Kathmandu, Nepal: back from the Nepalese Tea Garden with this report. This is one of the highest elevation tea farms in the world! Kangchenjunga, the world's third highest peak, sits in the background. The Red Panda Network (RPN), a conservation group that works to build community engagement to end red panda poaching and habitat loss, links us to this high elevation tea farm. This is our newest tea relationship.

What does Red Panda Network have to do with Tea?

RPN provides environmental education, community based conservation work, and bolsters sustainable economies around red panda habitat. RPN promotes economies such as tea farms, weaving, and ceramics to provide people with financial alternatives to poaching and habitat loss. One of RPN’s project areas is above the tea farm. RPN partnered with the tea farm, because if the tea farm can scale up and grow sustainably, it is a way for people in nearby villages to gain desirable employment. Employment at the tea garden is an alternative to poaching or extracting natural resources essential to the red panda and other species.

Lake Missoula Tea Company’s Role

Our role with RPN is to sell as much of this tea as possible. This is easy to do; the tea is excellent. We currently source 4 teas from the tea garden: Panda White, Panda Ruby Red and Panda Gold. Our 4th tea—Panda Black—is available through wholesale.

How We Got Connected

Tim Cadmen is a forest activist friend in Australia. His forest conservation work took him to Nepal, and also with RPN. Then his wife Beth read The Sentence, by Louise Erdich. Louise happens to be a huge tea fan, and mentions one of her favorite teas in the book. Beth looked up the tea online, and Lake Missoula Tea Company came up first in her search! Luckily, Tim reached back to us and connected us to RPN!