Exporting tea to Europe?

Four weeks ago I arrived in Ilam: A beautiful mountain in Nepal. I am surrounded by countless tea fields and warm and loving people. The mountain life is simple, and I am getting used to the Nepalese culture more and more (rice for breakfast and dinner, cold showers and a lot of meditation). I feel blessed to life with a real Nepali family. The children in the family teach me Nepali words and in the evening we sing and dance together. The lady of the house even painted my room completely pink, because I joked that I like this color so much.

 

In Ilam I am conducting my research for the Central Tea Cooperative Federation (CTCF). The last four weeks I did many interviews with farmers, stakeholders and the board of CTCF. I also visited a large number of factories and tea processing cooperatives. I collect this data in order to link it with the data I collected in The Netherlands previously. At this moment I am writing a marketing strategy for the cooperatives and farmers in Nepal to sell their Orthodox tea to Europe.
At this moment, the cooperatives and farmers face many problems. They are obliged to sell their tea to India at extremely low prices, because they simply do not know anything about the European market. However, the tea is special and of high-quality. They are able to receive premium prices for their product, which can catalyze economic growth in Nepal.

 

This week I will start with giving marketing workshops to the cooperatives. I developed the workshops in order to share my research information with the farmers. During the workshops I will also collect data for writing my thesis. I am looking forward to the workshops and I am curious about the outcomes! I am determined to support CTCF, the cooperatives and the farmers as much as I can with my research.

 

Namaste!

​Marleen Kuypers