By JAMES RUFUS KOREN Staff Reporter

You’ve probably never heard of QTrade International Corp. or the company’s chief executive, Manik Jayakumar. But if you’ve walked down the tea aisle of a Whole Foods, you’ve probably seen some of his life’s work. His company imports teas and herbs that are sold by high-end tea brands. It’s not the kind of basic tea you get from Lipton – think organic, whole leaf teas and blends with ingredients such as roasted almonds, blue cornflower petals and whole jasmine flowers. Jayakumar can’t disclose his clients, but think something fancier than Celestial Seasonings. The company, which started in his Sunland living room, has become one of the largest specialty tea importers in the United States and this year moved to a new headquarters and warehouse in Cerritos. A native of Sri Lanka, Jayakumar has spent nearly all his adult life working with tea, starting as an intern on a sprawling tea plantation during the waning years of British colonial rule. He also was a volunteer officer in the army reserves and saw plenty of action as leftists staged two unsuccessful coups, violence that drove him and his family off the island. They eventually settled in Southern California, where Jayakumar started QTrade. He sat down with the Business Journal at his company’s new headquarters to discuss his military career, American opportunity and, of course, tea.

Question: What kind of tea do you drink?

Answer: I think I’ll get you a cup. Darjeeling tea for you?

Sure. Is that your usual?

In the afternoons, I like to have a Darjeeling. In the mornings, I like to have Ceylon teas, black teas. I grew up with it. But I also drink oolong teas and green teas. But all these teas, they have to be brewed correctly.

Do you take milk or sugar?

I was born in Ceylon when it was a colony of the British, so we drank strong tea and the tradition was to drink it with milk and sugar. Now, I take it without. And I like straight teas, not blended teas, not flavored teas.

What do you like about it?

It’s healthy. I used to drink, from my childhood, a cup of coffee with milk. But thereafter we drank tea most of the time. I find it difficult to take a second cup of coffee. It grinds my stomach. Maybe my system didn’t want me to drink coffee.

I’m surprised to hear you drink coffee at all.

Now, I just share a cup of decaf coffee with my wife. Tea is much more forgiving.

Tell me about QTrade. How did the company start?

I was working from home (in Sunland). Primarily, I was doing trading. I started exporting some American grown stuff like walnuts to Brazil and brought some stuff from Brazil to the U.S. More like a broker.

When did you start focusing on just tea?

I realized, to be successful, I thought I could not be a general guy. I had to specialize in something, so I dropped all those other trading operations and concentrated only on tea. I was sourcing tea, because I knew the origins well. I was stocking it here and then selling to my clients.

Where would I find your teas?

Many of our clients sell into Whole Foods. In most cases, it’s organic and loose-leaf specialty tea.

When you say specialty tea, what are we talking about?

Specialty tea is a little more refined and primarily loose leaf. It can go up to $100 per kilo. The category of tea primarily available in supermarkets is teabag standard. The price of most teabag standard tea is between $2 and $3 per kilo.

You just expanded to a new warehouse this summer. Business is good?

We’ve grown now to be one of the largest specialty tea importers in North America. Specialty tea is a growing category in the U.S. America is primarily a coffee-drinking country, but tea has suddenly started getting a good boost. One of the fundamental reasons is health. It’s considered a healthy product.

Have you done anything to adapt to American tastes?

Once we started expanding, I realized QTrade was primarily a hot-tea company, whereas most tea in the U.S. is iced tea. So we embarked on that and we can do specialty iced teas now. We’re not reluctant in adapting ourselves to the new trends. Some other companies were reluctant to go into organics, but we were very quick to adapt to change.

From a guy with such a traditional tea background?

I know. It’s like I should have stuck with that, that real hot tea kind of thing. But I wouldn’t have gone far. It’s like not wanting to use a cellphone or something.

You were born in Sri Lanka. Were your parents involved in the tea industry?

No, my dad was a doctor and my mother stayed at home. My parents were encouraging me to be a doctor.

But you had other plans?

I fell into it. Tea was something I never imagined I would get into. But having entered it, I liked it a lot. It was an outdoor life, and it mixed management skills with people skills, business skills, agricultural skills. It’s the combination of so many things.

So how did you fall into it?

I went to a very prestigious school, Royal College. It was a high school education. I could have gone to university, but, at that age, sometimes private-sector employers sought promising young lads from leading schools and hired them as trainees. I got selected by a company in the tea trade called Whittall Boustead.

Why’d they pick you?

I think I got selected mainly because of my rugby and extracurricular activities. They liked guys who had outdoor activities because the job required working in tough conditions and tough terrain. I was a fairly good rugby player.

How good?

I captained my local club, the Dickoya, and I was also selected to play for the presidential team. I played friendlies against lots of international clubs, like London Welsh and the All Blacks (New Zealand’s national team).

The All Blacks are pretty good. How’d you do?

We got trashed. But just to say I played against the All Blacks looks impressive.

What were you training for with Whittall Boustead?

The title I was seeking was assistant superintendent. But during the training, you were called a “creeper.” What it really means is you hang on to your boss and kind of learn off of him. You get to live with him, you see his mannerisms, how he entertains, how he conducts himself.

Where was your plantation?

It was in the high country of Sri Lanka. It was called the Brunswick Estate. Sri Lankans refer to them as “estates”; Indians call them “plantations.”

Do you remember your boss, the one you were a “creeper” under?

His name was David Perkins. We still keep in touch. He was a second-generation Britisher in the plantation industry. He also had played rugby and taught me lots of good things about how to handle labor, how to handle difficult situations, how to grow tea properly. He left after various changes started taking place.

What kind of changes?

Around 1956, a socialist government came in. And in the ’70s, the tea plantations were nationalized. So the government owned all the tea plantations and, at that time, most of the Britishers left.

Did you get to keep your job?

All the plantations were divided into two large plantation companies, and I worked for the Sri Lanka State Plantations Corp. I was an assistant manager, then a superintendent, then the manager of a group of plantations.

And you were in the military, as well, right?

I volunteered myself to become a volunteer officer in the army.

Why did you volunteer?

I had been in cadetting at Royal College, so I was taken for that.

Cadetting – is that like ROTC?

Yes, like that. I was a sergeant in the senior cadet platoon at Royal.

Were you already in the army when you met your wife?

I was in the army at the time. There was a dinner dance and a friend introduced me to her.

She liked the uniform?

I don’t know (laughs). I also had a sports car. And she had relatives that managed plantations also. So with all that together, it worked out.

I imagine being in the army wasn’t all dances, though.

Yes, volunteering became serious business. The reserves were called upon more often. At the start, it was two weeks of training, and then two weeks became a month. So I was juggling between running a plantation and volunteering.

What was going on?

There was an extreme leftist movement.

Was this the Tamil Tigers rebel group that I think many people here may have heard of?

No, it was a group called the JVP. They wanted to topple the government. They tried in 1971 and that was controlled. Then in ’87 or so, they tried again. That was more serious. By that time, I was commanding officer of my unit.

What were they doing?

They were targeting plantation managers. They killed 18 of them. They wanted to disrupt the tea industry as a way of crippling the economy of the country. Tea is the backbone of that country. It’s employment for over 1 million people.

So being in the military and the tea industry, you must have been a target.

They attacked my home, ransacked it. They took some of my army uniforms and plundered a few things. The JVP were targeting army officers’ family members. I had gone and found a rental home in Colombo in a very secure area so my children could go to school. For their safety, I didn’t visit too often. They were virtually in hiding.

Why didn’t you leave?

I never thought I would leave Sri Lanka. I had a prestigious position, I had lots of staff under me. I had drivers; the children had nannies. It was a good life.

So what finally pushed you?

When two of my managers got killed, my wife said, “Let’s get out of this place. It’s too much.”

Did you come directly to the United States?

Actually, we went to Indonesia. My wife sent an application on my behalf and I got selected as a consultant and general manager of a company that had connections to the ruler of Indonesia at that time. That was in 1990.

How long were you there?

About three years. We didn’t want to stay and we didn’t want to go back to Sri Lanka. We checked out many countries – England, Australia, Canada, the U.S.

So when did you settle on coming here?

That was 1993. I had a brother living in the U.S., running a travel agency. His house was vacant, so he invited us to come settle in. He was in Sunland, in the (San Fernando) Valley.

What were you doing at the time?

A friend of mine was a doctor and he ran hospitals. He employed me as an assistant administrator in a skilled nursing home. But he also encouraged me to do something I know best, which was tea. So I started the company at the end of 1994.

Where did the QTrade name come from?

I wanted to call it “Qualitea,” but it was taken. My wife’s name is Queenie, so I started looking at other names with Q.

Have you been back to Sri Lanka?

Oh, yes. I go often to meet clients or for school functions.

Do you miss it?

I have learned not to dive so much into the past. Living in the past, I can’t concentrate on what I have to do here.

What do you have to do here? What’s your goal?

I’d like to continue to do my share for the empowerment of tea in this country. Tea is getting more and more popular, and it has so many health benefits. I don’t know if soda is the cause or sugar is the cause, but I know countries where people drink a lot of tea, most people aren’t obese.

Your son, Manjiv, has been president of QTrade for a few years now. What’s he brought to the company?

He’s kind of modernized the company, with IT and online systems and things. He’s done a lot. I was somewhat old-fashioned. I think we’re a good combination.

Have you thought about retirement or about Manjiv taking over?

I haven’t really planned that. But I’d like to help him as much as I can and I think he’s going to carry it on. So that’s a good thing.