As you all know, tea culture originated in China in ancient times, during the reign of the Chinese Tang dynasty as reported by some data, and today this noble drink is the real treasure of this great country. Its health properties, with a positive effect on the external and internal beauty of a person, are complementary to the taste and aroma which are unique for every variety of tea. However, this only applies to the natural raw materials of tea, which are cultivated, collected and processed with love in line with thousands of years of experience. Tea is, first of all, a living substance. Its quality depends on many factors, namely on the geographical location of the plantation, its collection time, the processing techniques for tea leaves as well as on the peculiar recipes that have made it possible to preserve the naturalness of the product for many years.
Historically speaking, Japanese and Koreans, neighbouring countries of Eastern China, pronounce the word “tea” as “teh”. In fact, the word used in the majority of the European countries where tea was first introduced derives from it. At the end of the XVIII century, the amoic pronunciation, “teh” or “tea”, was taken as a basis for the Latin botanic name of tea (Thea) - the English started to pronounce this word as “ti”, whereas in French, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish and Norwegian it sounds as “te”. In Polish, the word for tea is completely different: “herbata”. This term is not Polish, but it comes with a little modification of the Latin word “herba” which means “grass”.
However, by having a look at the meaning of the word “tea” (“ti”, “te”) in a modern dictionary, one of its meanings appears to be “any herbal infusion or decoction used in drinking”. The use of inaccurate specifications when tea was imported to different countries of the world led to a misrepresentation of the tea market, making it unrecognisable. Moreover, many categories of drinks are sold with the name of “ti”, but they do not have anything in common with the Camellia sinensis.
Nowadays, the world market of tea is experiencing an unpleasant situation since any dried plant or fruit to be brewed (by adding hot water for its consumption) is called tea. The world’s largest tea production companies do not sell natural raw materials and are not interested in their fruition due to the high costs of their production, seeking easy profits and short money.
Thus, the large companies from Europe, the US, Australia and other countries, market suppliers of those where tea does not grow, buy either inexpensive raw materials of low quality or the waste deriving from the production of tea raw materials in large quantities, selling in the market their herbal infusions, mixtures and extracts as tea.
As a result, the drink that is sold on the world market is a completely different type of product, which is massively called tea despite its low content or lack of tea leaves. The name is the only thing left of tea. The worst thing is that most people believe it to be the original one.
The majority of stores has on its shelves different types and flavours of this derivative drink disguised as tea and its cost goes mainly from 2 to 3 USD, rarely exceeding 15-20 USD. Such pricing does not stand up to criticism: 200 grams of tea cannot cost $2 in stores on the basis of the resources spent for its production, paid taxes, customs duties, transport costs and mark-ups for retail networks. For a normal person, who was not accustomed to the culture of tea drinking during childhood and does not know the taste of real tea, there is no difference between a "tea drink", skilfully counterfeited by chemists from the waste of tea production and artificial additives, and a real tea, a drink with a number of proven useful properties as well as a unique taste and aroma.
As manufacturers, we know that the tea industry relates to a long payback: it takes at least 7 or 8 years before it is possible to collect tea leaves from the tree and use them. The difficult, multi-stage, laborious process from the laying and maintenance of a tea plantation, the manual collection of tea leaves and the production process to the final drinking product requires the utmost care and a considerable investment. Only a strict observance of the production technological discipline allows creating a high-quality Tea with an aura of naturalness and authenticity for the customer. In order to support the tradition of collecting and making real tea, we must unite and fight together for our Tea by prohibiting false and prefabricated products.
Nowadays our main duty is to educate consumers by promoting the understanding of intensive labour and complex production of our actual tea: long-term knowledge, advanced processing technologies and the maintenance of ecological plantations can be found behind this process. In this light there is only one right decision, namely to comply to the international standards for tea raw materials classification that separates the meaning of “tea” from any other drink and gives it a grade. With the name tea we should call only those raw materials of high quality that are produced with a certain technology that preserves all the positive characteristics of tea leaves. Tea industries dispose of developed and recognised international standards, even though their adoption is voluntary, and packaging may be limited to some technical restrictions that meet the manufacturer's own criteria.
In order to stop the customers’ misconception caused by the large number of substitutes, we believe that a meeting should be held to discuss the establishment of an International Public-Private Association of countries, with the participation of all tea-producing States, to ensure an effective protection of natural raw materials (tea) with the aim of making each country adopt a single international mandatory standard for the classification of tea raw materials.
To discern the definitions and to adapt to the modern market with its marketing tools, we propose to allocate a different name for the Chinese large leaf tea derived from buds and whole leaves (excluding CTC and low varieties of tea), starting from its original etymological root, i.e. the Chinese word “Cha”. The remaining types of drinks, brewed with hot water, where it is possible to find aromas, additives, herbal mix, fruits, waste from tea production, will keep the old name “tea” or “ti”.
Thus, shelf space and price categories of these drinks will be delimited and determined only by the costs of growing, collecting, storing and producing natural tea raw materials and their delivery to the final consumer, not by other marketing costs.
In order to regulate the turnover of “Cha” in the global market and its reception in the productive area, it is recommended to rely on methods and standards, such as packaging, labelling, storage, transportation, sale and advertising of the product, that were developed at a legislative level in tea-producing countries, for example China.
At this point of the process, we need to collect an adequate number of signatures in order to draw attention to the problem and involve the competent authorities to discuss this issue during international meetings as well as take the following measures:
- To call a meeting of all tea producers in China.
- To develop a coordinated strategy for positioning natural tea on the world market.
- To hold a conference about tea protection in China, to which the representatives of all tea-producing countries should be invited. The final document of this conference should result in an appeal to the World Trade Organization with the requirement to protect tea both as a name and product with the denomination “Cha”.
My dearest friends,
We should cooperate together to do whatever it takes to make Europeans and Americans aware that tea is a product that has nothing to do with real tea, and that only the great creation of Chinese tea producers represents the one and only Tea. In all object of trade, real tea should have its elite place, whereas tea should be presented separately.
Note
During the 50s and 60s of the last century, the name wine started to be used in Europe and the US for drinks derived from grapes, plums, apples, pears and other types of fruit, but the French and the Italians successfully obtained the right to call wine only the drink derived from grapes. In those years, the name cognac was used for alcoholic drinks from all types of fruit. However, later the French were strictly regulated by geographical restrictions on the area where it was possible to produce cognac, but also on the productive techniques and on the name “Cognac” itself. It was decided that the base for the cognac can be constituted only by wine produced in the French department of Charente. It is distilled into cognac spirit from which the cognac is produced. Since the Treaty of Madrid in 1891, in Europe and in the majority of the countries the name “champagne” is protected by law as the name of the sparkling wine produced in a French region with the same name and that satisfies the defined standards for that type of wine. For this reason, champagne usually has a higher value and reputation compared to other sparkling wines. To indicate sparkling wines that do not come from the Champagne province, but are produced all over the world, the term “sparkling wine” is used.
In 2004, in Italy, lawmakers believed that low quality imitations of Italian food were unacceptable and passed a law for protecting pizza. All the institutions that claim to prepare the real Italian pizza must strictly follow given rules and regulations, and, in this regard, special inspectors of the government are called upon to monitor the situation and to issue special certificates.
In 2007, the EU Parliament approved a regulation according to which it is considered as vodka only that drink deriving from a spirit based on grains and potatoes. Until that moment, it was called vodka any product produced with ethyl alcohol and prepared with any vegetable raw material (grape, beetroot, apples, sugar cane, etc.).
My dearest friends, we as Chinese have to protect our legendary drink - tea. Under no circumstances should it stay in the shop shelves next to those drinks that have nothing in common with tea.
Thank you.
Alexander Potemkin
CEO LLC Lincang Kosher Cha (China)
