SRI LANKAN Tea Stocks
You will see from our webstore that our stocks of Sri Lankan teas are very low. We still have most of the bulk teas, both bag and leaf, but almost completely out of the small packs. Unfortunately, Sri Lanka is going through a very difficult period economically and politically, and our latest shipment has experienced long delays. We hope to see the big new shipment in December, but no guarantees yet :(.
What has happened? The Sri Lankan economy was badly hit with COVID-19, as they rely heavily on tourism, which virtually stopped in 2020 and 2021. The Government had heavy borrowings before that time, so had no buffer to cope with the downturn. As a result, the government took drastic action to save money just at the time when the people needed support. The current reality is shortage of basic food supplies, and tea production this year looks like it will fall dramatically, further affecting livelihoods. The Sri Lankan tea producers are already poor and vulnerable, this only makes things worse for them.
We will still do our best to support the communities we have long-standing relationships with in Sri Lanka, and look forward to enjoying their teas again very soon.
Better than fair
At Tradewinds we like to keep things simple. Labels and logos are all very well, but we’re far more interested in the facts:
- We put people before profits. We know our producer partners by name and respect their choices as if they were our own.
- We think laterally about business. If there’s a better way to benefit producers or structure agreements, we’ll give it a go.
- We’re ambitious: we commit to communities for the long haul, measuring our success in terms of social change, not shipments.
