All the tea in Japan beckons

By ELLEN READ

In a feat comparable to sending coal to Newcastle, a Taumarunui businessman is exporting tea to Japan - a country he describes as the most lucrative tea market in the world.

Doug Hastie - a 20-cup-a-day man - returned to New Zealand from New York in 2001.

"I think after 9/11 a lot of people stopped and thought about why they were away from home and whether it was worth it," says the Yale MBA graduate and former Wall St trader.

He returned with the idea of setting up quality tea cafes, aiming to do to the local tea-drinking market what had already occurred with coffee.

He'd noticed that while there was lots of good coffee to be had in New Zealand, tea was generally at the poorer end of the quality scale.

"But after some research I realised that people weren't going to drive across town just to get good tea, especially not with Auckland traffic," says Hastie.

Plan B was to establish a tea importing and distribution business and this is the path he's taken.

Basing himself in his parents' hometown of Taumarunui, Hastie drew on tea knowledge and contacts gained from travel in Asia and about a year ago set up Chai.

The word chai means tea in more than 50 countries and Hastie's goal is that it will come to mean "great tea" in the Kiwi vernacular.

While he had plenty of theoretical knowledge from his studies, putting this into practice has been very much a case of trial and error.

"Especially all the regulatory stuff. Like it takes 100 phone calls to find out three answers," he says.

The Chai range - sourced from Sri Lanka and India - is exclusively loose leaf tea.

Teabags give an inferior taste because smaller leaves are used and the bag itself can impart a paper taste, tea-connoisseur Hastie explains.

"There is also a cost involved in bagging, which is often offset by the use of a lower grade tea."

Chai also sells teapots which have an infuser, making the use of tea leaves as easy as teabags.

Hastie predicts a similar trend to coffee - away from instant coffee to better-quality ground varieties - will also occur in tea.

Privately funded, Hastie drew his partner, Kuniko Saito, and his mother into the businesses and also employs a part-time supermarket demonstrator.

With a range of 10 flavours, Chai is sold in selected North Island New World and Pak 'n' Save supermarkets.

"I just rang them up and arranged to go in and meet with them," Hastie says when asked how he secured those deals.

The Japan deal, which he says has huge potential, came about after a Japanese supermarket chain approached Chai after one of its buyers spotted the tea in Auckland.

"At first I didn't get too excited by the approach because you never know what these things will lead to but it's come through," Hastie says.

Chai's first overseas deal means it is now sold in a supermarket chain in the Kansai area of Japan.

"In Japan tea costs two and a half times what it does here and the Japanese like quality products so it's a huge market," says Hastie.

While pleased with the company's progress to date, he has big plans, including exporting to Britain and the United States.

Chai