First Platinum Sponsor of the World Tea Expo.
ITI founder Devan Shah grew up in comparative privilege in southern India in the city of Coimbatore, acquiring an easy familiarity with many of India’s religious traditions and languages. Summer vacations from school were spent high in the cool Nilgiri mountains near Coonoor on the tea estate managed by his older sister’s husband. In college he took a degree in business, and dutifully but swiftly climbed the rungs of the tea profession, starting as an assistant to a south India tea broker. Then, like many another Indian professional in his mid-20’s, he emigrated to the USA to start a new life.
The American tea trade in 1989 was sleepy, just barely beginning to wake up to its potential. Though Devan thrived in the electronics import-export business, he knew inside himself this was not right livelihood for a born tea man. In 1990--the same year he married Reena Mahesh of Los Angeles-- he started India Tea Importers.
Let the Record Show I have been a witness from the beginning. I got to taste the first six chests of tea Devan imported while they were stacked in his father-in-law’s garage. That was in LA, but we’d met in New York thanks to Madhavan Nambiar, then NY Director of Tea Board of India. Upon learning he was from the Nilgiris, I showed him the Nilgiri tea sample I’d newly received, as it happened, that very hour. Nobody in America, me included, knew anything whatever about south India tea. In ten minutes time, I had learned so much about that tea sample from Devan’s expert professional analysis that on the spot I annointed him my India tea teacher.
Devan’s first years in business seemed to me, frankly speaking, scary as a roller-coaster, maybe not truly dangerous but full of dramatic ups and downs. Meanwhile, I was far from the only person Devan was educating about tea. Right from the outset he grasped that those who benefit the most from the tea business are those who contribute the most to tea culture.
Devan Shah has played a decisive role in developing America’s tastes in tea. To cite a single example, most ready to drink chai sold in the US were made using Nilgiri teas imported and supplied by Devan. Also: Before he started, there was no ready to drink chai sold in the US. Devan has consistently created markets for tea where there were no markets previously. Reflecting his expanding horizons, India Tea Importers, his original company, in 2000 was re-christened International Tea Importers or ITI. Having become a major importer of organic and fair trade teas as well as conventional teas from every producing country, today Devan is even able to offer China tea rarities like Yellow Tea, first imported into the US in 2006 by ITI. Besides supplying America’s burgeoning tea businesses, no company has exceeded ITI’s contribution to America’s developing tea culture. In 2005 Devan was invited to serve as International Juror at India’s first-ever tea competition, the Golden Leaf India Awards held, as it happened, at the Nilgiri hill station town Conoor, his old summertime home place. In America there is simply nobody who has done more than Devan Shah and his company, ITI, to create the Tea Renaissance blossoming all around us today.
- James norwood Pratt
Letter from Mr.Devan Shah
Tea, the most romantic of all beverages, has certainly come a long way in the United States. Just look at Chai – who would have thought that India’s everyday drink could ever become hip in the US? But just as “Slumdog Millionaire,” a movie about a chaiwalla from Mumbai, deserved every Oscar it won, Chai itself deserves an Oscar for driving the entire specialty tea market in the US over the past decade. Chai is helping America become a tea-consuming society.
Putting the final touches on this catalogue (just after we finished most of our work on The Tea Dictionary!), I felt joyfully emotional and tears ran down. I flashed back some 20 years to how I felt starting this business in the US hoping to sell single estate teas. At that time that it was hard to find teas to buy in smaller quantities of 2 to 5 pounds. I was so keen to establish a tea business I started ITI to cater to this market for small quantities.
These challenging times represent the first test for America’s tea business since our Tea Renaissance began in the early 1990’s. I strongly believe our Specialty Tea Industry will weather these rough times with comparatively little rattling and damage. Tea as a beverage has seen steady growth year over year for the last 15 years. As its market has expanded, tea has earned a reputation of being the beverage of choice of the informed: “Tea is a smarty’s drink.” Late last year I took the knowledge of the business that I have gained in the US back to India and opened the first Tea Kiosk in Mumbai, and a second kiosk at the Prestigious Phoenix Mills shopping center and others soon to follow. Present-day India also has a growing class of informed people who realize the world of teas extends far beyond their everyday CTC chai. ITI’s teas will help their numbers grow.
Dear friends, as long as I have been in this business I have always tried to support any activity that expands our circle of informed tea drinkers. Our businesses will continue to be successful as long as we all do our part in expanding this clan of ours. President Barack Obama also belongs-it should lift our spirits to know that the White House refrigerators are now stocked with bottles of ready-to-drink tea. Every effort he makes towards fixing our economy now seems to me likelier to be smart and successful. Let us add our efforts to his! To do our part in helping the economy and helping you, our valued customers, I am making this special offer:
Until the Dow Jones crosses 10,000 points, all orders that are pre-paid either with a check or credit card will receive a 10% discount.
Thank you
Devan Shah
Founder, International Tea Importers
We carry many different types of Black, Green, White, Jasmine, Organic, Blooming, Oolong teas and Herbs from around the world. At our two facilities ITI-Pico and ITI-Commerce we process Flavored Teas, Exotic Flavored Teas, House Blends, Herbal Blends, Ayurvedic Herbal Blends, Newly introduced Wine Inspired Teas, Tea Bags. We are ONE STOP SHOP FOR SATISFYING YOUR TEA NEEDS!
