Ziamese Sisters takes its tea retail
Ziamese Sisters has started selling its premium tea products on retail shelves after three years of exclusively supplying five-star hotels, spas and other top-end customers.
The company sells green mulberry tea under the Ziamese Society Tea brand and body-care products under the Ziamese Secrets brand. Manager Nathathai Bhukkanasut said the company had started selling its Ziamese Society Tea at Villa Market, Tops Supermarket and King's Power outlets nationwide. The company began by supplying its products to five-star hotels, including the Grand Hyatt Erawan, Four Seasons and The Metropolitan, as well as premium spas, in 2003. Nathathai said the company was now negotiating with hotel chains to distribute its products in Singapore, Hong Kong, China and Italy. It has already started supplying the Ja Hotel in Hong Kong. "If the negotiations [with hotel chains] succeed this year, the company expects Bt10 million in revenue," said Nathathai. Its revenue totalled Bt4 million last year. Ziamese Society Tea won the prestigious Superior Taste Award 2006 from the International Taste and Quality Institute in Belgium last month. Ziamese Sisters' target group is health-conscious consumers. Green mulberry tea has no caffeine or tannin, is low in calories and is an anti-oxidant. The company has been buying green mulberry from the Northeast, but last year opened its own organic farm in Nakhon Ratchasima. The 32,000-square-metre farm will grow green mulberries. Nathathai said the company hoped to upgrade Thai green mulberry products to international standards within five years while promoting Thailand as "green mulberry land". It also makes body-care products from green mulberry and sells them along with its tea as a gift set. It will launch Ziamese Minty Green Mulberry Herbal Tea next month and a range of organic products in the middle of next year. Chalida Ekvitthayavechnukul The Nation
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