Author Archives: Peter Keen

San Francisco Straw Ban Prompts Boba Crisis

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2018 is shaping up to be the Year of the Plastic Straw Ban: Seattle 2018, Santa Barbara 2019, Disney 2019, San Francisco 2020, Starbucks 2020, Taiwan 2030, plus Now and Soon and Sometime American Airlines, Hyatt, McDonalds UK, IKEA and many other large multinationals. The ban is both an opportunity for cartoons and jokes,...

Innovation in Kenyan Teas

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Kenya grows some superb teas that lose identity as the crop moves through bush-to-cup logistics and ends up as a commodity ingredient in a tea bag blend. The value chain is marked by many disconnects: conflicting interests, resource gaps, climate volatility, financial structures and global market factors. Much of Kenya’s tea policy and negotiation...

Pea Flower Tea: Sneaking Up on the Innovation Highway

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Pea flower tea could be the next sneak up innovation in the beverage market, joining bubble tea, cheese tea, cold brew and kombucha and, perhaps even the SUI of the past decade, matcha. These came from outside the mainstream, relatively suddenly establishing a market base of enthusiastic customers. None seemed likely to become more...

Green Tea Attacks Plaque

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Summary: The chemical compound epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG) was found to break up and dissolve protein plaques in the blood vessels that reduce the flow of blood to the heart and brain. The study: Researchers at Lancaster University, England studying the effects of EGCG have added to the growing list of areas where there is some...

Tea Opportunity for Florida Growers

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Can tea become an alternative crop in Florida for its mainstay citrus crops? That’s the question that business owners and university researchers across Florida are pursuing—and seeing the possibilities. For generations, oranges and grapefruit have been the pride of the Sunshine State. But citrus greening—along with damage from hurricanes and other storms—has hit the...

10 Heroines of Tea History

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Tea is so rich in history. You can find plenty of interesting books, articles, blogs and ads that bring it all to life. Look for them in the fiction, fantasy and codswallop categories. They all tell the stories of the three pivotal innovations that account for more than 80 percent of today’s tea market....