MOSCOW, April 25. /TASS/. Ceylon, Indian, Georgian, but never Yakut. The Zamorshchikovs decided to ruin this stereotype and began growing and making tea of fireweed (known in some parts of Canada as great willowherb, in Britain and Ireland as rosebay willowherb) - in Russia’s coldest region - Yakutia. Since this tea is most tasty with honey, the family have become beekeepers. Their biggest dream is to export "the northernmost honey on planet."
Anti-crisis solution
In 2014, Nikolay and his wife Nyurguyana, who owned a tea shop in Yakutsk, faced a very complicated situation. When the ruble rate slumped, they were unable to pay for the loan or to buy products at new prices - their debt was $20,000. They could not afford it. It was then that the family decided to take a risk and to begin making tea - of fireweed and with various wild berries and herbs.
They did not have enough money to make the new business moving, and banks kept refusing the family with four children. The Zamorshchikovs pledged the flat, sole a car and invested the money in equipment for making tea. "We put together a business plan, addressed investors. Nobody believed the business could be profitable. Even our relatives were very skeptical about the idea," the couple said.
Their company’s real work began in 2016 when they produced the first kilo of tea. A year later, the SakhaChai Company (Sakha is how Yakuts call themselves, Chai is Russian for tea) made a tonne, and by 2019 - 7.5 tonnes.
"We used to sell tea, and then began making it, as we knew where, how and to whom to promote it," Nyurguyana said, stressing the importance of packages and the looks of their product. They print QR codes, using which kids may listen to ethnic fairy tales in three languages: Yakut, Russian and English. The narrators were local students and teaches. The company also plans to perform tales of other Northern peoples.
Tea is above all
Nikolay grew in a village and has never skipped heavy work - on the contrary: he enjoys working outdoors, doing something with hands. In the family business he is responsible for the production and product quality, thus between May and August he is "in the field." Nikolay employs seasonal workers - he picks from the locals, school and university students who want to earn money during holidays.
"I’ve studied in China and Japan, where I learned the technology of making tea. Having combined the theories, I’ve made my own technology. Sure, it did not work at once: the fireweed tea making is an effort-consuming process, practically round the clock, since the material requires permanent attention. Yakutia’s dry climate adjusts the fermentation process. The earlier the leaves are collected, the better. It’s best to collect them in late June - they give the most tender taste," - he said.
The further in the North herbs are growing, the more valuable they are, the business family says. The fact that Yakut fireweeds have valuable nutrition features has been confirmed by experts of the North-Eastern Federal University. They say, in fermentation the leaves gain new physiologically valuable substances, with high antioxidant activities. The Institute’s Professor Nadezhda Chirikova said: the plant’s melanin keeps unique stability in aggressive gastric juice, which destroys most antioxidants. Its presence in fermented leaves and their high antioxidant potential play a key role in protecting a living organism from the negative effects of free radicals.
"Melanin as an evolutionally ancient class of organic pigments protects its carrier from the Sun light’s aggressive impacts, radiation plus from negative effects of free radicals and heavy metals," the professor added.
New Markets
The family invests all available money in the business development, including in new markets. In late 2021, they sent a tea consignment to the US, but because of the sanctions they have never received money for the supplied product. For three years the family has been working to access the Japanese market, but nowadays, this direction is also closed. "We’ve made a package, branding, logistics, passed the tests to get to the Japanese market. Well, it’s tough now. We need to find new markets. We have been eying the Middle East, China, and we also have options on the domestic market," Nyurguyana said.
Back in 2018, Nikolay made a concept of developing the tea sector in Yakutia. Every district could have a plat to make fireweed tea.
"That would mean new jobs, <…> the annual production could be 100 tonnes a year. The figure is rough, but anyway, this is how we could substitute formerly imported products. We can supply tea to the region’s schools, kindergartens, hospitals. No other country or Russian region has comparable opportunities and resources to process wild herbs and plants like Yakutia has," he said.
Yakut bees
In addition to tea, the family’s another business is honey. This business has not been easy, either. The first 40 honeybee families, which Nikolay brought in the first years, could not survive the harsh Yakut winters. But the man did not give in, he bought another 80 families. Now he owns about 100 bee families. "It’s a matter of natural selection," he explained to us.
Honey harvesting continues for six weeks. From one family they have about 25 kilos, but some families, the so-called super families, have given more than 96 kilograms.
Most beekeepers in Yakutia do not have sufficient skills, Nikolay said, and that is why many of them may lose up to 80-90% of honeybees over one winter. "We want to teach the locals beekeeping. <…> Then, in 10-15 years we will be able to announce new specie - the Yakut population of mid-Russian honeybee," he added.
In order to make this dream come true, Yakutia must have a breeding reproducer, and then a breeding plant with a capacity of 1,500 purebred bees per year. To do so, the family has already consulted the Bashkir Scientific Research Center for Beekeeping and Apitherapy. Investment in such a reproducer would be about 15 million rubles ($188,000), Nikolay said. He has presented this project to the local authorities.
"Our mission is to teach people to do the agricultural work which is not traditional for Yakutia, but at the same time which could be economically sustainable. We are working on the sectors, which are absolutely new to the Yakut economy. Yakutia is well known for diamonds and natural resources, but life changes, new technologies come to life, new forms of doing business. I believe, it’s time to work in creative, ecology-friendly sectors, which will replace the economy of raw materials," Nikolay concluded.