Black Tea Product Development in Myanmar

By -

The Ever Win Coffee Factory is a Myanmar coffee company that produces 12 types of coffee products and provides training on coffee making. They wanted to develop new products to become more competitive in the coffee and tea markets, and thought of producing a new line of black teas, as they have the raw ingredients available. To expedite this product development, a F2F volunteer was requested to help Ever Win staff develop formulas and processes for the creation of black tea products, advising them on the processing and the ingredients to be included. 

The recruited volunteer was Mr. Manik Jayakumar. He is originally from Sri Lanka but has been living in the USA since 1989. In Sri Lanka, he managed six award-winning tea estates and helped pioneer organic tea farming. In 1994, when he was living in California, he founded QTrade Teas and Herbs which is now the largest importer of organic tea in North America and one of the largest tea producers in the USA. He has worked at QTrade for the last 26 years and is currently part of the UC Davis Global Tea Initiative Advisory Council 2019–20 and last year was the 2019 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner from the World Tea Conference + Expo. 

After seeing that Mr. Jayakumar had so much knowledge and experience to share, the Farmer-to-Farmer field office in Myanmar decided to invite other participants to the trainings: 
  • Staff from Shwe Danu, a local NGO that provides training on tea production technology to local farmers and access to market links. 
  • Staff from Pindaya Tea Culture Horizon Development Network, a civil society organization that disseminates agriculture technologies to local farmers who grow tea or other crops and provides access to market links. 
  • Small-scale tea producers that produce green tea and pickled tea. 

Mr. Jayakumar provided four online training sessions on the following topics: i) Introduction to Tea; ii) Growing and Manufacturing Tea; iii) Tasting and Grading Tea, and iv) Marketing Tea. Approximately 26 people were trained. The volunteer emphasized the importance of them learning to taste teas so that they can value the teas they produce or sell and understand how they compare against world market prices. He also recommended that they make sure the tea is manufactured and stored separately from the coffee, because coffee is very aromatic and tea is very absorbent, and to try to process the tea as soon as it is plucked to ensure it maintains its quality. Finally, he also gave the participants important marketing tips for when they start selling. 

Thanks to Mr. Jayakumar’s trainings, the Ever Win Coffee Factory will now be able to produce better tea products and sell them for higher prices, which will consequently increase their profitability. 

Mr. Jayakumar commented of this assignment: “I greatly enjoyed participating in this project, we did our best considering the remote nature. Obviously, a visit and personal inspection would have been more beneficial to the participants, but this needs to be left for a future date when conditions for travel are more conducive. The good news was that tea has already been grown in Myanmar for centuries and the population is quite familiar with drinking black tea. I look forward to another opportunity of assisting and in the meantime, I am willing to stay in touch with the interested parties and assist in the development of the tea sector in Myanmar.” 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Better Marketing and Communications to Showcase the Work of our Hosts in Colombia

By -
Image
Salva Terra Foundation has focused on supporting vulnerable communities through sustainable agriculture. They work with impoverished populations and victims of violence in Medellin and aim to promote farming and develop local skills to work in the agricultural industry in an ecological manner. This process of bringing together concepts such as social impact, sustainable development, environmental protection, and food security requires excellent outreach and promotion. Therefore, they requested a F2F volunteer to help them develop a communication and marketing plan. The chosen volunteer for this assignment was Dr. Sindy Chapa. She has a B.A. in Mass Media Communications, with a Minor in Television and Art Design, an MBA, and Ph.D. in International Business/Marketing. She is the Director and Associate Professor at the Center for Hispanic Marketing Communication at Florida State University and has won several communications awards. Dr. Chapa decided to use Salva Terra as one of the case
Read more

My First Goat: A Professor, Students, and some Goats Tackle Food Insecurity in Rural Guatemala

By -
Image
Two Worlds Come Together to Build New Solutions against Malnutrition What does a USAID-funded Farmer-to-Farmer (F2F) expert volunteer group from the island of Puerto Rico have to do with combatting food insecurity in Guatemala? Everything.  F2F volunteer Gabriela Colón Rios trains Mam Indigenous women to better care for their goats which will improve food security and reduce high malnourishment rates. Chiantla, Guatemala. Photo Credit: Monica Gonzalez In March 2023, a group of five eager F2F volunteers arrived in Huehuetenango (Huehue), Guatemala, with hearts and minds set on combatting food insecurity in a part of the world unknown to them.  Over the next 10 days, this team of experts would consider Huehue, in Guatemala’s Western Highland region, their new home and office. Accompanying them on their mission would be faithful companions and mighty conduits of change: goats.  Communities in this region live at altitudes reaching 10,000 feet above sea level nestled by captivating mountai
Read more

Digital Marketing in Colombia

By -
Image
Digital Marketing is one way that entrepreneurs and producers across the globe can reach new markets and increase sales. But what is digital marketing and how can a small Colombian business use it to maximize the number of people who come across its brand? These are the questions that Zen Naturals was asking itself. Zen Naturals is a natural cosmetic manufacturing company based in Cali, Colombia. Zen Naturals develops natural cosmetics made from exotic ingredients from Colombia’s outstanding biodiversity. Through ethical manufacturing and fair trade practices, they are also taking a leadership role in re-investing in the communities that grow the ingredients used in their products. Currently, Zen Naturals supports more than 95 Colombian quinoa farming communities through Fair-Trade Practices and technical assistance on their production. Zen Naturals is preparing to launch their quinoa facial care products in Whole Foods Markets in the mid-Atlantic region of the U.S. in 2017.
Read more