How a Thompson Rivers University graduate invented a new caffeinated beverage
After eight years of hard work behind the scenes, a Thompson Rivers University alumnus is watching his coffee-based product launch across the country, while helping to employ workers in Nicaragua at the same time.
Max Rivest took the Bachelor of Tourism Management program at the university in Kamloops from 2006 to 2010. While studying there, he said he spent a lot of time enjoying the mountains, lakes and trails in the area.
“The problem was I was always grabbing drinks at a gas station before going into the mountains,” he said. “The drinks were always crappy and unhealthy and super sweet.”
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Rivest’s disappointment in the unhealthy drinks was the beginning of a long journey that took him to a farm in Nicaragua and ultimately, to the creation of Wize iced teas.
“I became aware of all the sugar I was consuming so at one point I switched to drinking coffee, looking for an energy boost but without the unhealthy ingredients," he said.
Rivet completed his degree in Kamloops, then went on to take his Master of International business in France.
“My mom is French so I had a passport,” he said. “I sold everything I owned and took my savings and went to France.”
While studying in France, Rivest said he pushed himself too hard and consumed too much coffee. He ended up suffering a caffeine overdose.
“I was in class in a bad and unhealthy caffeine pattern,” he said. “I started feeling heart palpitations, pins and needles, then I went home and puked. I was shaking and couldn’t sleep. I went to the doctor and he told me I had acute caffeine overdose.”
Rivest said he stopped drinking coffee but didn’t want to go back to the sugary drinks. He wanted something healthy he could grab on the go.
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A few weeks later he found a solution while looking for a research topic for his program.
“I was looking through marketing articles and read about a new study about the coffee leaf and how it is high in antioxidants but low in caffeine,” he said. “Out of curiosity my friend and I learned more about it."
In the coffee industry bean harvest season is only three weeks long, he said, which means coffee workers can't work year round and that creates negative effects for the workers and their families.
“Kids will drop out of school because families have to move around for work. Workers drop out of school to take odd jobs to help their families," he said.
"We recognized we could make an impact in the industry by using the under explored and undervalued coffee plant leaves.”
Rivet and his friend went to Nicaragua backpacking and knocking on coffee farmers’ doors.
“We traded a bottle of rum for our first bag of coffee leaves,” Rivet said. “We did some basic processing using traditional tea brewing methods. We didn’t know what we were doing but when we tasted it we were relieved to discover it had a smooth taste. We knew it had legs.”
The next year was spent doing paperwork and getting approvals from Health Canada. In 2016, they launched their dried tea bags in some grocery stores in B.C.
“Our tea bag sales and distribution have been growing since,” he said. “Last summer was our push to doing iced teas, which was our initial goal. We wanted to get established in the industry with the tea bags before pushing the main product.”
The cans of iced tea quickly surpassed the tea bags in sales and distribution and can now be found in 330 stores in B.C. and Alberta. The tea bags are mostly sold online now. The iced tea can be found in many Save-On-More stores.
The farm growing the tea leaves is in Nicaragua and owned by a third generation coffee farmer who operates a farm and harvesting facility.
“We brought him in as a third co-founder, which makes us the only coffee or tea farmer in the world who has a farmer on the board and sharing in a company equally,” he said. “They harvest the coffee bean for three months of the year, after that his team sorts through all the good leaves, crafts them into a dry tea and ships bags of leaves to us in Vancouver.”
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Rivest said the company has been able to employ 100 coffee farmers in the off season and since 2016 it has generated over 100,000 hours of work.
“The farmer sees this as leading the industry in a new direction and providing an easier way to survive,” Rivest said. “The leaf is pretty robust, it is not as fickle as the bean. Every other year half the bean crops will fail and the global coffee market fluctuates a lot. Now workers can have more stability and can keep people employed and in school.”
The bags for the dried teas are made out of sugar cane and are backyard compostable. Rivest said the bags don’t change the flavour of the tea and don’t use staples or bleach. The iced tea drinks are low in caffeine and contain 1 gram of sugar.
Rivest said the biggest challenge currently is in shipping the iced tea to markets due to supply chains being disrupted in the Lower Mainland and the Interior.
“I would say to prepare for things to take twice as long and be twice as expensive, a lot of overnight successes were twenty years in the making,” he said. “We are eight years in and are just getting our first stride with our iced tea. It is cool that we are finally getting attention for the innovation we have done. It is pretty monumental in regards to global farming.”
The next step is to get more product into more stores in the province and the rest of the country. He plans to open stores in Toronto next year.
Wize Tea is available at stores in Kamloops, Vernon, Kelowna and Penticton. Go here to find a store near you.
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