Touch to feel your tea.
And when cricket players of the Assam blind cricket team moved their fingers from left to right across the line of dots of their packet of Aromica tea, there was joy all around.
The experience was a unique one.
Tea start-up from Assam, Aromica Tea, recently launched Braille Friendly Tea packs in an effort to provide access to tea and a choice for the specially abled. “We look forward to this initiative to promote Assam tea with a holistic approach and our step forward to provide choice to the specially-abled and create a more inclusive society by providing access,” Aromica Tea Director Ranjit Baruah told World Tea News.
Braille tea packs are the first of their kind in India.
According to the World Health Organization, at least 2.2 billion people have a near or distant vision impairment.
Louis Braille, a French educator and priest who lost his eyesight at a young age, invented a reading system for the blind in 1825. The braille system is reading and writing by touch where raised dots represent the letters of the alphabet.
‘Providing Equality’
Aromica is a brand of Tender Buds Teas and Crafts Pvt Ltd based in Guwahati. The company currently has more than 40 varieties of value-added teas. It sources the leaf from small tea growers, and the company believes in blending traditional virtues with age-old wisdom in creating teas that carry health benefits, offer taste and a rich experience of tea.
“Braille friendly products address the needs of a special category of people of the society and respect their dignity and equal rights in determining their choice,” Baruah said. “This initiative is an endeavor in this effort of providing equality.”
Baruah has worked in the tea sector for nearly two decades before becoming an entrepreneur.
“The entire concept took about eight months to materialize and was finally ready to be launched in 10 days,” he said.
The company also supports the Assam Blind Cricket Team. In fact, the captain of the Assam Blind Cricket Team, Rajdeep Dakuwa – along with two of his team members – were present at the official launch of Aromica’s Braille Friendly Tea packs.
Baruah said they received help from an NGO called Care U 365, which has been working on various welfare activities for the visually challenged – including printing and publishing Braille.
Aromica currently has three Braille Friendly Teas – Assam Orthodox, Assam Green Tea and an Assam CTC-based Masala Tea, and they plan to introduce more flavors in the coming months, depending on the market.
“The marketing plans include promotion in specialized shopping malls catering to the needs of the specially-abled, institutions for the blinds and exports,” Baruah noted.
The company hopes that more Braille-friendly products will be launched in the future by other companies, for the benefit of the visually challenged.
“Braille Friendly Tea packs are a realization of the company's intention to establish inclusivity and respect the rights of the visually impaired to determine their choice,” Baruah shared. “We felt the need to take our teas to all segments of the society, as we did not find any Braille-friendly tea packs in the market presently. If clothes or a book could be as per their choice, why not what they eat or drink? Let at least the tea be as per their choice.”
The process of generating printed material using a Braille writing system for the visually impaired or the blind is called Braille Embossing. Braille Embossing is usually done using a Braille embosser, which is a type of printer. The printer presses the dots down onto the packaging material to help visually impaired read the packaging using their fingers. A wrong spacing of the dots or a misplaced Braille dot could mean something entirely different for a person reading the Braille. If a product belongs to the pharmaceutical industry, it may cause blunder. The misplaced dot or wring spacing can mean an incorrect product name or dosage information for the person. This can be disastrous.
“Embossing the tea packets of Aromica was new to us,” said Bhrigu Borthakur, president emeritus and founder of Care u 365. “In the first stage, we took the measurements of the tea containers and decided on the limited specific contents. The content was desired to be limited because of the fact that normal content becomes almost more than double in Braille. We fixed the content and – using our Braille software Sparsh – we translated into Braille and embossed it. Sizing according to the container involved some trials to make the placing better. After getting it done, we pasted it on the container.”
Sushil Pourel was the technical person who was also involved in the process.
Care U 365 has been working for the visually impaired in Assam since 2015, starting with the Braille magazine, Connecting the Dots. The organization also serves the visually impaired by providing Braille books and other required materials.
Aromica Tea recently received a seed fund of Rs 25 lakh by IIM Calcutta Innovation Park, where it was an incubatee. The company was incubated by Assam Start-Up.
Chief Operating Officer of Assam Start Up, Pranjal Konwar, appreciated Baruah’s never-say-die entrepreneurial spirit and also urged him to carry on with the momentum, to sustain this path-breaking initiative and make it a huge success.
To learn more about Aromica Tea, visit AromicaTea.com.
Roopak Goswami – a contributor to World Tea News – has worked for more than two decades as a newspaper journalist in Northeast India. Tea is his passion and he covers the tea industry regularly.
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