Darjeeling tea

The Darjeeling tea planters are snobs with something to be snobbish about, as their aromatic tea is known to be India’s best.

India's finest tea

In its purest form, Darjeeling tea is horrendously expensive, but understandably so, given that just 400kg (550lb) per hectare is produced per day, compared with some 1,340kg (3,000lb) in the plains. Darjeeling’s dainty ‘China’ tea ­– as opposed to Assam’s coarse, broad-leafed variety – is taken from the top of the bush, just two leaves and a bud, and taken away to the factory where it is then withered and rolled, fermented, dried and graded. Here, planters never use the ‘curl, tear and crush’ method (CTC for short) – in fact, veteran Darjeeling planters prefer not to even speak of CTC – which is what the tea planters do down in the plains. The quality of Darjeeling’s tea grades is reflected in the ­poetry of their names: Golden Flowery Orange Pekoe, Golden Broken Orange Pekoe, Orange Fannings, and Dust, which is used for tea bags.

Modern tea production

Some 60 percent of Indian tea production is sold through auctions, including all export teas. There are auction centres at Guwahati, in Assam; Kochi, Coimbatore and Coonoor, in the south; and at Siliguri and Kolkata, in West Bengal. The Kolkata centre has two auction rooms (one for the home market, the other for exports), and the largest tea-tasting room in the world.

From having been consumed only by the hill peoples 150 years ago, tea has become the national drink of India. However, on average, each cup of tea consumed by an Indian is matched by approximately six consumed by an English person.

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