My father Deepak Prakash Baskota started organic tea farming on the hills of Phidim, Nepal in 1984, years before the organic movement even began. I still love hearing the story of how he carried two sacks of soil from his village to Siliguri, India for testing. The trip took him 4 days and when he reached, they told him that a fistful was enough for the test.

The results were positive and that was when my father went to Darjeeling and bought different varieties of tea to be planted in our backyard. The villagers laughed at first, most had never seen a tea plant. Others told him that Darjeeling is where tea is grown, not Nepal.

A Difficult Life

My village in Panchthar, Phidim is the most beautiful place in the world for me. And it was so for my father, but the living standard of the people there was very low. With no access to the basic necessities of life like clean drinking water and healthy food, life was a struggle for most of the inhabitants.

That is probably why when my father visited the tea estates of Darjeeling as a teenager, he got the shock of his life. The people there, most importantly, the farmers lived good, comfortable lives — their children were getting an education. The climatic conditions in our village were very similar and the dream of creating a better life for his fellow villagers through tea farming was born.

It takes 4 years for a tea plant to be ready for its first plucking. That is time that a poor farmer doesn’t have. Understandably, most farmers were reluctant when my father asked them to plant the crop that could change their lives. Undeterred, my father asked for something they could not refuse. He asked them to give him the most barren lands they had, the ones they had absolutely no use for, and started preparing those lands for plantation.

Disbelief turns to hope

As the plants my father and mother had sown started growing, disbelief started to turn into hope. By the time the tea bushes were ready for their first plucking, a small factory was ready waiting for the leaves to arrive.

Today, the Kanchanjungha Tea Estate produces among the finest orthodox teas in the world. More than 500 people work on the fields, plucking, pruning the tea leaves that will go into a cup and make someone’s day. The Estate runs on a co-operative model, the farmers own the land where the tea is planted and thus co-own the estate itself. In addition to this, a separate co-operative helps farmers to save money by pooling in money from them to buy salt, oil and rice at subsidized rates. Anybody can take a loan when needed at negligible interest rates.

Educating entire generations

The biggest change however is in the lives of their children. All of them go to school for free. 2300 students have got an education, paid for by people like you who choose to live a healthier life and support local economies at the same time.

Working with nature rather than against it

The key to being organic is sustainability. If we keep taking from nature, our resources will run out. The conversation around organic foods started in the US in the 1990s when people realized the harm that chemical pesticides and fertilizers were causing on human health and the environment. We had been doing organic tea farming before “organic” was even a familiar word.

To be ‘certified organic’, no chemicals should have been used on the land for the past 10 years. Most people wouldn’t know this, but there are other peculiar requirements too. You have to show how you are giving back to the farmers, that they are being treated well.

Why going organic matters even more for tea

Your mother will probably tell you to wash a fruit before eating it. While it is true that washing the fruit is a good habit, most fruits go through a wash before being packaged for consumption. The same is not true for tea — from plucking to processing to packaging, the tea is never washed with water. This is another good reason to switch to certified organic tea, your supposedly healthy cup of tea can contain dangerous chemicals.

Bringing the tea drinking culture to South Asia

Tea in South Asia doesn’t have a rich history like China and Japan. The British started cultivating tea in the 1840s in India for their own consumption. The tea-drinking habit started as a way to look like the British among the Indian elite. Mass marketing of tea started in the 1930s and Darjeeling became the hub of tea production. As my friend Anton likes to point out, “Tea drinking is a ritual here, not really a religion.”

But times are changing and more and more people are getting interested in green tea. I and my parents cannot fall asleep without a cup of green tea before bed. For most people, green tea starts as a way to become healthy — but once the taste sets in, they want to explore different varieties and it becomes an addiction, a healthy one at that.

Drink Green Tea with me

I will teach you how to pick the right blend of Green Tea and brew a perfect cup over the next few weeks at GreenTeaSource. Subscribe to the newsletter and you will be the first one to receive each article. Happy Drinking!