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Marino Baca, Rishi Tea & Botanicals · Coffee People Podcast

• 0:26
  We're all set. We're already recording.
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  We're good. All right, great.
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  Welcome to our very first episode of Tea People on the
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  Coffee People podcast. How you?
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  Bet. Thanks.
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  I'm Ryan Marino. We've already met, but if you
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  wouldn't mind, the only time you have to look at the camera, your
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  name, who you're here with at coffee.
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  Fest yeah, I'm Marino Baca. I'm with reaching Team
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  Botanicals. I work with them about 9 1/2
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  years and do a lot of sales and training and talking about tea
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  for the Midwest region. Yeah, Rishi's out of Milwaukee.
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  Out of Milwaukee. I live in Milwaukee.
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  That's what the company's always been.
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  That's where our founder is. So I'm 5 minutes from
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  headquarters, our production facility.
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  So I get to take advantage of that and it's fun.
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  Yeah, I'm not sure that people would think of Milwaukee as a
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  tea hotbed, Correct. More of like a a beer hotbed.
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  Yeah. But the Beer City?
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  It's Beer City, yeah. What is the role of a tea
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  company at an event like Coffee Fest?
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  Why isn't a tea fest? Is the question.
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  Yeah, well, coffee's always been bigger in America.
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  America's always different from the rest of the world, as as we
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  all know. So coffee's been huge.
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  It's exploded over the last 20 years.
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  But tea goes hand in hand with that.
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  So a coffee shop is always going to have tea.
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  And back in the day, it used to be you would just carry, you
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  know, it's kind of an afterthought.
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  You would just carry some type of tea.
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  It's cheap, people know you have it, but it's not something that
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  you're highlighting nowadays. They want to make sure that
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  they're talking about it just like their coffee.
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  So if they're excited to showcase it's a coffee company
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  that they're bringing in, or if they're a roaster, they want to
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  talk about something that they're passionate about.
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  And now it's the tea and tea starting to explode.
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  So learning about where it's from, why it's grown in a
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  certain way, why things taste certain ways by how they're
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  processed, a lot of people are getting interested into that.
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  And also, it's healthy for you. So that's a big thing.
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  That's a big push in the country right now, too, yeah.
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  Health, Health and Wellness, obviously a big industry.
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  You mentioned it's obviously tea is predominantly the predominant
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  drink in a lot of the world. Most of the world.
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  Talking about it here, you know when I I started drinking tea a
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  while back, my wife's like a full time, I call it full time
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  tea drinker. So I started learning more and
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  more about it. Do you find that the language
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  overlaps when you're talking to people in the coffee industry?
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  You mentioned that it's becoming more of a thing where like, so
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  especially coffee, we've developed this entire language
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  of how we talk about, you know, producers and the environment
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  and you know, that it comes from and how the terrain affects the
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  flavour. That's all the same as tea.
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  I feel a little dumb as to what the base ingredient of tea is.
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  Is it consistent across everything and you're adding
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  flavours or how does this work? Yeah, it's very similar.
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  So a very similar language that makes it easy.
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  It also even falls in line with with wine, so the Touare and how
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  the elevation that something's grown in.
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  But the tea plant, it's actually its own tea plant.
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  It originated in the Yunnan province of kind of China,
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  India, Myanmar, that area. There wasn't any really borders
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  back then. The tea plant is called
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  Camellias and enzus. So based off that one tea plant,
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  you can turn that tea after it's picked into a green tea, white
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  tea, black tea, oolong tea, or poor based off how it's
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  processed. So when you pick it, you want to
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  cause either wah oxidation or you don't.
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  So when you pick that leaf, if you want to stop oxidation right
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  away, you do that with some type of heat, either a dry heat or a
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  wet heat. That's going to keep it as a
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  green color, which will be more of a green tea.
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  If you want it to start oxidizing, a lot of times
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  they're going to either sit it out and have some some warm air
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  on it on some like bamboo trays to create some slow oxidation
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  like turn it into a white tea. Or they're going to coax the
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  oxidation out of it and be flipping the tea leaves on trays
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  and rolling them. Which cracks, creates a lot of
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  cracks in them, which then turns them brown and red and changes
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  the whole character of that leaf.
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  And then they add the heat to stop oxidation, which will be
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  more of a black tea. And that sounds very familiar as
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  to like the processing of coffee is a sure natural or letting it
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  leaving it out to dry or wet milk.
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  And then on top of that, like elevation can create a lot of
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  things too. Like a lot of higher elevation
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  lungs are going to be a lot more floral because they just don't
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  get as much oxidation. And a lot of lower elevation new
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  lungs are going to be a lot more like pit fruit notes like dark
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  cherries and chocolates. And so just all that stuff has
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  has some implications on that and how the tea turns out.
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  We're talking here in New York, and you mentioned like coffee
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  being bigger in America. There was a time where tea was
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  bigger or. Probably long time or 10 days.
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  And then sort of a rebellion, we decided to mix it up a little
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  bit. Rishi tea, What makes Rishi
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  unique? Why is Rishi a leader in this
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  industry? What you know, what is it that
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  people should know about it? If they're tuning in as coffee,
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  people may be learning about your company for the first time.
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  Sure. We're pretty unique.
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  We're the first tea company really to start bringing over
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  like full leaf and from origin teas as a direct importer.
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  We're not buying from one of these big importers that's just
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  getting like really overly processed teas and stuff that's
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  just not put a lot of time into. So Josh, our founders started
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  bringing it over from China and wanting to teach Americans about
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  the actual tea culture, not just having some ground up tea leaves
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  in a tea bag. So it was loose leaf teas, which
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  most tea companies in America start as a tea bag company 1st
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  and then they try to do loose leaf later.
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  We were all loose leaf for our first 12 years as a company.
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  We are getting things certified organic in Europe before America
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  even had a USDA certification for our first three years as a
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  company because America's just didn't think of tea as being
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  something that needed to have that certification or be clean.
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  So we wanted people to know about the culture about it,
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  where it's from, how it's supposed to taste, how you're
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  supposed to brew it, and then having it very clean since we
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  are brewing this leaf and putting it into our body.
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  So almost everything we do, about 95% of our products now
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  are certified organic. So everything's very clean.
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  Full transparency on on the farms that we've been working
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  with, where it's grown, how it's grown, how it's processed after
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  in their plants, how it's transported over to us.
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  And now over the last 10 years, we've started being real
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  innovative with those seeds that we're bringing over.
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  So it's still honoring the culture and kind of where it's
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  from, but now creating tea concentrates out of it that make
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  things easier for cafes and people at home to make things.
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  Our new botanical powders are sparkling botanicals that are
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  our first RTD that's brewed with loose sleeved teas, but no
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  sugars or sweeteners at it. And then a lot of recipes that
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  you can use in home and restaurants and bartenders and
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  mixologists can do as well. But just showing the innovative
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  side, innovative side of tea instead of just focusing on on
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  the cultural aspect of it too. So it's kind of honoring both
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  and showing how you can grow with it.
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  But if you're a tea person and a geek, how we have a lot of
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  things that you can really jump into and start your T journey
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  that way too. I would ask you how much
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  attention you get at these festivals, but I know that you
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  had a lot of these samples when we started and then now there's
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  basically none left. A.
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  Handful left. That's it.
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  Yeah. Almost nothing.
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  So I stole this one for me. I hope that's all right.
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  Yeah. Of course.
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  Thank you for being here. Anything else that we should
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  know? How can people find Rishi tea?
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  Where can they find? It so many cities, we're going
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  to be in a lot of the great coffee shops and cafes in your
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  area. You want to have some of the
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  basic stuff like our tea bags at home.
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  Those are nationwide in Whole Foods.
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  But if you want to really geek out on everything that's not
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  just on our loose leaf side of things, but our micro lots and
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  super seasonal Garden Direct stuff that there's only a
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  handful of bags produced and grown every year.
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  So 100 to 200 bags of those based on the actual tea season,
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  go to our Garden Direct Line on our website.
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  That'll give you everything that you can't get in any type of
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  store. Which I can vouch for and verify
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  because we just ordered a pound of the turmeric ginger.
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  Turmeric Ginger's amazing and. A little bonus tangerine ginger
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  just to try. Yeah.
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  So we do that before bed every cool.
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  All that stuff ships out of Milwaukee too, straight to you.
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  So it's from our factory. You're not getting it from a
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  third party, which is really cool.
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  Yeah, I've been back there and helped them pack bags.
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  I've helped blend stuff when I got to start, so it's it's like
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  the Willy Wonka tea, so it's a fun place.
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  Very cool. Well, thank you for being on
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  coffee, people. Yep.
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  I appreciate. It soon to be called Tea people
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  I guess. All right, coffee and tea,
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  people. Cheers, cheers.
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  They can coexist. That's right, yeah.
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  There's no, no, no violence here in the coffee fest.
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  Not at all. We all work and get along.
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  Let's go. So yeah.
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  Thanks for doing the show. Yeah, that's perfect.
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  Hopefully that's it.