Devagiri Tea Estate

Devagiri is the only Farm to Table tea brand in the UK. We produce 20 million cups of tea a month, and our purpose is to demonstrate that tea producing communities can break out of poverty with no change to the end retail price. That's the headline; here's the detail: 1kg of tea sells for £3.00 at the start of the supply chain and just 2 grams (1 cup) sells for the same amount in a UK restaurant at the end of the supply chain. This is because, there are usually about 5 middlemen and too little goes back to the people who produce the tea. As a result, for 200 years, entire communities have been locked in a cycle of poverty and stunted social mobility. And, to add insult to injury, the industry is awash with charitable initiatives. They don't want help. They work hard and they deserve the dignity of fair reward. To us, the solution is simple. Given the ease of communication in today’s global market, like wine, it should be possible for tea to be sold farm to table, or at the very least for the supply chain to be shrunk substantially. This would end this needless cycle of poverty; it would also significantly shrink carbon footprint and offer genuine traceability of ethics and provenance. Now that we see this, we can’t “unsee it”. And we have dedicated ourselves to demonstrating that with no change to the standard retail price, communities can be released from the poverty that has gripped them for so long.