Author: Peter Keen

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Tea, Cha and Tisanes: Botanicals Reshape Tea Demand and Supply

Categories: Blending, cha, Culinary, flavor, Flavoring, Growing Regions, innovation, Tea Brewers
| Peter Keen

There’s been a growing shift in the strange, unfamiliar and exotic words you’ll see on a tea ingredient label or description: it can be summarized as yesterday chemistry and botanicals today (and probably biogenetic propagation tomorrow.) Yesterday’s chemistry: sodium caseinate, modified corn starch, resveratrol extract, riboflavin, soy lecithin, ascorbyl glucoside, xylitol, sodium hexametaphosphate, and “natural” […]

Biogenetics: Reducing the Mystery and Multiplying the Benefits of Tea

Categories: product development, tea breeding, tea geneticsTagged
| Peter Keen

Tea’s a five-thousand year mystery tale. For every major fact we know, there is so much we have only been able to guess at or approximate about the “why” and “how” behind it. Here are the main mysteries: Flavors: Tea has an astonishing range of flavors and aromas: Mystery: How are they created from the […]

HARVEST REVIEW 2017: Vietnam

Categories: Growing Regions, Harvest Report, Origin, Uncategorized, Vietnam
| Peter Keen

Vietnam in 2017 ranked as the world’s seventh-largest producer of tea and fifth in exports. It has 124,000 hectares under production in around half its provinces, including the subtropical North and tropical South. This is roughly the same as Indonesia and three times the tea-growing acreage in Japan. Exports in the first nine months of […]

HARVEST REVIEW 2017: Vietnam

by Peter Keen

Vietnam in 2017 ranked as the world’s seventh-largest producer of tea and fifth in exports. It has 124,000 hectares under production in around half its provinces, including the subtropical North and tropical South. This is roughly the same as Indonesia and three times the tea-growing acreage in Japan.

The package is part of an innovation complex

Tea packaging: The Innovation Edge

Categories: Blending, blockchain, business innovation, Growing Regions, innovation, Origin, product development, Quality, Uncategorized
| Peter Keen

Innovation in tea increasingly depends on innovation in packaging Make the tea bag go away Change the labels Freshen up Don’t hide the evidence That may all sound negative. What it really amounts to is: Don’t treat packaging in its dictionary sense of being just a container. Packaging is more than how tea is stored […]

The Matcha Revolution: Baby Powder, Plastic Blankets and ¥3,000 Yen

Categories: matcha, Uncategorized
| Peter Keen

The thousands of articles and blogs on matcha fall into two main groups: “Wow!” and “What?” Wow focuses on some aspect of how matcha has become both a favorite among tea, coffee, latte and alcohol drinkers, a dessert delicacy, an exotic cocktail and health supplement. It seems a very unlikely candidate to have created such […]

Old Age: Live Well – and Drink Tea

Categories: Culinary, flavorTagged , , ,
| Peter Keen

The health benefits of tea are increasingly established. Even discounting the extreme claims of its being a magic cure for even cancer, it seems clear that you are likely to live longer and better if tea is a daily part of your lifestyle. But how about when you reach old age? Is there anything different […]

The Times and Tides of Tea Innovation

Categories: Antiquities, Blending, business innovation, cha, China, Culinary, flavor, Historical, India, Nepal, South Korea, Uncategorized, Womens rights
| Peter Keen

Tea innovation is a surprisingly inexhaustible subject. Choose a topic that has shaped society, such as  trade, war, health, literature, nutrition, crime, ship design, politics, household utensils, science and technology, retailing, and social reform, and you’ll soon find strong and deep connections with tea. It has been one of the most consistent and pervasive agents […]