David Veal, European Speciality Tea Association executive director speaking atthe Tea Masters Cup competition, Moscow, Russia.
David Veal has for almost 40 years embraced the trending edge in specialty beverages. During the 1980s he worked for Automatic Catering Supplies (ACS) the coffee service that introduced UK office workers to specialty brands like Douwe Egberts. A decade later he witnessed the early adoption of espresso-based take-out as UK barista’s rode the second wave of café culture. In 1998, the Specialty Coffee Association of Europe (SCAE) hosted its first World of Coffee event. Veal was there. Barista competitions began in 2000 and by 2011 SCAE was so successful Veal was recruited to manage the organization full time.
“I led the SCAE as if it was my own business, being really careful financially, employing basic business principles and building a really focused team around me. I only asked people to do things I was willing to do – it’s one of the oldest lessons in the book really – lead by example, go out and meet people. Engagement is key,” he said as he transitioned to work in tea.
As executive director of the European Speciality* Tea Association (ESTA) Veal continues to innovate, deftly applying his organizational expertise to tea.
STiR: David, will you share your vision for the European Speciality Tea Association (ESTA).
David Veal: The vision is to be an inclusive, membership-based association, built on foundations of collaboration, expertise, and the power of shared knowledge. Our mission is to help improve the quality and quantity of specialty tea available to consumers by creating and inspiring excellence in the specialty tea community through promoting innovation, research, education, and communication.
We hope to pull together many strands within that community by collaborating with and partnering other organizations and bodies spanning all aspects of the tea industry. In that respect we share a common purpose with many other tea lovers and professionals globally.
STiR: ESTA recently certified its first professional in tea, an initial step in establishing a cadre of workers skilled in tea craft. Describe how this program works and the benefits it brings to the tea industry.
Veal: Our newly launched tea certification program is a very ambitious initiative whereby we will offer high-quality, well-respected, and consistent certification based on integrity and transparency. We can only achieve this by working with well-respected tea professionals creating our curricula, and high quality and dedicated educators who will deliver and certify these curricula on our behalf.
STiR: How is this funded and what is the return on investment for participants?
Veal: Our certified partners, Authorized Tea Certifiers, will both earn money from our program and provide a stream of income to the association. An active Authorized Tea Certifier will be able to cover the cost of their initial investment in the program in a matter of months, or even weeks, depending on how active they are.
Our objective is that this program will become universally accepted and recognized and will help students to obtain jobs or develop their careers in tea and also assist employers in their recruitment of good quality and educated staff.
STiR: The tea association in Denmark recently agreed to merge with ESTA, the second regional association to do so. Describe the structure and reach of chapters.
Veal: The new Danish chapter, formerly the Danish Tea Association, was our second chapter to be formed, following our Benelux chapter formed by members from Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Ireland will be the next chapter to launch, within the next two months, Russia and Germany will follow. Chapters, which are a vehicle whereby local members can network, hold events, and organize competitions, will be formed when a minimum 10 members join from that particular country and will become the lifeblood of our association and community.
We are a European organization, although of course we are operating in a global community, and so without really trying we attracted members from all over the world who share our values and want to join the movement that we are part of. We now have members in more than 40 different countries, 18 of which are outside of Europe. Many of these are producers, a group which we feel are vital to and completely connected with everything we do and believe. Very early on we realized that we had to specifically target certain groups in order to ensure that they travelled on the journey with us, and one of those groups was producers, both in Europe and in more traditional growing countries. The engagement that we are having with producers is really exciting and stimulating.
Another group that we targeted was the tea barista, as we felt that the time was right to introduce the concept that the word “barista” should not only be synonymous with coffee. So we are asking the question “what makes a good barista?” and we believe that part of the answer is that a good barista should be equally knowledgeable, skillful, and passionate about tea as they are about coffee, and that should be reflected in their menu. So we would encourage producers and tea baristas alike to join us on our journey and become a member.
STiR: You worked in coffee for many years, how is it you ended up in tea?
Veal: There was absolutely no planning in my switch from coffee to tea. After 35 years in coffee [with a bit of tea] I left SCAE in 2018 as the merger was completed with Specialty Coffee Association of America. In September of that year I just happened to be visiting an exhibition in the UK where the European Tea Society, as it was then called, were launching, stating that they had observed over the years what had happened in specialty coffee, and that they aimed to achieve for tea what SCAE achieved for coffee. I introduced myself and suggested that I may have some experience that would help them get started and grow quickly. I joined a few months later as executive director and I am really enjoying the challenge of growing the association and learning more and more about specialty tea every day. That in itself is a real joy for me.
There are many commonalities between tea and coffee and many differences. Tea has some advantages over coffee but several barriers to gaining the momentum with consumers that coffee has enjoyed over the last two or three decades. Many people now see the emergence of specialty tea as an event which is happening right now, and there is a level of excitement and anticipation which has not truly been there in the past. It will be a long, challenging, and exciting journey and I am personally really looking forward to further successes.
And as for the definition of specialty tea, well that’s a story for another day.