Silicon Valley EcoTuesday will feature Paul Kotta, Owner of Mellow Monk Japanese Green Tea, as our speaker in Palo Alto in less than a week!  Want to learn everything you have ever wanted to learn about green tea, then this event should be perfect for you. Paul Kotta will discuss from field to cup, how green tea is made on artisans’ estates in Japan as well as issues associated with small green tea farms.

As many of you know, green tea is thought to have many benefits. The antioxidants destroy chemicals known as free radicals, which speed up cell death and are believed to be involved in the body aging process. Ever wonder why Japanese elders look so young? Maybe it is due to their cultural green tea drinking.

Mellow Monk’s green tea is thought to contain higher percentage of catechins, antioxidants, due to their tea being produced at independent small tea artisans’ estates. Due to their small size, they harvest only what they can craft into fresh tea that day. If harvested but not immediately produced into tea, oxidation and fermentation occurs that can destroy antioxidants.

Mellow Monk’s tea is made by steaming instead of pan frying. In comparison to frying, this is thought to help preserve more of the disease-fighting antioxidants and keep the tea’s natural earthy flavor.

The green tea family farms are certified under Japan’s Eco-Farmer Program, a voluntary local government program that is monitored by Japan’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries to promote environmentally responsible farming practices. Mellow Monk is also certified under Co-Op America as a green business as well as a certified green business under the San Francisco Bay Area Green Business Program.

Paul Kotta along with his wife, Akimi Kotta founded Mellow Monk’s Green Teas in 2004.  For more information on Mellow Monk’s Tea go to http://mellowmonk.com

Anthony Tsai of Urban Solutions made a great point during last week’s talk – “Sustainability can actually save money”. His talk was refreshing for a small business. Small business by definition is barely able to make ends meet. In this tight economic entity, every penny saved is every penny earned. Urban Solutions as a non-profit organization, is helping such businesses save substantial dollars while promoting sustainability principles. Started as an organization to promote businesses in the low-income neighborhood of San Francisco’s sixth street, this organization has grown into helping businesses to become green and at the same time save money. For example, in one of the businesses, they went in and changed the old inefficient fluorescent lamps with efficient ones, saving 40% on their electricity bills. Anthony points out in this instance everybody benefits as PG&E can divert the savings to other areas where it is needed. 

Anthony was advocating for a complete sustainability framework, where one should not limit to just electricity and water to look for sustainable savings. The three main areas where savings are huge include: energy usage; water usage and garbage disposal. Energy and water are fairly well understood. Garbage is the least understood of the three. Anthony prescribed that every business should look into the amount of garbage generated more carefully. They should divert most of the garbage generated into recycling bins. The more they shrink the size of the regular garbage bins, better it is for the environment.

Overall, the talk was quite enlightening to most of the attendees. His experience in analyzing the rainforest in Borneo for carbon credits was unique. The greatest learning from the talk and the experience of Anthony was that it does not take much to be on the path of sustainability. Sustainability begins with everyone looking at their own lifestyle to realize the savings.