Spotlight | Tea with the Taste of Persia

Tea grower and organic tea brand owner Zubin Amiri is a champion of the Caspian Sea tea-growing region, an area that produces well-regarded Persian orthodox black teas. Iran’s 92 million residents consume around 80 to 90,000 metric tons of tea annually, most of which is imported. Consumption averages 1.23 kilos of tea per person (less than three pounds per person compared to the more than 6.5-pound average in 2013). In recent years, consumption has declined by more than half due to economic woes, competition with coffee, production declines due to erratic weather, and the burden of sanctions that date back to 1979.

Zubin joins us today to discuss the effect of the forced shift in trade from lucrative North America to European markets and, finally, Russia. He reports that while overall production declined last year to 28,000 metric tons, harvest totals could easily double by cultivating idled tea estates to meet domestic and overseas demand for premium, organic, pest-free, third-party certified teas.

BIO: Zubin Amiri is the CEO and founder of Zubin Organic, an Iranian agribusiness that produces tea, walnuts, oranges, raisins, and wild pistachios. He is the fifth generation to manage the family-owned business, which was founded in 1898.

Zubin has been a member of the board of the Iran Organic Association since 2008 and serves as vice president of the board of directors of Bio COOP of Iran.

He graduated cum laude from the Kogod School of Business at American University and holds a degree in French Studies at Ecole de Roches and a diploma from the Institute Le Rosey in Switzerland. More recently, he studied Global Sustainability Management at UCLA.

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