Vendor Profile: The Simple Leaf
Owned & Operated by Nikhil Roychowdhury and family, The Simple Leaf is a lovely little tea company I heard about on SteapTV. I checked out the website and very impressed with their teas, their mission and their carbon offsetting, so I dropped him an introductory email. Our first phone conversation lasted over an hour - and was entirely focused on tea and his (very cool) experience growing up steeped in tea culture.
I have been delighted with every tea from them, his father has an amazing palate and I am deeply in love with Chloe. It's become my go-to green many a day (and I'm not a "green tea person" by any means). I actually love this tea so much that I took it to the guys at TeaRex and insisted they try it. I promise you, that if I take a tea to those guys, it's gotta be good.
I use their teas for blending Earl Grey Brandice, and intend to expand my use of their teas as much as possible, because I know that The Simple Leaf believes in the same things I do. Good tea from good people that is grown and treated in a good way makes a good cup - a perfect taste of happiness.
Here's what Nikhil shared with us:
What do you do? grow? make?
We import single estate loose leaf tea directly from growers in India and Nepal. We also have a selection of tea accessories and gifts.
What's special about your company?
1 - We don't carry a hundred varieties of tea. I believe in having a more manageable selection of outstanding teas that appeal to many palates. We try to carry tea that isn't readily available here. For example, most retail tea shops will carry a pretty representative Indian black tea, but how many have an Arunachal Pradesh green tea? Or a Nepalese oolong tea? Our intention is to showcase the incredible diversity of single estate teas from South Asia - its not just about your standard-issue Indian black tea any more!
2 - I believe knowing the source of your product is very important. We are very close to our growers (see our Behind The Cup series). My father, who is also our buyer/taster lives there and personally tastes every tea we carry before submitting samples to me for consideration. We import all our teas ourselves, so we know its fresh and has not spent months sitting in a warehouse or distribution center before it gets to us.
3 - Increasingly, we are focusing our attention on sustainability and climate change. Many of our growers are either converting their gardens to organic / bio-dynamic agriculture or have already done so. Happily, this trend seems to be picking up steam. We are very proud of our relationship with Carbonfund.org. We participate in their small business program, and contribute to reforestation, energy efficiency and renewable energy projects. We also give our customers the opportunity to purchase carbon offsets for their online orders, which many of them love. We recently changed our label coating material to a corn-based laminate (instead of petroleum-based). A minor change to be sure, but its a start in the right direction.
Where are you located?
Chicago, IL and Calcutta, India.
How did you start working with Felicitea?
I have Twitter to thank for that! I first heard about Summer and Felicitea through Brandice and Joe from SteapTV. I had been "following" Felicitea's Twitter updates for a while, and then Summer sent me a really wonderful introductory email telling me about her business. Needless to say, I was intrigued, and we spoke on the phone soon after that, exchanging stories of our experiences with tea.
What do you like about working with Felicitea?
Well, I have enormous respect for anyone willing to accept the risk, uncertainty, joy and fear that comes with starting your own business. I was also struck by Summer's extraordinary knowledge of flavoring, and her passion for finding the best natural and locally procured ingredients. Blending and flavoring tea is an art that requires endless patience, creativity and the willingness to experiment - qualities that I had suspected Summer had in abundance (confirmed after I tasted her Earl Grey Brandice!). I also appreciate Summer's openness, honesty and deep engagement with her customers - I wish more businesses would do the same.
Nikhil also added:
I grew up in India, and spent most of my childhood in Calcutta and Darjeeling surrounded by tea and watching my father, a professional taster, at work. After 8 years in management consulting, starting The Simple Leaf has helped strengthen my roots and connections to family in India. That makes it all worth it.
You can find out more about The Simple Leaf at www.thesimpleleaf.com (check out the lovely new website) or by dropping them an email at info@thesimpleleaf.com. You can also follow Nikhil on twitter.
Labels: profiles, tea, The Simple Leaf, vendor
posted by Summer @ 1:29 PM
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