by Jeff Koehler
Giving production declines an even deeper impact on profits is the recent leap in nonlabor input expenses. Sandeep Mukherjee puts them at 30 percent in a single year. Part comes from the significant increase in energy costs—electricity rates, coal prices, generator fuel—that jumped 15 percent between 2012 and 2013. Transportation costs shot up accordingly. Nearly everything in Darjeeling either comes from or goes down to the plains below. And now irrigation, which had not been prevalent in Darjeeling, is raising costs further.
Profit margins are thin. Today, a garden in Darjeeling is lucky if it is profitable. Final accounting numbers are known only by the highest levels of the head office and are rarely shared, but in the opinion of one owner with a number of gardens, the majority of Darjeeling estates are breaking even or losing money. Many are already in deep trouble. Soon-to-rise labor expenses will likely push more into the red in the upcoming seasons. Whereas a Rs 100,000 (about $1,800) per-hectare profit might be a round goal, he would be surprised if any garden is currently reaching that and figures a handful of well-managed groups might be making Rs 25,000 to Rs 50,000 ($450 to $900) per hectare. That isn’t much. The average garden is cultivating just 224 hectares of tea. Larger companies with holdings beyond their Darjeeling gardens are better able to absorb losses, but a few more years of such dire numbers will spell doom for many of the family-held estates.
While production costs rise and output declines, lower-quality counterfeit “Darjeeling tea” from Nepal and elsewhere undermines its reputation and cuts both value and sales even further. Ecological predictions for the future of the Darjeeling hills could hardly be more dire. As one local government survey summed up, with the mounting problems and strain on its natural resources, “The future of the Darjeeling hills does not look very bright.”24 The report was referring to the land itself and landslides, but when looking at these major challenges, it may as well have been speaking about the entire tea industry.
Sitting in his office beside the Planters’ Club, Mukherjee went even further in a flight of pessimism—or realism: “In twenty-five to thirty years, Darjeeling tea may vanish.”
* * *
* Even Jungpana is not immune to labor issues. During the 2014 monsoon flush, the owners took the unprecedented step of temporarily suspending all work operations along with pay and rations. They cited intimidation and threats from union officials interfering with managerial decisions. Tactics included gharaoing, a protest method of surrounding someone with a large group of people—often for many hours—until demands are met. It took two weeks and three rounds of meetings to negotiate the garden’s reopening.
† As there is no plucking on Sundays, a seven-day round is actually six plucking days.
Autumn Flush
(October into November)
The monsoon clouds have retreated, the skies cleared, and again the glacier-capped peaks of the Himalayas dominate the horizon. The slopes glow in serene lavenders, pinks, and pale golds in the last, softening light as the sun disappears early and darkness descends over Darjeeling by five P.M.
The final flush is short, just a few weeks or so on each side of the Diwali holiday celebrated at the end of October or early November. Baby-blue flycatchers with banditlike eye masks, woodcocks, and leaf-green magpies dart among the garden’s shade trees. Marigolds bordering the fields flower ruddy yellow, their bases ringed with deep-orange petals. On the bushes, white tea flowers blossom: floral, fragrant, and tropical, they have the sweetness of jasmine, but not as cloying.
The autumnal leaves produce a liquor colored a ruddy copper, bright auburn, even burgundy. What a surprise to see claret tones glowing in the white tasting cup! So far from the greenish golds of spring. Sipped, the tea’s flavor is round and more robust than that of the previous flushes, with mellowed hints of musky spice and smoke. There is a sparkle, a slight kick even.
“It’s the most complex flush. It’s the most sophisticated flush. It’s the most refined flush,” said Sanjay Sharma over breakfast under a pomelo tree just below the old planter’s bungalow on Glenburn. “By this I mean it’s got everything in it. It’s a very fine tea.” On this late morning in November, the chain of peaks shimmered to the north. “Fine,” he repeated, drawing out the word, “smooth, mellow.” As he spoke, his eyes remained on Kanchenjunga rising boldly up in the pristine sky with all the distraction of a flickering TV screen in a sports bar. “It has that body, amber color, very defined flavors, from malts to chocolates to fruity notes, dried apricots. It just sits on the palate, just sits and sits and sits. Just lingers there.”
It has presence but not impatience.
And poetry:
Leaves: This beautiful autumn harvest surprises with twisted leaves in multiple colours (silver, green, brown, red).
Nose: The nose is treated to notes of chocolate as well as woody fragrances, stewed fruit and plum jam.
Liquor: From the onset, the brilliant amber liquor enchants us with a buttery, vanilla-laced background on which fruity notes (fresh Agen prunes, accentuated by cooked apple and quince jam), honey and a floral hint (rose, geranium) coalesce. The finale ascends with a halo of woody and liquorice notes lingering over this grand bouquet.1
So goes the tantalizing description of a Castleton autumn vintage in a Mariage Frères catalog.
“Autumnal teas can be marvelously complex,” said Sanjay Kapur at Aap Ki Pasand in Old Delhi. “Very easy to drink and intense in flavor.”
For many insiders these are the year’s finest teas, a last and final offering from the bushes. But they don’t get much attention on the international market. “Europeans are done buying for Christmas, or distracted by Christmas, when these teas are ready,” Kapur said. That means that they tend to be “underrated,” which is to say less expensive than their first and second flush counterparts. He smiled at this delicious coincidence.
By the second and third week of November, the harvesting year winds down. Nights get colder, and then the days, too. Snakes disappear into burrows and rockery crevices. Birds migrate out of Central Asia over the Himalayas, while others simply come down from higher hills to the lower, warmer plains to winter. Ruddy shelducks, ibisbills with long, downward-curving, red beaks, and bar-headed geese pass through. Numerous black cormorants. Students from the elite English-medium schools sit for exams as the March-to-November school year comes to a close. They wear crested blazers and school ties, and even though the rains have stopped and there will be little, if any, precipitation until springtime, the boys from St. Paul’s stroll through town with umbrellas.
Production slows. A batch tasting may consist of just a single tea or two.
The last of the leaves are brought in and processed. Workers pack the final chests of tea for the warehouses in Kolkata. A scattering of leaves have been left on the trees by workers, anxious to begin pruning.
The days grow shorter, the mornings crisper. Brisk winds blow off the icy peaks. A snap is in the air, the smell of coal smoke. Thermometers flirt with freezing. Hoarfrost spreads across the higher reaches of the estates. Snow dusts the tops of the hills, and then, gradually, the skirt of white begins to drop lower. At night, the brilliant, clear skies slur with rigid stars. The tea bushes go into hibernation for the winter.
CHAPTER 15
Positive Winds
Despite the severe challenges of climate, labor, and political stability, the winds blowing out of the Darjeeling hills still carry optimism and are redolent with promise. Even with the string of recent terrible harvests and current lack of profits, when asked about Darjeeling tea’s future, nearly everyone involved with the industry answers “optimistic,” “highly optimistic,” or “extremely optimistic.”
“Demand for Darjeeling tea has gone up leaps and bounds,” said Sanjay Kapur in his Delhi atelier Aap Ki Pasand. “After some stagnant years, prices have gone up significantly.” J. Thomas & Co.’s Darjeeling auctioneer, Anindyo Choudhury, agreed. “It has done a U-turn and is on the way up. It is around the curve. Two thousand o
ne, 2002, and 2003 were low points. Two thousand ten is when the market really changed.” He tipped back in the desk chair in his office. “There have been three or four very good years,” he said. “The market is there.”
Internationally, Darjeeling’s most important markets—Germany and Japan—are strengthening; markets are growing in France and elsewhere in Europe; and North America has emerged as important. The Russians, with rising affluence, are eyeing higher-quality teas. Asia is also looking bright. Iranian and Middle Eastern buyers are moving from CTC to Indian orthodox teas, said Choudhury. Iran is now the world’s fifth-largest tea importer and rising fast, with a twofold increase over the past two decades. For the moment the orthodox it buys is mostly from Assam, but Darjeeling appeals to clients looking for the highest quality. China, traditionally a green (and oolong) tea-drinking nation, is developing a taste for Indian black teas and has taken clear notice of Darjeeling’s more refined (and expensive) offerings. “In the last two years, there has been an interest among the Chinese young crowd for black tea. Darjeeling tea is used for corporate gifting and on special occasions,” according to Sujoy Sengupta of Chamong Tee.1 In 2012, the group shipped around 250,000 kilograms (550,000 pounds) of tea from their gardens to China and expect to see an increase. In autumn 2013, the Economic Times reported that South Korea, predominately a green-tea market, ordered a staggering 1.5 million kilograms (3 million pounds) of Darjeeling tea, about one-sixth of its entire production.2
As a fine-tea merchant and taster, a prime source of Vikram Mittal’s enthusiasm is in the flavor of teas raised on new stock propagated from cuttings of strains well suited for local conditions instead of with seeds from old China bushes. In the traditional method, seeds are sown in on-site seedbeds and then transplanted in small polyethylene sleeves of soil, about eight to ten inches long and as thick as baguettes, once they germinate, some four to six weeks later. Under a bamboo thatch of shade, they mature for nine or so months in a garden’s open-air nursery until ready for planting. Old China leaf comes from a mix of parentage and sources, with leaf sizes all slightly different. When processing them, Sanjay Sharma said, “You sort of shoot for the middle. It’s harder for tea making.”
Now the new plantings on most gardens are with saplings from cultivars rather than assorted seeds. In Darjeeling these are referred to as clonal varieties, as they produce a replica of the parent plant. While India’s Tocklai Tea Research Institute released its first clone in 1949 and has a few hundred on stock, three cultivars are by far the most popular in Darjeeling: AV–2, B–157, P–312.* Bushes behave more similarly and leaves are as uniform as possible, which means withering and fermentation can be more exact. “Clonal is easier to manufacture,” Sharma said.
“Some you can’t believe the flavor,” Mittal said. “So intense.” He can prepare a cup with lower-grade fannings and it comes closer to tea steeped from better leaves. “It’s on a high pedestal.”
Yet much of the current optimism among garden owners and managers—what keeps many of them in the business for the moment—stems not from such sales figures or even flavors but rather a recent legal ruling.
In 2004, to stanch rampant counterfeiting, mislabeling, and misuse of the name, and to discourage fraudulent claims, imitation, and adulteration, Darjeeling tea become the first product to which India, as a member of the World Trade Organization, awarded “geographical indication” (GI) status. This was a significant step toward seeking international protection for the product, which came in October 2011. Darjeeling tea was then awarded Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) from the European Commission, one of the first non-European products to receive such designation. Darjeeling tea is now a geographically protected product like Scotch whisky, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and saffron from La Mancha, Spain.
While trademarks are used for private entities, geographic protection is communal and extends to the collective community producing a specific product in a specific area. According to the Tea Board of India, “Darjeeling Tea” means—only and specifically—tea that has been cultivated, grown, produced, manufactured, and processed in an orthodox manner on Darjeeling’s eighty-seven tea gardens.
Forty million kilos of “Darjeeling tea” sell each year, insiders frequently reiterate, yet the area is actually producing just a fifth of that. “Once fully into force, you will have more demand than supply,” said Vijay Dhancholia on Marybong. “Then you will get more price.” Managers are saying the same thing all over Darjeeling, almost like a mantra.
“As of now, blenders in EU countries generally mix forty-nine percent of any tea with fifty-one percent of Darjeeling tea and still sell it as Darjeeling tea,” Tea Board of India chairman M. G. V. K. Bhanu said after the ruling. “But it has now been decided that only those packets that contain one hundred percent Darjeeling tea can be sold as Darjeeling tea.”3 Such packets will carry the Darjeeling logo as well as the PGI logo.
As nearly 60 percent of exports head to the EU, and the majority of those to Germany, that’s huge news. Germany is Darjeeling’s largest importer and most important client. They buy in bulk and reexport much of it. “Germans are traders, not consumers,” the manager at one top estate said. “They are big clients but not forever. It won’t last long with the PGI changes,” he predicted, indicating that many of the importers will lose interest when they can no longer blend and profits become harder to make. “Why should they continue to promote Darjeeling tea if they don’t have a stake in it?” another manager said, arguing that Darjeeling tea was simply being bought and sold as a bulk commodity. “They will concentrate their efforts elsewhere—on Nepal.”
The PGI notification took effect in November 2011 and started a five-year grace—or transition—period. The year 2016 is the most anticipated in industry memory.
Darjeeling teas will benefit, but which ones will benefit most isn’t yet clear. J. Thomas’s Choudhury thinks exports and high-end teas; Sengupta at the Chamong group’s headquarters in Kolkata disagrees. “It will help everyone,” he said, “and will help the middle and bottom teas even more.” As the price of Darjeeling tea rises, the first to benefit will be those at the bottom as the price gets pulled up, he said. “The Rs two thousand [per kilo wholesale; $36] tea will now be Rs six thousand, the Rs three hundred [$5.50] tea will be Rs six hundred.” Buyers used to paying a certain amount will want to pay about the same, he thought, and will go after a lower-level Darjeeling tea that has come up in price as opposed to spending more.
“It’s about supply and demand,” said Ambootia manager Jay Neogi. Small, white tea bowls, stacked upside down four levels high, ran along the white tile counter in the estate’s large tasting room. “Darjeeling tea is a limited product. Other countries can increase production and just plant more tea bushes. In Darjeeling you can’t.” The hills are protected from further tea expansion, the clearing of the forests now illegal, and the area’s topography and difficulties in irrigating makes planting out new gardens impossible. Resources—from manpower to water—are already being stretched. “So as demand gets higher than supply, prices will rise.”
This hinges on the distinctiveness of Darjeeling tea and the impossibility of producing a similar one elsewhere. As a poster hanging on Ambootia’s tasting room wall exclaims, “Darjeeling Tea. Born only in Darjeeling. Desired worldwide.”
Among the lonely voices of those who don’t think PGI designation alone will make a significant difference in how much their tea fetches on the market is Rishi Saria of Gopaldhara and Rohini estates. “Prices of Darjeeling tea will never go up unless Indians starting drinking Darjeeling tea.”
Indians generally prefer stronger, brisker teas, with plenty of milk and sugar, over Darjeeling’s delicate and fragrant flavors. Lack of a national Indian market with more readily accessible clients has long been what Sandeep Mukherjee at the DTA calls “an inherent handicap.” Nearly all of the tea needs to be exported to faraway clients. Some shift has recently occurred. The rising middle class means more Indians ca
n afford the higher prices Darjeeling tea commands, but whether they will opt for it over colas and coffee is another matter.
In a small, randomly chosen grocery store on a side street in central Kolkata, among shelves of Amul Gold milk, mung dal, and hefty sacks of basmati rice, sat boxes of Darjeeling tea by Typhoo and Lipton as well as Tata Gold Fine Darjeeling Tea. “To enjoy the fine flavour—Brew,” the front of the Tata packet instructs. “Do not boil,” a distinct change in the way most Indians make their tea at home.
Also on the shelves were, more significantly for the industry, packets of popular Tata Tea Gold. These contain a blend of Assam CTC for strength and body and 15 percent Darjeeling long-leaf tea, which, says recent publicity, will “open up and release a superior aroma.” That gives a staple drink something of a premium touch. Across the bottom of the familiar green-and-yellow package runs its catchphrase: “Rich aroma, refreshing taste.”
Tata stormed the global market in the early 1990s and in 2000 consolidated its rise by taking over Tetley Tea; Tata is now the world’s second-largest tea company, after Unilever (which has Brooke Bond, Lipton, and PG Tips in its portfolio). In India, Tata has a strong presence on supermarket shelves and in kitchen cabinets with a range of offerings from its various brands: Tata Tea, Tetley, Good Earth, Kanan Devan, Chakra Gold, and Gemini. At the Tuesday auction for Darjeeling tea at J. Thomas & Co. in Kolkata, Tata is now the biggest domestic player and the largest buyer in terms of volume. That has happened, said Choudhury, only within the last handful of years. “Knocking to Tata” is now heard over and over in his auction room, especially on midrange lots. According to Choudhury, Tata Global is buying about 12–15 percent of what is offered at auction.
“This has changed the complexion of the game,” says Sanjay Kapur.