A few days ago on Friday May 21 we celebrated International Tea Day 2021. This day was launched in 2005 by trade unions and workers' organizations. Since 2019 the day is celebrated by the UN to recognize the hard work that annually goes into the spring harvests around this time of year.
#Internationalteaday is a big day for tea lovers on a mission like us @ Tea Rebellion and for the wider Tea Community out there. We had the great pleasure to host a chat with many tea friends on our #clubhouse Tea Rebellion Social Club. For those of you seeking a more casual conversation (in your work out pants if you like) and tea community do join us. We are talking weekly at 3 pm and here is a link to join Clubhouse and our weekly events. It's a refreshing change from the pandemic induced video/zoom frenzy around us (smile).
During our chat on Friday's International Tea Day Special we talked about a few things around the state of change:
- How sustainable is tea production really?
- Are practices improving around workers pay and rights, on farm physical security and farmer incomes?
- How can we as consumers drive change?
As usual with big questions there was a lot "it depends". Nevertheless key insights and take aways include that for us tea lovers, International Tea Day is a great day to remind ourselves (and those around us) that we have the opportunity to change the world of tea. We can ask tough questions of the brands we buy around their transparency practices (a good article is linked here). We can help to share our knowledge and help to inform consumer choice around tea. We can spread transparency and contribute to farmer and worker dignity. We can help entire community to live sustainably off tea.
To this we raise our cups and say THANK YOU to all of our partners, especially those whose countries are suffering severe hardship right now due to COVID-19 in particular India and Nepal.
We thank you dear readers and tea lovers for generously contributing to our COVID FARM FUND. This has helped us support our partner community in Nepal at this crucial time. For a quick update on the recent situation check out this instagram post.
Happy International Tea Day. Stay well and healthy and Keep drinking good tea that does good.