More Indians need to become tea-totallers

Standing up in an open jeep while winding through the streets of south Kolkata in a high-energy roadshow on the last day of campaigning in the assembly elections last week, a familiar face caught my eye. It was Avik, the tea equivalent of an oenophile and vintner. He broke into his signature grin and indicated that he had something exciting to show us so we should come soon. What time could be better for a great cuppa than the day after campaigning ends?

And that is exactly what we did and parked ourselves on the narrow bench as he whipped out his latest offering: a long leaf Darjeeling tea that could be steeped and drunk twice over. Darjeeling lovers would realise that such a quality is rare as the tea leaves of this region usually become undrinkably bitter even if left immersed for 15 seconds more than necessary. If this tea varietal could be double dunked so to speak, we felt Avik's excitement was entirely justified.

As we waited for him to measure out the tea into a transparent pot and bring a kettle to boil, he regaled us with all the latest ups and downs in the tea buying world. Which gardens had good harvests, which did not, whose quality had improved or fallen, which were the most coveted gardens of the current season - and how he fought to get portions of their produce for his customers. He sounded exactly like a wine buyer talking about his latest find in Bourgogne.


Over 20 years ago, on my first visit to Champagne I was struck by similarities of its eponymous product to what is often marketed as "the champagne of teas" - Darjeeling. Everything about champagne was just as applicable to the delicate, aromatic Darjeeling variant of camellia sinensis or tea. Much water has flowed down the Marne and the Teesta respectively since then. And it was entirely fitting that a group of champagne producers visited Darjeeling last month.

There is so much that Darjeeling and Champagne can learn from each other as they face incredibly similar issues, including climate change, decreasing yields, competition from cheaper alternatives and labour problems. Champagne has high brand value and intense international interest; Darjeeling really lags on those counts though some tea companies are working to remedy that; but more Indians need to appreciate it. We need to know our own heritage beverage.

Avik's conversation was peppered with names of Darjeeling tea producers, from Jungpana and Samabeong to Makaibari and Puttabong. Many Indians will proudly reel off names of champagne brands, from Dom Perignon and Louis Roederer Cristal to Krug, Veuve Clicquot, Salon and more. Many of them will also recount touring those vineyards and sampling the champagne. How many of them can recount the names of Darjeeling's "prestige cuvees" too?

Some may know Makaibari and Castleton, others may have stayed at Glenburn, but the romance of Darjeeling tea, an agricultural product like Champagne whose basic ingredients (leaves and grapes, respectively) tastes different every season remains largely unknown. The marketing of milk-brewed chai made of mere dust teas or fannings has been so successful even internationally that the great Darjeeling teas are known mostly to connoisseurs, mostly foreign.

Kolkata's tea sellers - not chaiwalas but those who procure tea every season from estates in Darjeeling, Assam and the Nilgiris and stack in wooden caddies in their stores - are a disappearing phenomenon. Avik of Mahabodhi is one of the few younger tea sellers still around, chatting animatedly about gardens with as much knowledge of minutae as any revered vintner in Europe. Like Bengal itself, Darjeeling tea also needs to regain its rightful place in the world.