Tea News and Biz Insights - November 5, 2021

HEAR THE HEADLINES – A New Theory on How Green Tea Promotes Longevity | Bubble Tea Business is Frothing | Assam Smallholder Collective Launches National Brand| NEWSMAKER – SAMA Tea CEO Michael Parisi, co-founder 100.co | GUESTS – Rodo Vasilaki at Tofillo Farms, Crete, Greece | Rick Chang manager Xue Jian Oolong Tea, Miaoli, Taiwan | FEATURES – This week Tea Biz travels to Miami, Florida to the offices of SAMA Tea where CEO Michael Parisi uses artificial intelligence to create new functional blends. SAMS’s CLAIRE platform is programmed to discover whitespace for new tea products, provide marketing insights based on consumer behavior. It even lists trending ingredients to consider in formulating the company’s new line of adaptogenic teas…Then we Zoom called two of the winners of the AVPA’s 4th Teas of the World Contest, starting in Crete, Greece where Jessica Natale Woollard spoke to the family-owners of Tofillo Farms, gold medal winners in the botanicals category. Next, we visit Miaoli, Taiwan where five-medal winner Rick Chang at the Xue Jian Oolong Tea plantation where he produces authentic bug-bitten Oriental Beauty oolong.Delicious by Design | By Dan BoltonSAMA is an adaptogenic tea brand made delicious by design, according to CEO Michael Parisi, co-founder of 100.co an artificial intelligence platform used to parse millions of retail data signals such as product reviews and consumer beverage trends. Applying the insights gleaned from this vast reservoir led to the recent launch of four purpose-driven blends inspired by Ayurveda and crafted to help balance the mind, body, and heart. The teas are sold in samplers or by subscription. Parisi spoke with Tea Biz from Miami, via Zoom.AVPA's Gold Medal Winners | By Jessica Woollard and Dan BoltonHigh in the White Mountains on the island of Crete grows malotira, an ancient herb with small yellow flowers used to make Cretan Mountain Tea. Rodo Vasilaki and her husband and business partner Nikos Psyllakis grow the herb on 30-acres of family-run farms that are dotted across the island. Their Malotira Tea known locally as tsai tou vounou and by the Latin name Sideritis syriaca, won gourmet gold at the 4th AVPA Teas of The World contest. Another one of their teas, Pink Healer, featuring Cretan sage and pink rockrose, earned a “gourmet” distinction.Miaoli is a city of 89,000 nestled in the mountains of western Taiwan. The region is home to the Hakka, an indigenous tribe employed in the cultivation of tea since the early 1900s. Gardens in the area are famous for producing Oriental Beauty, an oolong that depends on the bite of the tea leafhopper to develop its honey fragrance and honeysuckle taste. Rick Chang manages Xue Jian, a tea plantation situated at 4,500 feet altitude that produces oolong and black tea. The company first competed in the AVPA contest 2018, winning a gold medal that year and at least one every year since.

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