Withering Heights - Vanillas in the Mist [Part III of III]

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just my cup of tea

finally. I got served green tea. as this country seems to live on black.

it was during the pause of one of my field visits for work. where, though conducted in sinhala and tamil, I understood enough of the meetings to be ueberimpressed at the real, live workings of Fairtrade.

after the meetings, I tried my best through a translator to express to the tea estate employees my humbled self...
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but how could I possibly being to explain my respect?
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as I walk through my my air-con alnatura supermarkt, humming along with the radio and selecting my weekly earning's worth of fairtrade products...doing the best I can do....
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when these people were doing more than their best?


not only do they pluck, select, wither, pack and clerk things, they volunteer their time to form these democratic groups and carry out planning meetings for how to spend their Fairtrade benefits. ascribing themselves to our northern analytical processes...

and folks, I know there are some nasty documentaries floating around about fairtrade...but, if there's any doubt of it mostly working for most people, I got plenty more fotos, and stories, to prove it.

have you eaten Fair today?

your very British friend,
K

Note: the factory...
while ridiculously meticulously in operation - even beyond german standards,
I was taken aback by the mechanisation of it all.
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Though the pounding of the machines and wheezing of parts was better than cattle being driven down a line. better than milk being yanked out of udders. better than clanks of rotating de-feathering tools, but rather clanks of airblowing machines that produce a snowglobe of tea...well, i leave slightly disturbed at a tea leaf's sterile, modern journey...but mostly, ueberimpresed.

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Photos

ashes to ashes
more like 'dust' to 'blossom'...i got my education on tea gradients and all sorts of machines which do the shakeshakeshake to do the separating...

all scrubbed up and no place to go
actually, got the full-on tour of the this tea factory. ueberunbelievable. highest hygiene standards west/south of the mississippi.

Meticulous with a capital M
no joke. every object had its place outlined in yellow. with a sign in 3 languages. 'Hi, I'm the dustbin. Put dust in me. Empty me 4.7 times a day. Thank you come again.' the Deutsch would be so proud of this factory. except, the bin was a bit out of position, wasn't it?

udderly delicious
there was something waaaay teetish about this machine.

ladies and gents:
tea! seas of it.

when the ship runs out of ocean
women and men. following democratic process on deciding how to use the 'premium' extra cash they get from selling fairtrade. from you buying fairtrade. criteria and ranking processes determine the best community benefits. schoolbooks, composting systems, rainwater catch, kitchen gardens, community halls. thanks to you paying a Fair price for what a bag of tea actually costs to produce tea with Fair wages, Fair conditions, Fair treatment of the planet...

break room
this flowered path led to a bamboo thatched gazebo with toadstool stools. the most granola 'break room' i've ever seen.

Germans...they're everywhere...
even on the packaging. hoardes of 50kg tea packs, on their way back to my beliebte Deutschland. c u on the other side, tea!