
Ask first
- the area Medical Officer of Health. Ask what a kombucha brewery must show before selling to shops.
- Sri Lanka Standards Institution. Ask which standard covers fermented tea drinks in bottles.
Check before you spend
Whether your fermented drink counts as a soft drink or needs other approval, and what testing proves it is safe on a shop shelf.
Find out these three numbers
- What does a bottle of kombucha sell for in a health shop abroad?
- What does one bottle cost you to brew and fill?
- How long does it keep before the taste turns?
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.