Tea Biz - Ep 146 | UN COP28 Declaration is Good News for Tea Smallholders

Los Angeles-based Sun Garden Tea Merges with QTrade Tea & Herbs | It’s Easier Now to Attend Chinese Tea Tradeshows | NEWSMAKER – Kevin Gascoyne, partner Camellia Sinensis, Montreal, Canada | FEATURED – In the 1990s and early 2000s, curating a catalog of 200 direct-sourced teas, establishing a small chain of neighborhood tea shops, launching a formal tea school, and selling tea online to people worldwide was pretty ambitious. Twenty-five years later, Montreal-based Camellia Sinensis, having survived pandemic peril, has emerged with vigor in a configuration admired for its innovative approach to experiential retail. Camellia Sinensis even helped finance a factory in South India to produce tea on demand. Partner Kevin Gascoyne joins us today on the company’s 25th Anniversary to share valuable insights and a few missteps while traveling a long path to success. An Innovative Retailer Celebrates its 25-year Journey to Success — Camellia Sinensis offers an extensive online collection of fine teas, teaware, and utensils. The company was founded in 1998 by Hugo Americi, who was inspired by visiting the Dobra Cajovna tea houses in Prague. The first Bohemian-themed store on Emery sold tea and cakes amid Shisha pipes and musical acts. The company has grown to operate neighborhood tea shops, supply restaurants, and offer a private branding service, an office tea program, and custom corporate gifts. The staff conducts formal training in two tea schools and has published several award-winning books and guides. Terroir is the central theme for the extensive collection, mirroring the founders’ direct sourcing. Teas are categorized by style, type, origin, format, discounted, and discarded as each new harvest arrives. Kevin Gascoyne began buying tea in South Asia in 1989 and has since visited the tea lands hundreds of times. Kevin is responsible for selecting teas for the Camellia Sinensis catalog from India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and the African continent. Born in Yorkshire, England, Gascoyne migrated to Canada, where he established a tea import venture in the early 1990s. He began supplying Camellia Sinensis in 1999, and 2004 the two companies merged.