Other Tea Certifications: ISO, Trustea, the Ethical Tea Partnership and Elephant Friendly

• ISO 9001 and ISO 22000. International standards for quality and food-safety management, shown on the Jungpana factory wall in our photo from around 2014.
• FSSC 22000. A food-safety scheme built on ISO 22000 with extra requirements. Our own facility in Siliguri was first certified to it in November 2020.
• HACCP. Hazard analysis and critical control points, the method behind most food-safety audits, held by factories such as Doomni and Balasun.

Some of these certificates are old, which says something about the estates that earned them. Castleton was the first estate in Darjeeling to receive ISO 9002 certification, the forerunner of today’s ISO 9001.

In Assam, Doomni is “HACCP and ISO 9001 certified, adheres to strict EU standards, and holds Rainforest Alliance certification.” In Kangra, the Dharmsala Tea Company’s factory, built in 1882, “has evolved over the years into an ISO and HACCP-certified factory.”

These certificates are about the factory, not the field. Our own food safety plan, as we described it in 2020, covers manufacturing practice, cleaning and sanitation, employee hygiene, contamination control, traceability and recall.

• Global G.A.P. A farm-assurance standard for good agricultural practice. Craigmore, in the Nilgiris, was the first plantation in India to be Global G.A.P. certified, and also held Rainforest Alliance, UTZ and ISO certifications when we wrote about it in 2016.
• Trustea. India’s own sustainability code for tea, held by many of the Assam gardens in our 2019 supplier records.
• SA 8000 and ISO 14001. Standards for workplace conditions and environmental management; in our 2019 records SA 8000 appeared at a group of Assam gardens, and ISO 14001 at Korakundah in the Nilgiris.
• Ethical Tea Partnership (ETP). A not-for-profit alliance of tea companies that works to improve life for tea workers and farmers. It is a membership program rather than a consumer seal. Our product data and some of our posts call it the “Ethical Trade Partnership.”

Twenty-four of our active teas list the Ethical Tea Partnership, more than any label except Rainforest Alliance, and the two often travel together.

Margaret’s Hope shows what the pair can mean. To keep its Rainforest Alliance and ETP certifications, its management invested in forest audits across the gardens. In 2016 the estate ran the only primary healthcare center between Kurseong and Darjeeling town, and a school for the children of its more than 1,200 employees.

Non-GMO labels

Some tea retailers also promise “Non-GMO Project Verification.” Peter Keen thought the worry overstated for tea: clonal tea bushes are selected from the best existing plants, a process that “bears no resemblance to GMO,” and he judged genetic modification unlikely to be applied to tea in general. For how clonal bushes are bred, see Chinary, Assam and clonal tea plants.

The certification comes from a partnership between the Wildlife Friendly Enterprise Network (WFEN) and the University of Montana’s Broader Impacts Group. Gardens qualify by protecting elephant habitat and water, reducing conflict between people and elephants, and removing barriers to movement between elephant habitats.

In practice that means three commitments: eliminating “electrocution risks to elephants from fencing and power lines,” dealing with “drainage ditches, and other hazards that may injure elephants,” and eliminating “the risk of poisoning of elephants.”

Banaspaty, Assam

Banaspaty, in Assam’s Karbi Anglong hills, was one of the first gardens in Assam to be awarded it; elephant herds move undisturbed along its corridors, and rhinos are spotted close to Kaziranga National Park.

The garden covers 160 acres and was established in 1905. It worked with The Wildlife Enterprise and Tea Promoters India to map corridors across its sections, and it protects native trees such as hollong, acacia, khair and mekai. Wreathed and great Indian hornbills, deer and pygmy hogs now share it with more than 400 workers and their families. You can taste its tea in Banaspaty Summer Black.

Other gardens make room for wildlife without this seal. In 2022 Goodricke showed us that, as a policy, the group has retained animal corridors, among them the Nonaipara elephant corridor in Assam. In the Nilgiris, Glendale has built a corridor for elephants.