(6 Aug 2025)
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Ozurgeti, Georgia – 29 July 2025
1. Various of Lana Zhgenti picking tea leaves
2. Various of tea plants
3. Zhgenti walking through tea plantation
4. SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Lana Zhgenti, co-owner of Sisters Zhgenti tea farm:
"Tea picking starts early in the morning. The women arrive at 8 AM, and the work continues throughout the day. Once picked by hand, the three leaves are collected into special baskets, and using these baskets, the tea is transported to our processing facility, where the tea-production process begins."
5. Various of Zhgenti collecting tea leaves off drying rack and placing in basket
6. Various of Zhgenti pouring tea leaves into rolling machine
7. Various of Zhgenti lowering lid on rolling machine
8. Various of machine rotating
9. SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Lana Zhgenti, co-owner of Sisters Zhgenti tea farm:
"The climate and region here are very favorable for tea cultivation in Guria. Another important point to note is that we don’t need to use herbicides or pesticides against insects because of the cold winters and snow, which help naturally control pests. This allows us to deal with insects using natural resources without artificial additives."
10. Wide of Zhgenti placing leaves into drying machine
11. Various of dried tea leaves coming out of machine
12. Wide of Teni tea farm
13. Close of rows of tea plants
14. Gabriel Tenieshvili walking through Teni tea farm
15. SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Gabriel Tenieshvili, co-owner of Teni tea farm:
"So, then it happened that all the plantations became wild, and all the huge factories collapsed. People started thinking about what could replace tea since it was no longer profitable. They began looking for other profitable crops, like blueberries or hazelnuts, and everyone started uprooting their tea plants."
16. Various of tea being brewed and poured
17. SOUNDBITE (Georgian) Gabriel Tenieshvili, co-owner of Teni tea farm:
"But in Georgia, tea has a six-month growing season, we call it tea season, from April to October. The tea has six months to rest when it can gather sugars, micro- and macro-nutrients to prepare for the future vegetation. That’s precisely why Georgian tea is naturally sweeter than many other teas."
18. Various of tourists trying tea at Taba tea house
19. Close of different dried tea leaves
20. Tea tasting session leader drinking tea
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Christopher Lecoules, French tourist:
"I’ve been personally surprised by the blueberry tea. I discovered it’s made with blueberry leaves mostly and well it’s a very, very good taste."
22. Various of packages of tea on display
23. SOUNDBITE (French) Marie Bebin, French tourist:
"It’s true, we drink a lot of tea, we only drink tea at home. And it was really interesting to have the black tea and above all to know how long to leave the different types of tea to infuse. Because that changed everything."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Tbilisi, Georgia – 25 July 2025
24. Various of exhibits at tea museum and shop
25. SOUNDBITE (English) Giorgi Bitadze, tea master and member of Georgian Organic Tea Producers’ Association:
"We’re basically developing from 2006 what Georgian tea should look like, why it’s special and we are using our climate and our terroir and taste to distinguish it. We’re not trying to make Chinese tea or Indian tea. We’re trying to make Georgian tea and define it."
26. Various of Bitadze making tea
STORYLINE:
LEADIN:
Georgia once ranked among the world’s top five biggest tea producers, but after the fall of the Soviet Union, the industry withered.
STORYLINE:
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