The Bitter Story Behind the UK’s National Drink

[ann_leckie]

Every now and then I see someone remark that obviously I lifted the conditions on Fosyf’s tea estate (in Ancillary Sword) from the Antebellum South. In point of fact, I did not. I was (I thought fairly undisguisedly) thinking about actual conditions on actual Earth tea plantations. And if anything, I soft-pedaled it. Because the actual facts would have seemed cartoonishly, mustache-twirlingly unreal.

Except it would have been entirely real.

 

The joint investigation by Radio 4’s File on Four and BBC News in Assam, north-east India, found workers living in broken houses with terrible sanitation. Many families have no toilets and say they have no choice but to defecate amongst the tea bushes.
 
Living and working conditions are so bad, and wages so low, that tea workers and their families are left malnourished and vulnerable to fatal illnesses.
 
There was also a disregard for health and safety, with workers spraying chemicals without protection, and on some estates, child labour being used.

 

And turns out, the Rainforest Alliance’s certification, which is supposed to let consumers know that the tea they’re buying was ethically produced, doesn’t actually mean much.

None of this surprises me.

I am not posting this in the hope people will stop drinking tea–Mithras knows I drink gallons of the stuff myself. But this is going on. And it might be worth thinking about where else it’s happening and we just don’t see it.

Mirrored from Ann Leckie.

Comments

[rose-lemberg.livejournal.com]

:( :( :(

Shweta sent me some Verdant Tea (https://verdanttea.com/), which has teas from small family tea farms; the teas themselves are terrific. I cannot afford it on my own, though.
Which - is the issue with many such things. I cannot stop drinking tea, I do my best to shop for ethically sourced things, but as you said, it is often very hard to know what's really ethically sourced even with certifications in place.

[ann-leckie.livejournal.com]

Yeah, so much this. I can afford to buy more expensive family farm teas these days if I want, but I couldn't always--and I still can't afford it as my only tea. It's easy to say one should always buy local/organic/ethically, but not always possible, either because of money or because you just can't know. I'm not sure what else there is to do beyond being aware, and trying to do small things when it's in my power to do them.

I believe its worth our doing small things when we can, though, even if we can't do them very often. Even if they seem ridiculously small.

Hoping you're well--I've hardly been on twitter and only occasionally seen your tweets, but I've been thinking of you all. Sending good thoughts.