The Netball Show
S7 Ep72: Sofia from Spill Tea (27th Sept 2024)
(upbeat music) - Hi, this is Nat Metcalf. Flyhawk have developed a unique 3D kit designer that's fully customizable. So if you're looking for a new kit for your team for the new season, visit flyhawk.com or email info@flyhawk.com with your ideas now. - Nation Player is the easy to use, one-stop radio and audio app. Download Nation Player now on the Apple App Store or Google Play. Nation Player, where on are you? - The Netball Show with Flyhawk. Raising the bar for Netball and winning sports. - The Netball Show with Flyhawk and a big confession from the start. You can always tell if I'm about to do a good interview. What is the secret? Well, like many, it's a good cup of tea in the morning. Sophia from the Spill Tea joins me now. Thank you for your time. - Thank you. - I've been fortunate to be among some of the first to try the brand and I'll say non-techy. It's probably a lot cleaner. You've probably got a better explanation. - Yeah, you think I do actually, but it's because my partner Lou, she's a tea taster. So she's been drinking tea for one buying tea for 20 odd years. So she's taught me, she's taught me about this over the years. We've worked together for about 15 years in our previous tea business before we started still. But yeah, it's cleaner, brighter, bolder, it is what we say as well. So it should taste a bit thicker and fuller than your normal everyday tea 'cause it's just a better quality tea. - That previous business was Keapig founded in 2006. What was the thinking behind almost starting again? - Well, that's exactly it. We'd Lou set it up with Nick, so that I joined after six months as a temp. And then I thought, I'll get a proper job one day and in the end I just stayed there and we grew the business together, which was great. And the thing with teapigs is that at the time, 2006, tea looked a bit different then. So there just wasn't really an awful lot of tea. You might go to a fancy hotel for afternoon tea, which would feel quite exclusive. And otherwise it'd be really milk and two sugars. We didn't really drink herbal teas or specialty teas or flavoured tea in the way that we did now. So teapigs sort of changed all that, but what really teapigs was and it's predominantly a herbal tea business. It's got lots and lots of different types of teas and that's amazing, very premium. And what we kind of realised is that it sort of come away from our everyday tea and that's still the tea that people drink by far, but the most. So we drink two to three cups of normal tea a day and you'd have less, less herbal teas, less green teas, less red teas. What we thought is that that's just really been left behind and teapigs actually got to quite a big size and it was part of a much bigger company at the time, but it was left to run independently and then it was taken into that bigger company. And we just felt that it was a time for us then to do something different because we just love that small business world. So a combination of us personally wanting to be in that small business world again and work together on a smaller scale and also feeling like let's go back to the tea, let's focus on our everyday tea, the tea we drink every day because that hasn't had an upgrade in decades. I mean, most people are drinking maybe what their moms and dads used to drink or what their grandparents used to drink. And I guess we felt like in so many other areas we've upgraded things and are happy to pay a bit more for slightly better quality or for something that's more sustainable or you know where it's come from. And if you look at coffee, we're drinking all different types of artisan coffee, sourdough bread, lots of things, craft beer, cereals, but teas kind of really stayed the same for the last, you know, 20, 30 years. And so that's why we have the idea to make everyday tea better with spill. - You're buying the tea direct, aren't you? You're cutting out the middle, man. That's gonna help. - Yeah, and do you know what? It's funny, I've worked in tea for 16 years, as you know. But it's really only in the last year or so in really working more closely with Lewin actually going to Rwanda and seeing where he has grown and how it's all done that I really started to understand this. And do you think you drink, or everyday tea, English breakfast, you know, you eat at leisure, Yorkshire's, PG's, there's sorts of teas that they're a blend. So English breakfast is usually a blend of teas from Africa, India and Sri Lanka. There might be some other countries as well, but generally it's the blend of African Indian and Sri Lankan teas. And that tea tastes the same every time you drink it. So whether you drink it in January or July, it tastes the same. But tea is grown all through the year, the weather changes all through the year, and it's from these different countries. So the same tea doesn't actually taste the same through the year. It tastes different depending on the weather and whatever else, but the tea blender's job is to make it taste the same to you. So they sort of alter and blend and change the quantity of say the tea that they're getting from Africa versus the tea that they're getting from India. And they blend it, it's quite a craft that they're putting together these different blends and trying to get you that same profile for, and they're also having to watch their prices. And there's a lot of art that goes into that, but what that also means is often they're buying tea from lots and lots of different tea estates in different countries. And that is often bought through middlemen, brokers or auction. Some of it is bought directly from the tea factory. And what that kind of means is it's quite difficult to get to what the smallholder farmer who's grown the tea has been paid and smallholder farmers basically live in poverty. So we decided, right, let's just splanchy to paper. Let's start again. We absolutely love the tea from Rwanda. It's well known in the tea industry that Rwanda makes some of the best quality tea. So we started there and we're buying directly from the factory there. And the factory work with us, we've met the farmers. We're able to meet the farmers. There's full transparency on what the farmers have paid. So yeah, that's why we're doing that. - And the handy thing is as well, that's obviously where you came in. Talk to the farmers, understand what they need in themselves and are supposed to pay them more. - That's right, yeah. It's kind of, the system as buying tea is centuries old and tea is bought on the open market auction so that the price varies and supermodity that's traded. So the first thing we wanted to do is work with partners that would allow us to know what the farmer has paid. Now, the way it works is as a tea brand, you pay the factory when you buy bulk tea, whether it's you or the broker, you buy it from the factory. And that factory will rely on tea from nearby smallholder farmers. And usually you don't really get to see what that factory then pays the farmer. But in Rwanda, they're taking tea very seriously. It's a country that is needing to really rebuild itself after a very difficult past. And tea and coffee are really important to the country, sort of biggest exports. So they're really investing in it and they're really investing in quality tea. So the Rwandan government have set a goal at a benchmark where farmers receive 50% of whatever you bought, you pay at the factory. So that is set by law and it's very, very well controlled. So we already know that the farmers are receiving 50% of what the factory receive. That's all good. And what we've decided is that we will pay farmers an extra 50 cents per kilo. So after all of their operating costs are taken away, on average the farmers in the area that we're buying from take about 50 cents a kilo in their pocket. And we've decided to add an extra 50 cents to that and put that into a farm of fund that they will then decide how that is spent. So that's the model that we've decided on at the moment. We just said, look, we just need to start by doing something. And that felt like a really simple way to do things. And what was really important to us is that we were adding more into the farmer's pocket. Quite often, there are lots of schemes that kind of exist within tea, which are positive, like quite often tea brands, because it's well known in the tea industry that farmers are not living in really good conditions. Lots of work is going into trying to make things better. And often what happens is that there might be some community projects. So for example, the way fair trade operates is that if you buy from a fair trade estate, you pay a premium, which is paid to the factory. And that premium may go towards farmer welfare. It may go towards creating a school. It may go to factory improvement. So there are lots of people that are doing things to help bolster these tea growing communities. But what was really important to us is that that cash went directly to the farmer's pocket so that they could choose what they wanted to do with it. You start to get them to a place where they're getting a fair price for the quality tea that they're producing. - It's all about changing the thinking behind things as well. So those farmers that you're working with so far, what kind of feedback have you been getting from them? - Oh, it's just been mind-blowing. I mean, when I went into the first time, we'd been to Rwanda before, but it's the first time to me in an African country. And first time in an area where we were people growing tea. So it was just a huge eye-opener for me, but we really, very much wanted to go and see the farmer. So, and at first, the factory had said that they'd organise a meeting for us. So they'd get a few farmers together and have sort of like a committee meeting. And we said, well, no, we want to go and see them at the houses. - Yeah. - And we said that no one had done that before, but we're quite nosy and convincing it was a good idea. And actually everybody really enjoyed it. So, yeah, it was brilliant. So we spoke to six or seven farmers on our first visit and asked them about their lives before and after tea, really. And in this particular area where we're buying from, it's extremely, extremely, extremely rural, takes your ages together. And the farmers there were previously subsistence farmers. So they were growing crops for their families and work outside of that's quite hard to come by, not least because it's very hard to get anywhere that's a village or even a town that has work. And since growing tea, these farmers have said that they're able to gain an income all year round, and which is allowing them to pay for school fees for their children, pay for healthcare, pay for home improvements there. Their houses are very basic, but things like upgrading their roofs, which wouldn't might be straw or hay to a tin roof. These are some of the things that farmers are telling us that tea has enabled them to do. They're part of a scheme there. So we're working with an organization called the Wood Foundation, who are a philanthropicalization that look after smallholder farmers in developing countries. And the way it works is that they are allowing farmers in that area who'd like to become tea farmers, to become tea farmers. So what they do is they set them up with an interest-free loan that is patient, there's no end date to it, there's no obligation to pay it back by a certain time. And this loan gives them the land preparation for growing the tea, the tea plants, the fertilizers and everything that they need, the agronomist training to become commercial tea farmers. And they don't start paying anything back until the tea bushes start to deliver tea. And then a payment is taken very slowly as a percentage of that tea that they provide. So when they go and sell the tea to the factory, they start to pay back that loan slowly, slowly as a portion of their payment. And so that's the programme that the smallholder farmers are on. And a few of them that we met are sort of two, three years into the programme and are already starting to feel as though they're able to put some money aside, to pay for school fees and health care. So very positive to hear that. - Spill at the minute are doing tea bags, loose tea and obviously storage tins as well to keep everything fresh. Dare I ask, is the eventual plan to expand the range a little bit and what are your thoughts on the flavourities? - Would we definitely would like to expand? I think we're really keen to focus on tea tea. - Prophecy. - Yeah, exactly. But I think definitely Earl Grey, perhaps Chise, these are all based on black tea, green tea and decaf is becoming more and more popular as well. But certainly in the future, we'll expand for sure into different herbal teas once we've got this up and running properly. - Sites launched, so where can we find out more? - So the website is www.spilltea.co.uk. Lots of information on there. Please do sign up to our newsletter 'cause there's so much that we don't know about tea but we drink it every day. And if you sign up to the newsletter, we'll share all there is to know about tea in the coming weeks and months. - I love the fact on the homepage as well, it says tea isn't just brewed in Yorkshire. That's a nice little work. - Tea isn't growing in Yorkshire, yeah. There's just a little play on, there's just a little tongue in cheek thing to say that we just had there's so many things that we drink and do and use every day that we just don't think about. And tea is so, it's just seen as an English thing, isn't it? 'Cause we drink a lot of it and that's great and that's something to be celebrated. But we just want people to think a bit more about the journey that tea goes on 'cause it's quite amazing. And we took, it's actually my friend's partner 'cause I think it's a brilliant photographer. And we took him with us to Rwanda the second time we went to take photos. And so many people have said, wow, the photography is really captivating and we just really hope to be able to show people a little bit about what it's like in places where tea is growing and what some of the people behind the tea are doing and how it's affecting their lives. So yeah, we hope just to make people appreciate that tea a little bit more really. And we know that a lot of netballers like nothing better than finishing the game, getting in and sticking a brew on. (laughs) - It's just the best thing, isn't it? Especially after a holiday as well. I didn't realise that it was such a thing for netballers. So that's good to hear. - Sophia, thank you for your time. Really great to find out more about Spill Tea. Find out more online spilltee.co.uk. - Thank you, I really appreciate it. - The netball show is now also available via Sky HD, Sky Q and Sky Glass. So let's get it and we're on the podcast trail. (whooshing)
Sofia is from Spill Tea - We have an exclusive offer for you when placing your first order