Sri Lanka, the pearl of the Indian Ocean. Known for its cinnamon, rubber, and tea. Tea is the biggest export. Our second blog post belongs to a company I have recently become acquainted with based in Colombo, Sri Lanka. They truly take pride in their tea and you can tell with every sip that they adore what they do. I’m incredibly impressed with their customer service and how responsive and kind they are.

Website: https://teakruthi.com/

Location:

• Based in Colombo, Sri Lanka; also incorporated in Ontario, Canada and Delaware, USA. Online Only.

Company Focus: Artisan Ceylon tea

Most popular company tea(s)?

• Our Ceylon Ivory is one that we are most proud of. It’s probably one of the best examples of a Ceylon Silver Tip (in our humble opinion), reminiscent of the days of ‘Ceylon Fever’ in 1891 at the Mincing Lane auctions in London. We were surely reassured when this tea was recently (December 2020) awarded the Gold Medal for Single Origin White Tea, over 300+ other teas, at the prestigious Australian Tea Masters Gold Leaf Awards.

Does the company name have a meaning?

• Our name teakruthi, pronounced /tiːkṛuuthi/, comes from a blend of the English word tea (for the beverage we love so much) with the Sinhala wordසංස්කෘතිය. At teakruthi, we are not just #TeaLovers. As Sri Lankans, we have tea rooted deep within our cultural heritage and hope to share the very best of this with #TeaLovers across the world. More on our website: https://teakruthi.com/pages/about-teakruthi

Do you participate in any charities?

• Yes. In 2020 our focus was fighting child poverty and exploitation and donated 4% of every purchase towards four causes: 1. Free a Girl; 2. Street Child; 3. Save the Children; 4. The Rainbow Centre Sri Lanka. More details on our here. In 2021 and moving forward, based on customer feedback and preferences, we decided to shift our charity focus to environmental protection causes and will support the “Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation” for 2021. We’ve also partnered with the organization “1% for the Planet” to ensure transparency and traceability to all our donations.

What is your (or any of your other co-workers) favorite tea?

• Currently, Ahimsa Veda, is my go-to cuppa tea. I love it as a refreshing minty drink in my afternoons and it’s great that it has detoxifying wellness properties as well. We are particularly proud of this tea as it was also awarded a Gold Medal (December 2020) for Flavoured Blend of Green tea at the prestigious Australian Tea Masters Gold Leaf Awards.

What are your thoughts on transparency in the tea industry?

• The tea industry as a whole can do a lot lot more to bring transparency with regards to the sourcing of teas and fairness to employees. The crux of the problem is a complex value-chain that involves various intermediary brokers combined with the practice of mass-market brands blending teas from various origins. The result is most consumers are served a cup of tea that’s almost impossible to trace back to its origins and source tea garden and lacking transparency on how it was grown. We hope to change this at teakruthi– all our teas are single-origin, ie. not blended, and sourced from speciality gardens that adhere to ethical and sustainable standards.

What role does tea play in our lives?

• A huge role. Tea is intertwined with Sri Lanka’s history. It was one of the country’s first major commercial crops since introduced to the country by the British colonialists in 1867. Since then it’s been woven into the fabric of daily like in Sri Lanka with most Sri Lankans consuming a minimum of two cups a day.

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TeaTiff Picks: Varietea sample pack Do you enjoy sampling tea? Are you a tea adventurer? If you’re like me and you want to try whatever you can get your hands on, then teakruthi sampler packs are the way to go. They give you enough for a few cups that way you can experiment with different steeping styles. It was a wonderful way to explore the different terroirs of Ceylon.