Throughout our film shoot, TT has interviewed a large number of tea producers and tea drinkers. Thinking it was about time to fill in the gap in the chain, we went to see Cafe Direct, one of the organisations who enables small growers in the developing world to bring their products to market in the UK.

Cafe Direct was formed in 1991 when the international coffee market collapsed. Three south american coffee producers sent coffee to the UK on trust, and UK-based NGOs sold it on trust in church halls, community centres and other local outlets. The idea was to cut out the usual middle men in the supply chain, to ensure growers received a fair price for their coffee, and that consumers could drink a really high-quality product. The idea took off and, in the past 20 years, Cafe Direct has expanded its range to include tea and cocoa as well.

Tracing Tea met with Cafe Direct’s CEO, Anne MacCaig, at their head office in London. Anne was able to enlighten us about the organisation’s background and the principles that drive it forwards – in particular the importance given to the opinions of growers when deciding how funds are to be deployed.

Cafe Direct is a Fair Trade organisation but goes well-beyond FT’s minimum requirements of simply offering a fair price for the tea that is bought. Instead, the growers are themselves very much part of Cafe Direct’s structure, and the future sustainability of their industries is at the forefront of planning. It is not enough that the estates receive an economically sustainable price for their products – they must also be environmentally sustainable so that growers have a product to sell for many years to come.

We learned in particular about estates Cafe Direct works with in Africa where climate change has reduced tea production by 30%. Whatever price you are getting per kilo, this inevitable results in a huge drop in revenue. Cafe Direct is working with growers here to monitor and predict climate change and to develop strategies to minimise its impact on growers. This can be anything from trying new strains of plants, new watering and fertilising systems, to re-planting forest cover to preserve topsoil and nutrients.

One of the most exciting developments Anne told us about is that Cafe Direct’s estates in Rwanda, formed among war-torn communities, will soon be producing green tea for sale in the UK. This will be the first African green tea in production and will cater to the growing interest in green tea and health in Europe. Good Luck!

It is not every day that Gordon Brown looks out of his window at parliament and sees a hundred dancing tea ladies parading down the street. The ladies also surprised his wife at 10 Downing St, accosted early morning commuters on London Bridge and gave the tourists one for the photo album when they partied in Trafalgar Square.

Else you think that the capital has gone quite mad, I’d better explain what these fine ladies were up to. Two weeks each year are designated ‘Fair Trade Fortnight’ as the organisation tries to raise awareness of the importance of paying a fair price for consumer goods. This year’s product-in-focus was our beloved tea, and the tea ladies drank it by the gallon whilst looking beguiling and pursuading consumers to swap their regular cuppa for a fair trade cuppa. The tea ladies danced, chanted, posed for the cameras, and played volleyball with giant, inflatable cup of fair trade tea.

The tea ladies invasion on Feb. 25th was just one of the fortnight’s high-profile events. Community groups around the country hosted their own fair trade tea parties and tea dances. Tracing Tea attended the tea dance at Spitalfields Market and was privy to energetic performances of samba, ballroom dancing, bollywood dance and things we couldn’t even recognise. We were able to interview Mr Henriksen, a fair trade tea producer from the Nilgiri Hills in India, and to capture some of the action live on film.

Keep your eyes peeled for the tea ladies and their antics in Tracing Tea episode 8!