IRON KETTLE TEAS
A PLATFORM FOR SMALL TEA GROWERS
A new kind of tea is emerging in India. It comes from small tea farms across the country where farmers are hard at work, eager to produce the finest tea leaves. They are shifting the narrative of India’s tea story.
The work of producing the finest teas begins at the farms, with the tea bushes. We, at Iron Kettle, have chosen to work with a network of small tea growers who are invested in improving their leaf quality. With small holdings to cultivate, our farmers are able to pay a lot of care and attention to their tea bushes. On our part, we take several progressive agronomy practices to this network of progressive small estate farmers to help them improve their leaf quality. This partnership allows us to procure the best leaves for the Iron Kettle range and to pay the farmers higher prices for their efforts.
We measure the quality of tea plucking by the fine leaf count of the leaves brought to us for processing by the small estate tea growers. As every tea planter will tell you, higher the count of fine leaves, the better the end cup of tea. The leaves are then processed in dedicated factories by skilled tea producers to ensure perfectly made teas.
For our small estate farmers, this effort and collaboration with Iron Kettle translates to improved livelihoods from tea cultivation. For our customers, it means that every batch of tea from Iron Kettle tea is unique, representing a season, a geography and the unique efforts of passionate small growers who grew the leaves that made this fine tea.
About 70% Fine Leaf Count
Our Assurance – Highest Fine Leaf Count Percentage
The fine quality of tea you will always experience when you buy an Iron Kettle tea, comes from the careful selection of excellent quality young green leaf for processing. The tea masters will affirm that exceptional quality of tea can only come from high fine leaf count (FLC in tea parlance). Unlike mass produced large estate origin tea, Iron Kettle trains its small tea growers to selectively and carefully pluck the finest tea leaves that have grown since the last plucking round. Every morning when the small tea growers bring their green leaf to the Iron Kettle processing plants, the manufacturing team checks each bag to ascertain the fine leaf count to ensure it conforms with the high fine leaf percentage that is set as a minimum for making the Iron Kettle grade. When you buy Iron Kettle teas look for the FLC % on the pack – its testimony to the effort that the small tea and Iron Kettle have made to give you the full bodied, rich colour and superior tasting tea.
TRACEABILITY
Scan the QR code insert, from the retail pack to know the farmer details who contributed fine leaves for particular lot.
MAKING AN IMPACT
THE IRON KETTLE DIFFERENCE
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WE SELECT
We select small tea farmers who are passionate about tea, and train them with better agricultural practices to get a better produce
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WE TEACH
Our carefully selected Farmers are trained by our tea agronomists to hand pluck for better quality and high fine leaf count
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WE PROCESS
Our dedicated tea factories use our high quality leaves to create teas of highest quality that goes in your cup of fine tea
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WE TRACK
We use technology to track every tea leaf to the specific microlot and the farmers who helped make it happen
