Our Principles
gender & social inclusion
Everywhere in the world, women are working in tea production, but mostly behind the scenes. As a cooperative, our role is to ensure their place in decision-making processes and to encourage their leadership.
In practice:
- 50% of our members are women
- 40% of our management committee members are women
- organization of workshops and trainings specifically dedicated to women producers
forest & biodiversity preservation
The forest is our habitat, our home, our means of subsistence. If the forest and its biodiversity decline, our tea trees decline. By preserving the forest, we make better teas and we perpetuate our way of living in interaction with nature.
In practice:
- Long-term planning of land and natural resources and their preservation;
- Awareness raising actions on the importance of forest resources and biodiversity;
- Research Action and surveys on wildlife and biodiversity.
agroecology principles
Upland ethnic smallholder farmers have a long history and a large know-how of sustainable agriculture. We draw on that knowledge and tradition, and learn from agroecological practices and experiences of tea farmers in other countries, to make our teas with respect for nature.
In practice:
- Research on local know-how about agroforestry, tea production system climate resilience;
- Definition of standards by the producers and for the cooperative: requirements for shade trees, sustainable forest tea harvesting, ban of pesticide use…
smallholder farmer production
All our members are independent: they produce tea from their own tea gardens, mostly between 0.2 and 1.5 hectares, and sell it individually as well as collectively through the cooperative. Smallholder farming is one of the key aspects of respectful agriculture.
In practice:
- All our tea production is harvested and processed by our local tea producers.
premium quality standards
Forest teas originate from a rich and unique ecosystem. Our work is to maintain and bring out this quality in the dry leaves. We take inspiration from the forest in our agroforestry gardens. All our teas are harvested and processed by hand. We continuously improve our techniques to provide high quality standards.
In practice:
- Organisation of farmer-to-farmer trainings and exchanges about tea production and processing, organisation of producer tea cupping events.
local know-how valorisation
Upland communities have ancestral knowledge and very specific know-how of their natural environment. This ability to live and grow in harmony with the ecosystem is part of their identity, and has to be gathered, preserved and transmitted to younger generations.
In practice:
- Valorisation of our sustainable natural resources management practices;
- Exchanges with other smallholder farmer cooperative to learn and exchange.