印度茶葉市場開始現代化----中壢英文補習班－金學堂英語的部落格

【聯合報╱By SARITHA RAI╱李京倫譯】

Modernizing the Tea Market in India

DARJEELING, India — The tea plantations here in the Himalayan mountains may be the last place to find technological innovation.

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Many of the colonial-era practices involved in tea-growing and processing still follow the time-honored manual labor and handwritten bookkeeping. But as global consumers become connoisseurs of high-quality products, one entrepreneur is seeking to give the industry a Silicon Valley makeover.

India is the world’s second- largest tea grower after China. Yet, even as the country produces quality specialty varietals that are as highly regarded as wines from France , its industry is antiquated.

With the backing of one of Silicon Valley’s biggest venture capital firms, Accel Partners, Kaushal Dugar, a Singapore- trained financial analyst, is among those slowly bringing the sector into the modern era via his online tea retailing startup, Teabox.

The bulk of India’s production — about one billion of the total 1.2 billion kilograms — is consumed by the domestic market, where brands from the Indian conglomerate Tata and the multinational Unilever hold sway. But the remaining 200 million kilograms is a market ready for shake-up. Technology forms the core of Teabox’s online operations. Algorithms predict demand based on such factors as past sales and pricing. Information about a tea’s picking date and origins is made available to online customers.

Teabox, which was started in 2012, is bringing in wine tasters to provide engaging online descriptions for its products. Gone are the flowery descriptions like “distinctly high-grown character.”

They have been replaced by phrases like “light-bodied tea with a slight woodiness .”

All of these steps aim to hook a new generation of customers in countries such as Russia and the United States. As consumers on a quest for the latest niche food products veer toward drinking the brew in upscale salons and tea bars, Indian tea could tap into the global tea market, estimated to be $90 billion in size.

“Tea is a time-sensitive product, but the industry’s supply chain is quite broken and has many intermediaries,” said Prashanth Prakash of Accel India, which along with Singapore’s Horizen Ventures has provided some $1 million in early funding to Teabox. “The business is ripe for disruption, both in terms of price and quality,” he said.

The venture capital approach is helping Teabox change operations. “By employing tactics used by the wine industry, we want to demystify tea and present it in a more accessible manner ,” said Mr. Dugar, 31, founder and chief executive of Teabox, which is based in Siliguri, Darjeeling, the heart of the tea-growing region.

Mr. Dugar returned to India after a few years in Singapore to become an entrepreneur. He and his backers discovered that the industry has not changed in 200 years. Many plantations controlled by thirdor fourth-generation owners use machines dating back a half-century .

Because of the lengthy auction and distribution process, it can take up to six months for the tea to reach a consumer overseas. “The lack of modern infrastructure leads to tea quality deteriorating and losing aroma along the way,” said Arun Kumar Gomden, a tea industry consultant.

To change that, Teabox set up sourcing centers in Darjeeling and Assam, within hours from the gardens where the leaves are plucked and processed. Almost as soon as the teas are procured fresh from the production centers, Teabox stores them in temperature- and humidity- controlled warehouses.

Then, within 48 hours, the teas are checked, vacuum-packed and dispatched to fulfillment centers in major markets such as Russia, the United States and Australia.

The company offers highend teas at a discount to established brands like Twinings and upscale European, Asian and American tea salons (Teabox’s products can sell for as much as $1,099 per kilogram).

For instance, a French tea salon called Palais des Thés sells the Mission Hill tea at $340 per kilogram, but Teabox sells the same product about 60 percent less at $126 per kilogram.

Teabox is still a small player in the industry: It has shipped 10 million cups’ worth of tea to customers in 65 countries so far. The challenges are many. Traditional distributors, for instance, have blocked access to plantations .

Regular access to financing will help Teabox ramp up its brand in crucial markets like the United States where tea drinking growth rates are overtaking coffee. The company aims to grow 300 percent to 500 percent in the coming year and cross $1 million in annual revenue.

Mr. Dugar said, “With cash in the bank and support from investors, we can dream about quickly building a billion-dollar tea brand from India, something that has never been attempted before.”

中譯

喜馬拉雅山脈大吉嶺一帶的茶園可能是最難發現科技創新的地方。許多殖民時代種茶、製茶的做法仍沿襲古老的手工和手寫記帳方式。

不過，在全球消費者變成高級產品鑑賞家之際，有一位企業家試圖用矽谷的方式改造這一行。

印度是僅次於中國大陸的全球第二大產茶國。不過，雖然印度出產的高級特色品種茶如法國葡萄酒般贏得美譽，印度茶產業卻跟不上時代。在矽谷最大創投公司之一Accel Partners支持下，在新加坡受教育的金融分析師杜格透過自己創辦的網路茶業零售公司Teabox，逐步讓印度茶業現代化。

印度出產的12億公斤茶葉中，多數（約10億公斤）供應國內市場，主要是印度塔塔集團和跨國公司聯合利華旗下品牌的天下。不過，其餘的兩億公斤市場大可整頓一番。科技是Teabox網路業務的核心。演算法依過去銷售額和定價等因素預測需求。網路客戶能取得茶葉採收日期和產地的資訊。

Teabox創於2012年，已請來品酒師為產品提供引人入勝的網路說明。類似「與眾不同的高山特色茶」這種詞藻華麗的說明已不復存在，代之以「口感輕盈、帶有淡淡木質味的茶」之類措詞。

這些手法全為吸引俄國、美國等國家的新一代顧客。當下追尋小眾最新食品的消費者紛紛改至高檔沙龍和茶館（茶吧）喝茶，印度茶可以打入規模約900億美元的全球茶市場。

Accel Partners印度辦公室與新加坡Horizen Ventures為Teabox提供了約100萬美元初期資金。印度Accel的普拉卡什說：「茶葉產品有時效性，不過這個產業的供應鏈很零散，有許多中間商。這一行在價格和品質方面革新的時機已經成熟。」

這家創投公司的方法是協助Teabox改變營運方式。31歲的Teabox創辦人兼執行長杜格說：「我們想借用葡萄酒業的策略揭開茶的神秘面紗，讓它以更容易理解的方式呈現。」Teabox設在產茶地帶核心大吉嶺區的西里古里市。

杜格在新加坡待了幾年後回到印度創業。他和出資者發現，茶業200年來都沒變。許多茶園已傳至第三、四代，用的還是50年前的機器。

由於茶葉拍賣和配送過程冗長，茶葉可能要六月後才能送到海外消費者手上。茶業顧問高牧登說：「現代基礎設施不足，導致茶葉一路上品質日降、香氣漸失。」

為求改善，Teabox在大吉嶺和阿薩姆設立採購中心，距採製茶葉的茶園僅數小時車程。