Hottea's Blog

Drinking one cup of tea a day—either black or green—may contribute to oral health. Some experts believe that the flavonoids in tea may inhibit the plaque-forming ability of oral bacteria and that tea's naturally occurring fluoride may support healthy tooth enamel.

Tea wholesalers are an important, if sometimes overlooked, segment of the loose leaf tea business and they add significant value to the tea marketing and distribution process.

Tea wholesalers add value to the efforts of tea suppliers by reselling tea and adding value added products and services. Wholesale customers include hotels, restaurants, retail/grocery outlets, and coffee bars/cafes

The value that tea wholesalers add is significant. For example:

• Hotels provide high quality loose leaf tea to guests in rooms, room service, spas and restaurants.

• Restaurants complement high quality meals with good tasting fine tea either in ice tea or after dinner hot tea.

• Retail/grocery outlets present quality tea products in an attractive and convenient display

• Tea rooms, coffee bars and cafes add tasty food and comfortable surroundings to the tea experience

It is important to understand that a wholesale relationship should include more than a catalogue and a discounted price list and should offer additional benefits to the qualified wholesaler. A comprehensive package of services supports the role of the tea wholesaler and the value they add to the tea distribution process.

Services and benefits to the wholesaler should include quality of product, quality of support services and volume pricing.

The supplier of tea must provide the highest quality, best tasting tea on the market since this will attract and keep more loyal customers to the wholesaler. Wholesalers should deal with a supplier whose brand has a reputation for consistent quality. Suppliers who cup every imported chest of tea add considerable value.

Providing the wholesaler with dedicated customer support offers the benefit of a dedicated representative to help with orders, track shipments, provide billing support etc. This aspect of customer service creates long term benefit to both suppliers and wholesalers.

As an integral part of a long term relationship the suppler should offer the wholesaler multiple-tier wholesale pricing. Aggressive pricing provides the wholesaler greater profits through larger volume based discounts.

In addition, some suppliers offer auto-adjusting price levels that reward higher volumes from the wholesaler in real time and wholesale status indicators that remind the wholesaler when it is getting close to the next wholesale level.

Those suppliers with state of the art e-commerce sites provide automatic retrieval of past orders that save the wholesaler significant time when re-ordering. In addition these sites often support auto recurring shipments that save time and effort and avoids ordering errors.

In addition comprehensive order history lookup on e-commerce sites is an attractive option because this feature avoids ordering and billing confusion.

Finally, some supplier sites offer unlimited shipping locations per order and single point of billing for multiple locations.

The wholesaler affiliation with the tea supplier is very important because of the value added nature of the relationship. A total package of services that support the wholesaler will pay dividends in the future.

Loose leaf tea is all about quality but it is often not as convenient to use as tea bags particularly at the office or when traveling.

For those tea drinkers who enjoy the finest loose leaf teas however, there is now a way to easily prepare their own bagged tea without sacrificing quality and the enjoyment associated with brewing quality tea.

There is no doubt that tea bags are convenient; they were after all invented for the American Tea Market and America is the cornerstone of convenience.

In order to prepare bagged tea however, the CTC ("crush, tear, curl,")method of processing is used primarily for lower-quality leaves. CTC processing is done by machine; its name is actually fairly descriptive.

The machines rapidly compress withered tea leaves, forcing out most of their sap; they then tear the leaves and curl them tightly into balls that look something like instant coffee crystals. The leaves are then "fired," or dehydrated.

Most tea connoisseurs are not very interested in CTC tea, since this process does not allow for the careful treatment that high-quality leaves merit. But CTC has an important and legitimate role in the tea industry: since it is a mechanized process, it allows for the rapid processing of a high volume of leaves which otherwise would go to waste.

The orthodox method of processing used for high quality loose leaf tea is a bit more complex, and is usually done mostly by hand. The process differs for black, green, and oolong teas. The basic steps in the production of oolong and black teas are withering, rolling, oxidation, and firing. (Green and White teas are not oxidized.)

First, the leaves are spread out in the open (preferably in the shade) until they wither and become limp. This is so that they can be rolled without breaking.

Rolling is the next step. This is rarely done by hand any more; it is more often done by machine. Rolling helps mix together a variety of chemicals found naturally within the leaves, enhancing oxidation. After rolling, the clumped leaves are broken up and set to oxidize.

Oxidation, which starts during rolling, is allowed to proceed for an amount of time that depends on the variety of leaf. Longer oxidation usually produces a less flavorful but more pungent tea.

Finally, the leaves are heated, or "fired," to end the oxidation process and dehydrate them so that they can be stored.

Many believe that loose leaf tea provides the most aroma, flavor and body for tea drinkers and results in a quality tea experience.

On the other hand even tea drinkers are frantically busy even at the office.

What is wrong with tea bags?

Many tea connoisseurs express contempt for tea bags, for the following reasons:

• Most of the tea that goes into bags is not very high quality. As noted above, tea bags usually contain broken grades so that they will infuse quickly. Fannings (very small tea particles left over from the CTC processing method) and tea dust are often used in bagged tea.

• Whole-leaf teas come in a larger number of varieties; and the most interesting and enjoyable teas are sometimes not available in bags.

• Bags are semi-non-biodegradable additions to the biodegradable tea leaves.

• Connoisseurs like to have something to sneer at.

Most tea drinkers use tea bags some of the time however , simply because it may not be convenient to brew loose leaves (at work or while traveling or in a hotel, for example).

The personalized teabag solution

The personalized teabag offers a solution that is practical and cost effective. A disposable teabag is similar to the ones offered in supermarket and grocery stores but is open ended and larger. The personalized tea bag offers the loose tea drinker the ability to place quality whole leaves of their favorite tea in a bag that can be used for the entire workday.

At the office the tea drinker need only maintain a supply of their favorite tea, place the desirable amount of tea in the personalized tea bag and add water.

The bag is large enough to hold even the largest whole leaves but small enough that a box of 100 can fit in a desk drawer. Further, the personalized tea bag is cost effective when purchased in lots of 100 or more, tea

With the disposable tea bag, all loose leaf tea connoisseurs can enjoy the quality of their favorite hot or iced tea without the bother of preparing a full pot of tea. As a result quality tea provides enjoyment throughout the day in a fast, efficient way without waste and bother.