Why it belongs in ORBIS
Founded in 1933 by Emmanuel I. Manos, this Heraklion company has exported Cretan dittany, mountain tea, oregano and sage for nearly a century. Its Karteraki brand packages the same herbs, plus worldwide spices, into traditional-recipe teabag blends.
Manos & Co. traces to 1933, when Emmanuel I. Manos began drying and exporting Cretan aromatic plants to Europe, Asia and the Americas from Heraklion. Nearly a century later the family-run company still processes its herbs at a plant in the Finikia industrial park outside the city, combining that older export trade with modern food-safety standards. Its core range draws on plants native to Crete's mountains: dittany, an endemic species harvested wild in flowering season and dried by hand, alongside mountain tea (malotira), oregano — which the company describes as its best-selling item, distinguished by growers from the mainland variety — sage and cistus (ladania). Beyond the wild-harvested Cretan herbs, the company sources spices and aromatic plants more broadly and blends them into Karteraki, a teabag line built on traditional Cretan recipes that spans single herbs like chamomile and mint alongside three house blends — Traditional, Aromatic and Green. Products are checked mechanically to remove foreign material and screened for pesticide and heavy-metal residues before packing. The combination of a working export business older than most of its European retail customers and a modern teabag brand gives Manos & Co. a foothold in both the bulk-herb trade and the retail tea aisle.