Coffee Leaf Tea: A Coffee Plant’s Best Kept Secret

From the title of this post you might be thinking “Coffee? I thought this was a tea blog!” I completely understand however, you should not jump to conclusion just yet. 

The coffee leaf leaf was always overlooked due to the popularity of it’s hyperactive child, the coffee bean…but all that is about to change.

Max Rivest and Arnaud Petitvallet are looking to revolutionize the coffee industry by harvesting the coffee plant’s leaves for “tea”. I use the term “tea” here lightly because since the leaf is derived from a coffee plant and not Camellia Sinensis, it is technically not true tea but that doesn’t make it any less amazing! The two entrepreneurs are based in Vancouver, BC with their company Wize Monkey.  

“Wize Monkey is a tea company with an ambitious mission: to improve the livelihoods of coffee-dependent communities by harvesting a sustainable & healthy product. Wize Monkey provides with you a one-of-a-kind tea that not only does your body some good, it does coffee farming families some awesome.”

The coffee leaf tea is made from premium arabica leaves and has higher antioxidants than green tea and the same amount of caffeine as a decaf coffee. It has little to no tannins, producing a clean and smooth flavour without the bittnerness associated with conventional green and black teas. Coffee leaf tea has been consumed in Ethiopia, more specifically Harar province, for over 200 years. On the other side of the world, Sumatrans have also been known to drink this tea instead of roasting the beans as they claimed it to be “more nutritious than coffee.”

“This has been overlooked for hundreds of years and now it’s time we see the coffee plant differently,” stated Max, Co-Founder of Wize Monkey. The opportunity to sell coffee leaves in addition to beans will create year-round jobs for coffee-farming families and help prevent recurring socioeconomic crises linked to the coffee industry’s seasonality and volatility.

The idea blossomed from a grad school project in early 2013 in France. Having been to Nicaragua, Max was aware of the economic difficulties facing Latin American coffee farmers. Intrigued by these challenges, the two started doing research and found a study on the health benefits of coffee leaf tea. As they continued to do more research, it became clear that the coffee industry could utilize this leaf in order to create sustainable year-round income for coffee-dependent families. Since the beginning of the project, they have created work for over 40 people in two separate towns in Nicaragua.

The only way to get your hands on this brew is to participate in their Kickstarter starting November 7th. They will be offering a $15 Christmas Special for two samples delivered before December 25th but supplies are limited so be sure to get in early. Check out their teaser video below.