Stash, Tazo And Steven Smith

21Oct06

Steven Smith, the founder of two very well known tea brands – Stash Tea and Tazo, has decided to call it quits. Temporarily at least. Apart from the incredible achivement of founding two very successful companies, he remains most proud of his involvement with Mercy Corps. Over the years, he has spent about $1.3 million […]

Filed under: darjeeling, industry, stash, tazo   |  2 Comments

The Grand Finale

19Oct06

Here’s the conclusion of my interview with The Great Ganesha. “In this, the final part of the interview, we get up close and personal with Nikhil and he gives some advice to the young ‘uns out there, talks openly about some of the mistakes he’s made along the way, and ends by telling us a […]

Filed under: buzz, interviews   |  1 Comment

Tea Yields Compared

17Oct06

This was prompted by Aseem, a reader who asked about tea yields in response to a previous post about tea production. Here are some interesting stats I found regarding the differences in tea yields in a few countries. I’m comparing 2002, 2003 and 2004 in India, China and Kenya. Unfortunately calendar year 2004 is the […]

Filed under: china, clonal, data, india, kenya, production   |  14 Comments

And The Winner Is…

14Oct06

China is now officially the largest tea producing country, a title that used to belong to India. Interestingly, this is the first time that China has actually reported production figures, so they were probably #1 all along, except they kept it a secret! As far as global tea exports go, India is now #4, preceded […]

Filed under: ceylon, china, exports, india, kenya, news, production, sri lanka, tea   |  7 Comments

Snow in Chicago

12Oct06

It’s only October 12, and winter has begun in Chicago. This was the view from my deck this morning. No, those aren’t pretty white flowers. It’s snow. Time for a hot cup of tea. Incidentally, the odds of this happening are pretty slim. “In 136 years of Chicago weather records, temperatures have failed to climb […]

Filed under: chicago, photos, random   |  2 Comments