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Highlighting Tea
Speciality food and drink is a wonderfully BSA Member
diverse and growing space, with new fine
and artisanal products recognized for high
standards, quality, provenance, taste and
craftmanship.
Even as I write this piece, I can already Joyce Maina, Owner of the
imagine the significant debate among Cambridge Tea Consultancy
other tea experts—some in favour and
others against. Herein lies the issue within In addition, speciality coffee must
the tea industry - there is considerable score over 80 on a 100-point scale set
confusion and misalignment regarding by the SCA. No one argues with this; it
what constitutes speciality tea. is the standard! And I completely
concur.
In my humble opinion, the industry has
failed to establish clarity, which Back in 2021, I was tasked with
contributes to this confusion. Without a creating a simple quality assessment
single leading organisation, consumers system for speciality teas. Working
have been left to navigate this landscape with the International Trade Centre,
themselves. They find themselves lost https://www.intracen.org, we aimed to
among the myriad teas that brands self- enable small producers of artisanal
assess as speciality teas, with no high-quality teas to assess, articulate
established standards or stringent and communicate the quality of their
guidelines for qualification. fine teas to the market (and ultimately
consumers) in a way that is objective,
The story is very different for coffee. standardised, quality-based and
According to the SCA, "Specialty coffee definitive.
can consistently exist through the This would play a key role in market
dedication of the people who have made it access for them as the highest quality
their life's work to continually make quality ultimately translates to keen demand
their highest priority. This is not the work and the highest prices.
of only one person in the lifecycle of a
coffee bean; specialty can only occur
when all of those involved in the coffee This would play a key role
value chain work in harmony and maintain
a keen focus on standards and excellence in market access for them
from start to finish. This is no easy as the highest quality
accomplishment, and yet because of these ultimately translates to
dedicated professionals, there are
numerous specialty coffees available right keen demand and the
now, across the globe, and likely right highest prices.
around the corner from you".
MARCH/APRIL. 2025 | ISSUE 41
