Himalayas

West Bengal

Makaibari

Swaraj Kumar Banerjee

Kolkata

The Wire

Queen

Mamata Banerjee

Assam

Hong Kong

Yunan

Swaraj

A little over three years ago, in the month of June, around 500 women plucked tea leaves on a full moon night, at a tea garden known to produce some of the finest teas in the world, located in the foothills of the, in Kurseong near Darjeeling in. On that day, the daily-wage workers laboured from 12 pm to 3 am, and collected the delicate leaves in their handwoven bamboo baskets. After the harvest, when the tea was auctioned, the lot fetched a record price of Rs 1.11 lakh per kg.That tea, christened Silver Tips Imperial, was harvested at, where the world’s first tea factory was established in 1859. The estate’s chairman,, had briefed the media in a buoyant mood then, saying: “Leaves plucked during a full moon night make for excellent tea.” However, fortunes have changed drastically for the 87 tea gardens in Darjeeling including Makaibari. Tea production has come to a standstill ever since the indefinite shutdown called by the local political party, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), two months ago. The spell of dissent sparked by the demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland is yet to reach a resolution, and has cost the industry an estimated Rs 400 crore so far. There is also a growing fear among stakeholders and connoisseurs of the fabled Darjeeling tea that their prized brew is on the verge of losing its brand value.Darjeeling tea is classified by the season or the flush. This year, the secondflush tea (harvested between May–June), which commands high prices, has been ruined by the strike. “Only 15 per cent of production has been possible, and, should the tea gardens reopen, weeding and pruning of the tea bushes to manageable heights would take three months. There would virtually be no further production for this season,” said Banerjee in an email interview. As a result, stocks of the tea are expected to run out soon.Dolly Roy, India’s first woman tea taster and the owner of Dolly’s, a popular tea shop in, is facing a similar crisis. “My stock of Darjeeling tea is almost over,” she said. A Maharashtrian by birth, Roy grew up in Darjeeling, so tea became an integral part of her life. “Tea plants in the hill station yield tender leaves, which are plucked carefully by women. My favourite is the second- flush variety known for its muscatel flavour,” added Roy, who frequently visits Pune to meet her numerous relatives. Although sellers have stocked up Darjeeling tea, Krishnan Katyal, chairman of the 156-year-old Kolkata-based auction house J Thomas & Co, had told, “Whatever there was has now been sold.” Industry experts have predicted that the real impact of the shortage will be felt by tea connoisseurs from the third week of September.Delhi-based master tea taster Sanjay Kapur, owner of the Sancha Tea Botique in Bandra West in Mumbai, said the current political scenario in Darjeeling is turning out to be a nightmare for him. “Replacing Darjeeling tea is like substituting a certain style of wine with another. You can get close, but you can never emulate the original,” said Kapur, “and it takes skill to produce the different styles of Darjeeling tea. Having said that, the tea grown in Nepal has some resemblance to Darjeeling tea. However, top-end Darjeeling tea, renowned for its muscatel flavour, has never been emulated.”Today, Darjeeling tea is retailed at luxury stores across the world, such as Mariage Frères in Paris, widely regarded as the world’s greatest tea store, and it has patrons in Buckingham Palace, including Her Majesty the. The fear now is that most tea gardens in Darjeeling will never recover from the impasse. “The situation for all stakeholders is grim — the tea estates being the worst hit. Many tea gardens will perhaps permanently shut down,” said Kaushik Banerjee, deputy director of Darjeeling Tea Research & Management Association (NITM) in Siliguri, North Bengal. Baneree feels the tea plants will lose their quality in the long run. “Some of the plants in Darjeeling are over 100 years old. They have to be tended on a daily basis, and fed with nutrients,” said Bhattacharjee.Worse still, Kapur worries that tea retailers abroad will switch allegiance. “Hamburg in Germany is a big market for Darjeeling tea, and other countries that buy low-end tea from the hill station for blending, may permanently switch to other variants,” he said. The state of affairs in the hills remains grim although GJM has initiated a dialogue with West Bengal’s chief minister,. In the meantime, the tea gardens in Darjeeling overlooking the Kangchenjunga continue to deteriorate. “The tea bushes are completely choked by weed,” said Banerjee.The tea, whose future looks bleak, has a rich and riveting backstory. Author Jeff Koehler, in his book, Darjeeling – A History of the World’s Greatest Tea, documented the brew’s rise to fame. Koehler wrote: “From the beginning of their experimenting with growing tea in India, the British also wanted to produce teas that had the delicate floral aromas of those from the hills of China: light and bright, rather than husky and earthy. The teas ofhad plenty of body but little finesse... For this, the British needed better plant stock from China — and to find a way to get it back to places in India more similar to their original geography without perishing.” But the Chinese were loath to share their tea, and the secrets of growing the plants, with the world. In an act of espionage, the East India Company had to send a plant hunter to the interiors of China in a bid to smuggle the tea plants.They found their man in Robert Fortune, a curator at the Chelsea Physic Garden in London. After arriving inin 1848, Fortune traversed a thousand miles before reaching the tea-producing region of China. To disguise himself, Fortune shaved his head, wore Chinese robes, and gave himself a new name, Sing Wa. He then progressed to gather seeds of the tea plants from nurseries, which he smuggled out of China to Calcutta in sealed glass boxes that acted like mini-greenhouses. It took the plant hunter over three years to complete his mission. After the plants took root in the Himalayas, they produced tea far superior to that ofNobody quite knew then how famous the stolen Chinese bushes would become. “Especially when it takes a staggering twenty-two thousand selectively hand-picked shoots — just the tender first two leaves and a still-curled bud — to produce a single kilo of Darjeeling tea,” wrote Koehler.█ Only 15 per cent of production has been possible, and, should the tea gardens reopen, weeding and pruning of the tea bushes to manageable heights would take three months