by Heidi Kyser 

With little domestic production of tea, the North American tea business has a better-than-average grasp of globalization built in. Maybe that’s why so many tea shop owners and other retailers are interested in caring for the planet, as shown by their increasing interest in organic and fair trade products. Some believe the next frontier in this movement will be direct work with the estates in countries where tea originates, or “origin,” as industry shorthand has it.

“We wanted to be very focused on organic and fair trade and sustainability,” said Anupa Mueller, president of Tarrytown, N.Y.-based Silver Tips Tea Room and its wholesale sister company Eco-Prima. “The only way you can do that is to make sure the people at origin are sharing in your wealth.”

Philanthropic support of origin is nothing new, but no matter how much desire somebody has to connect with the garden where her tea leaves are grown, it can be tough, sitting in a strip mall in Albuquerque, N.M., to know where to begin.

Start with questions, advised David De Candia, senior manager of tea for the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, based in Camarillo, Calif. For about seven years, De Candia has led his company’s efforts to build and refurbish a day care center, community center, library and schools in the Loinorn division of the Bogawantalawa Estate in Sri Lanka, where he purchases a lot of tea.

If you buy through a wholesaler, De Candia said, that’s OK. Find out from the wholesaler where he gets his tea. Ask specifically where the estate is, what it’s like, what the people are like. Be curious.

“Even if you’re a tiny company, your tea is connected to someone who’s connected to someone,” De Candia said. “Somewhere along the line, there may be someone doing something good that you can get involved in.”

Of course, taking a trip to origin is the best way to make connections and find opportunities for community support.

Mueller said that in the mid-1990s, when she was co-founding Eco-Prima, she went often to the Makaibari Estate in Darjeeling and others that she supports. “In the early years, we were doing things on a one-on-one basis,” she said, recalling how she would buy sweaters for middle school kids, or help workers plant trees.

After staying at it for more than 10 years, however, “the entire effort is to pool the resources, make them as big as possible and have the money spent under the aegis of fair trade,” she said.

For instance, Eco Prima now contributes to Starbucks and Tazo Tea’s Community Health and Advancement Initiative (CHAI) project, a joint partnership that includes Mercy Corps.

De Candia offered a word of caution on just writing a check: Unless you have the experience of someone like Mueller or himself, you have to make sure you find out exactly where your money is going.

“You’ve got to watch out for the ones that pay for the publicity of doing it, but aren’t actually doing anything,” he said. “A lot of people are just giving somebody a check, but it doesn’t really support the workers and the economy.”

Another caution, according to sources: Keep it real. Let the choice of what you do and how you do come from the people who grow the tea you buy; never simply offer charity.

Peter Kamau of Batian Peak Coffee & Tea Village in Billerica, Mass., underlined the importance of starting with the business, then fostering projects that grow naturally out of that relationship.

“Our vision,” he said, “is to use the coffee and tea business to give back to these regions. Having grown up as coffee and tea farmers, we strongly believe that the best way to build up these villages is through a comprehensive grassroots campaign that equips young people with strong self-esteem, entrepreneurial skills, leadership skills and specific knowledge on AIDS and other diseases.”

The company’s founder is also a founding member of Separating AIDS From Immorality, or SAFI. The Kenya-based leadership organization educates young people about AIDS, teaching them to become leaders in the fight against the disease’s spread in their own communities.

Mueller added that the self-help movement is gaining traction in India. She recently worked with a group of seven women in Makaibari who used resources and training given to them to start a screen printing facility.

“We are going to give them an order before the year’s out for their hand-made paper cartons,” she said. “They have their own place, and are now gainfully employed.”

The main point, sources agreed, is that there’s no excuse for inaction. “I know a lot of large companies that don’t do anything,” De Candia said. “It’s surprising.”