I don’t mean to throw a wrench on the whole Guayusa tea movement and the Runa enterprise. I think their story is great and I’m glad people in the rest of the world are discovering Guayusa. But the numbers in this article underwhelmed me and made me scratch my head in disbelief.
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140703-guayusa-ecuador-amazon-health-foods-tea/
In it we learn that 3,000 families will get $400,000 (that they didn’t have before) thanks to exporting Guayusa tea. In total they will export 1,000,000 pounds this year. If you do the math, that is $133 per family (or 36 cents a day), at 4 cents a pound.
Then I went online and found 100% guayusa tea for $18.49/lb. That is 46,225% mark up. It would be great to hear Runa’s side of the story, but those numbers are anything but inspiring, unless -of course- you are looking to get into the Guayusa business and make a tidy profit. And maybe you should, at least competition from buyers would mean higher prices for the Guayusa leaves for the Kichwa families.