In the first instalment of this two-part series about Darjeeling as a tea-producing region and its outlook, various topics discussed at an international tea conference held at Salesian College, Sonada were examined. Challenges currently faced by companies and communities and what they could mean for Darjeeling in the future were explored by a range of stakeholders for the first time in such a format for which organizers of the conference, notably Father Tomy Augustine, rector of the Salesian College, Siliguri, can be commended. The previous article reviewed the history of Darjeeling and its present state. Areas covered included: misconceptions on pricing; labour malaise and wage issues; and the small grower vs. corporate estate model dialectic. Continuing, here, we explore efforts to empower women tea workers, garden diversification, and the impact of technology on the industry.
Each classic pluck of two leaves and a bud from tea bushes neatly aligned to curve and sweep along the contours of Darjeeling’s undulating hills, carries the memory of cool alpine drafts, monsoon torrents, and generations of weathered hands nursing fragile bushes under changing skies. Yet, with unpredictable periods of rain and drought, as heritage bushes age, and opportunities draw labor away from gardens, these mist-veiled ridges stand at a quiet crossroads: now, those producing leaves bearing delicate muscatel notes must learn to thrive amidst an uncertain tomorrow.
The Backbone of Tea Production
Several speakers at the conference noted that the composition of tea workers in Darjeeling is strongly tilted in favor of women. Indeed, all pluckers are female, which is common to many tea-growing areas as far away as the Republic of Georgia. One garden manager once told me that women tend to pick tea with greater care than men. Their delicate fingers, he said, separate the tea leaves from the stalk without injuring the plant – and this is the critical commencement to making some of the world’s best teas.
On some tea estates the ratio of females to males is 6:1. The gender divide doesn’t reveal distribution of work. Here, women predominate as field workers and whilst in the factory, their work is limited typically to sorting. Very few work in a professional capacity such as serving as medical staff and teachers. Operating the heavy machinery in the factory and managing staff is mostly male dominated. As a result, women continue in the lowest paid and least rewarding jobs with little or no scope for upward occupational and wage mobility on the plantations.
A notable exception from whom many tea garden women workers draw inspiration is the story of Lassi Tamang, who like Joyce Maina from Kenya, broke barriers by being appointed the first woman factory manager in Darjeeling at the prestigious Jungpana Tea Estate in 2017.
Lassi began her career as a trainee after completing a course in tea management. Over seven years as she worked her way up, gaining the notice of owner, Shantanu Kejriwal on whom she made an impact with her work ethic and passion for tea. Eventually, he gave her the opportunity to run the factory, overseeing a range of critical tea processing tasks such as withering, oxidation, firing, weighing, sorting, and packaging some of Darjeeling’s most premium quality teas. Her case was brought up by a Salesian faculty member who presented at the conference, as informed to me by another attendee since the format of holding simultaneous sessions prevented me from attending her talk. Also, the researcher’s lack of response to my emails and phone calls after the conference – which were numerous – denied me the exposure to delve into this, directly, exemplifying the irony mentioned in Part I of the series – lack of transparency post-conference.
Despite the findings presented at the conference, women workers and their role in the tea plantations have received scant attention in plantation literature and women’s studies despite their overwhelming prevalence in the tea industry. As noted, this is not just the case in Darjeeling. This lack of attention has failed to address the marginalization of women almost universally at tea gardens. In Darjeeling, they lead lives of enduring struggle and face isolation from wider society, the Himalayan foothills being so remote a location.
Women can be seen walking on the side of the road in and around tea estates, carrying wood, vegetables, and drinking water for their households. Rajah Banerjee, author, philosopher, tea maker, and owner of Makaibari Tea Estate for some forty years (until he sold his interest to Luxmi Tea Estates) says that their safety and security on these oft barren and winding roads are of little concern to the male-dominated authorities that run both estates and the village councils.
Paradoxically, the state of West Bengal, where Darjeeling district is located, amended the one-third constitutionally mandated reservations for women in local governance, raising the quota to 50 percent for the state. The augmented seat reservation ostensibly gives women a significant measure of power in governing their own affairs.
According to conference presenter, Ratan Lama, reservations are merely represented on paper. He says typically a male relative can be found in place of the legal representative, demonstrating that, one may change the law with the stroke of a pen but without enforcement such laws are not worth the paper on which they’re written (or printed).
“I mentioned to one apparent Gram Panchayat member that the name written for him on the council list sounded feminine. He became enraged at me because it highlighted that his wife was actually the councillor and he had supplanted her,” Lama stated during our interview after the conference.
Lama is the founder and current director of the NGO, INVOLVE (Individuals Associated for Inclusive Empowerment), which works to uplift the position of women on tea estates. Previously, he was even involved in relocating young women in the hills in the torment of being trafficked by predators, to safer places – away from their panderers and abusers.
Lama describes the core work of INVOLVE as implementation of: “Theory of Change, built on the belief that sustainable progress happens when local people lead the way.”
Currently, the NGO is working within eight tea gardens spanning both hills and plains to strengthen communities. Lama says by organizing and empowering these local groups, INVOLVE helps to ensure that the workers and their families are provided the tools and agency to advocate for their own development and long-term resilience.
Lama’s organization begins with the basics. “Many women lack necessary identification documents and proof of residence, hindering their eligibility to apply various government welfare schemes,” Lama says. INVOLVE helps them fill in application forms, attend interviews, and receive these documents, which are critical to being recognized by the state and central governments for statutory entitlements – these also include health benefits.
In the paper he presented to the conference, he stated that women in tea garden communities are often vulnerable to various forms of gender-based violence, including domestic violence, sexual harassment, and economic exploitation. INVOLVE supports women who face such domestic abuse and helps them take the difficult steps to address the problems they face. He remarked to me that, just knowing that they’re not alone often emboldens women to act on their own in their own interests.
Without the support of organizations like Lama’s, “The lack of organized platforms for women to come together, share experiences, build solidarity, and collectively address their issues hinders their empowerment and collective action,” Lama writes.
INVOLVE carries out what they call “interventions” at tea garden communities. Not to be confused with mental health and rehab parlance, these constitute ways in which INVOLVE engages with the tea garden worker community. One such intervention has established “collectives” numbering 16 women each in order strengthen the position of their members at tea gardens.
Targeted interventions in tea garden communities has secured vital documentation – including identity cards, caste certificates, and bank accounts – for nearly 6,000 families. This formal recognition unlocked access to critical state welfare programs such as pensions, educational stipends, disability support, and subsidized rations. Beyond individual entitlements, grassroots mobilization enabled community collectives to train 320 women leaders and submit 80 petitions to local Gram Panchayats (Village Councils), directly addressing infrastructure deficits and institutional service gaps.
On a deeper qualitative level, such initiatives transformed women working on tea gardens from passive laborers into recognized decision-makers and civic leaders. Participation in collectives built foundational confidence, allowing women to navigate complex bureaucracies, represent community interests in Gram Sabha meetings, and hold local officials accountable. By replacing historical dependencies on employers and male relatives with organizational solidarity, the program has reshaped local governance dynamics and established lasting pathways to dignity, agency, and social justice.
Empowering women beyond the ambit of traditional labor unions and civic bodies has served as a paradigm shift in labor dynamics at the tea gardens, improving conditions not only at work but also in the community atmosphere where the female workforce returns after their vocational duties are complete.
The Changing Role of Unions
Since the 1940s, the union culture of Darjeeling has been heavily politicized with powerful elements bonded to the nativist “Gorkhaland Movement,” agitating that Darjeeling and other hill areas like Kalimpong and Kurseong as well as the plains of Terai and Dooars, should be a distinct state within India based on basis of the high numbers of Nepali-speaking people residing mainly in the hill areas. Behind the genesis of the movement was the Communist Party of India – but, once the movement gained momentum, it steamrolled the CPI and became radicalized in the form of the Gorkha National Liberation Front, led by Subhas Ghising, which advocated use of violence.
Unions weaponized the economy to press for the creation of Gorkhaland. This pressure ultimately led to the creation of the semi-autonomous Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council (DGHC) in 1988 with Ghishing as its chair.
While the situation calmed down for a time, a former volunteer of the GNLF, Bimal Gurung formed the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM), a political party that reignited the agitation. After Ghishing died in 2015, the GJM took over the movement and drove a 107-day strike on the tea gardens in 2017. Many attribute this strike as the source of Darjeeling’s current woes as an entire lucrative second flush production was essentially lost while international buyers were looking to fill tea orders. The gap was filled by Nepal tea, far cheaper than Darjeeling and of inferior quality given leaves are sourced from small farms of varying cultivar quality without common picking standards – all blended together at a common factory. Still, due to widespread market misconceptions about Darjeeling tea, international buyers regarded Nepal tea a reliable substitute to Darjeeling with their customers, many of whom would use them in blends. The cheaper tea also earned them substantially higher profit margins.
Darjeeling had already been contending with the problem of adulteration with Nepal leaf before the strike – but, henceforth, the Darjeeling tea industry has had to cope with outright substitution on the export market as importers began to view Nepal as having a more reliable supply chain. The cost the industry during the year of the strike amounted to around Rs. 35 billion ($37 million), causing garden shutdowns for estate owners who simply couldn’t recover.
Darjeeling gardens, due to the topographical challenges along the winding Himalayan sub-mountainous foothills, are prone to soil erosion and landslides. So, they are far less productive than their plains counterparts in Dooars and Terai regions. Also, warm temperatures and fast-growing thick-leaved tea plants (Camelia sinsensis var. assamica) growing on flatlands adjacent the hills, permit harvesting almost year-round.
Darjeeling tea leaves, mainly comprised of what’s known as China bush (Camelia sinensis var. sinensis) are more delicate, produce smaller leaves with a climate that promotes slow growth (which in turn, fosters a delicate floral aroma that is complex and unique). The leaves are only plucked in four phases or ‘flushes’ in the spring, summer, monsoon, and autumn. Then the bushes are pruned, cleaned and left to rest over winter. This is to say that losing a lucrative flush like second flush or not fetching a proper price at auction or export, leaves Darjeeling gardens in a far more precarious economic position than those in the plains. So, owners are particularly sensitive to labor relations because another one hundred plus day strike could kill many a tea estate. Taken from the other side, the vulnerability of individual gardens is known to unions, which now mobilize at the garden level rather than regional level as before.
Presenter Indranil Ghosh, COO of the Chamong Group, which owns and operates 17 tea estates in Darjeeling, is no stranger to negotiations with unions. In the paper he presented to the conference, he writes, “workers at individual estates often mobilize around specific grievances related to local management practices, living conditions, or delayed payments…. On the positive side, localized mobilization allows unions to respond more quickly to specific worker grievances. Workers feel that their voices are more directly represented when union leadership operates close to the plantation level. Local leaders may also have a better understanding of the day-to-day challenges faced by workers, enabling them to push for targeted improvements in welfare services.”
Ghosh says the new environment requires management to be more agile when dealing with unions. Negotiations, he says, should be transparent to avoid escalation and ultimately fruitful in some way.
Among the many recommendations, he made to the conference were:
- That policymakers make use of structured mediation and institutionalize dispute-resolution mechanisms;
- Implementing scheduled, transparent negotiation timelines with neutral mediators while shifting the focus towards long-term welfare (housing, healthcare) rather than simply annual bonuses;
- That interim financial relief during talks, should be offered to lower the stakes involved in discussions; and
- That the District Administration ought to set a fixed pre-festive bonus calendar, formally recognize independent unions, and reinforce conflict resolution to avoid strikes and dispatch blockages;
Given that both members of labor groups or those adjacent to them as well as senior management of tea companies were present at the conference, one remains hopeful that these recommendations would be carried through to colleagues and impact the future of labor relations in the region.
What Should Constitute Darjeeling?
As mentioned in an, which I had previously written for WTN, “Darjeeling: What to Expect from the World’s Most Exquisite Tea”, consumer misconceptions about the flavor of Darjeeling tea are often due to tea traders/retailers offering low-grade Darjeeling tea (being more economical to procure) and branding it as ‘premium.’ This has become perhaps the most harmful tactic applied in the industry, jaundicing expectations about the best that Darjeeling has to offer. Indeed, it has led to people – even tea educators – to say that there is little difference between Darjeeling and Nepal tea and many in the global tea industry increasingly remark that Darjeeling standards have fallen considerably
Some in the industry say that retailers aren’t solely to blame. Tea companies are culpable, too, by offering the low-grade teas to traders in the first place. There is a natural tendency to try and sell everything that’s produced from one’s garden, and let the market determine what price it should attract. After all, this is how price theory in economics works. That aside, if one depends on a reputation for offering the best tea in the world, one needs to protect such branding by applying rigorous standards to what makes it off the tea garden and into packages. Sub-standard tea just shouldn’t make the cut.
Complicating the problem is that most tea is sold wholesale either through auction or in private lots. When this is done, the producer loses all control over how that tea is offered to the consumer: is it offered as single estate or a blend? How is the tea marketed? Are proper storage and handling practices being applied to preserve leaf grade and freshness? “That’s what led to our offering private labelling at Makaibari,” says Rajah Banerjee. Since 2024, Luxmi Estates, which bought Makaibari has worked to ensure that privately labelled package is of consistent quality as Mentioned in my article for this publication, “Makaibari Tea Treasures: An Infusion of the Modern into a Cup of Tradition.”
Several in the tea industry including Shiv Saria, a presenter at the conference and Managing Director of Soongachi Tea Industry as well as Chairman of North Bengal Tea Research Association, agree that Darjeeling should focus on marketing and selling their best offerings, and not bother to pluck those parts of the garden, which aren’t performing as they once did. “Maybe just focus on first and second flush above a certain height,” said Saria. “Sure, that would significantly decrease yield but one could command higher prices saying, we’re only picking our very best!”
The original Saria family tea estates, which included Gopaldhara in Mirik subdivision of Darjeeling, Rohini, which is close to the Terai region, and Avongrove in the Rungbong Valley along the Balasun River, had various cultivars and was producing Darjeeling tea the traditional way. They weren’t competing all that well, says Saria. So, the family decided to produce teas that weren’t historically produced in the region, influenced by East Asia, mainly Taiwan.
Saria describes the journey: “Our focus was now production of speciality teas in small batches with attractive names like “Enigma”, “Euphoria”, “Wonder Tea,” “Red Thunder,” et cetera. Gopaldhara, Avongrove and Rohini now started occupying premium shelf space in premium markets worldwide. On the flip side we were able to revive the auction brands for both Avongrove and Rohini,” he says.
The specialty teas were made with non-traditional equipment: “We sourced our first batch of speciality tea machinery from a scrap godown [warehouse] of a tea factory in Dooars. We were lucky to repair and put into use 9 half-moon tea rollers for production of teas identical to hand-rolled teas with bright infusions, lighter cups and prominent aroma. We were able to maximize production of white teas from a single leaf & bud,” Saria says.
Saria’s nephew, Rishi runs Gopaldhara and Rohini, now. He is particularly proud of the “Honey Oolong” made from young AV2 clones at Rohini. “We’re really trying to replenish our bushes and make teas that highlight their strengths,” he says.
The younger Saria thinks Darjeeling invested too much in GI protection, thinking it, alone, would save the region.
A retired garden manager from Goodricke who asked not to be named, agrees. “Certain large Indian companies have done things to the detriment of Darjeeling,” he says. “When it was brought up at the Darjeeling Tea Association meeting that Tata [Tata Sons Pvt. Ltd. a venerable Indian conglomerate] was mixing Nepal tea with Darjeeling and calling it Darjeeling blend, and the Tea Board admonished them, banning this tea. Tata Consumer Products stopped buying Darjeeling altogether, causing great hardship to many gardens. I mean, they were by far the largest bulk buyer of Darjeeling tea constituting 20 percent of the market. The rule had to be amended to allow such blending but with the compromise that their packaging could not carry the official GI logo. So what? They got away with passing off adulterated Darjeeling as Darjeeling blend – and this, while technically keeping GI intact, eroded its strength. And, Tata is supposed to be a patriotic company – what nonsense – they are just as profit-motivated as anyone.”
He continues: “The other company that really damaged Darjeeling is Goodricke. When they came out with the ‘roasted Darjeeling’ tea bag, which is basically burnt tea, it obscured the floral, fruity, flavor for which Darjeeling is known. Do you know where this came from? Lopchu Estate – the story goes that a garden manager over-fired a batch of Lopchu tea and management decided that, ‘rather than dispose of it, let’s put it on the market and see what happens.’ Well, they managed to sell to a whole bunch of people who had never tasted Darjeeling tea and thought, ‘this goes pretty well with milk and sugar!’ Goodricke then decided to capitalize on this ignorance and now pretty much every garden has a ‘roasted Darjeeling offering’ simply for the sake of making a few more rupees in sales. But it is garbage and diminishes Darjeeling as a brand!”
The author notes that proper roasting of tea should not burn the leaf; rather, it should bring out sweet notes with some smokiness. However, the teas described above do, indeed, taste like overcooked tea.
Shiv Saria mentioned that he travelled to China four times and observed that their plucking season was very limited compared to Darjeeling – the same was observed in Taiwan. However, he said more effort there being placed on processing side: “The emphasis is on production of speciality teas fetching very high prices and the annual revenue per hectare being higher than units in Darjeeling,” he said, expounding on the paper presented at the conference.
The experience of visiting tea estates and factories in East Asia prompted the Saria family to experiment with making non-traditional Darjeeling teas. Now, their Oolongs and White Teas are very popular and fetch premium prices.
A major difference in their approach is that, in addition to auction offerings, they have also made their own private label and sell it online. In that way, the customer can buy single estate tea directly from their estate of choice, be it Rohini or Gopaldhara (the Sarias have since sold Avongrove).
Sudanshu Shah, co-owner of Giddapahar Tea Estate segments his tea harvests according to the profile of the buyer. “We export most of our premium leaf abroad, and the leaf which lower in price but still carries good quality goes to the domestic markets in Siliguri where the more price-sensitive buyers are located,” he says, adding: “Still one of my buyers told me that he makes good profit from sale of our tea in Siliguri; apparently, Darjeeling commands a good price even domestically for those who are looking.”
Interestingly, Shah, does not suffer from labor issues. The garden is family owned and run. The owners stay on the estate and treat the workers like an extension of their family, getting directly involved when employees face challenges in their lives. Such an approach is more feasible on their estate as it is relatively small.
Rajah Banerjee underscores this: “He is not an absentee landlord,” says Banerjee. “And that makes all the difference. The farther away ownership is from the garden, the more alienated the workers will feel. In my time at Makaibari, I was known as the Gorkha Bengali because I stayed at the estate." Banerjee spends much of his time now mentoring small growers, helping them reach customers directly through his initiative under T’Classic Private Limited called Rimpocha Tea (as mentioned in Part I of this series).
Pranab Mukhia, retired garden manager of such prestige estates as Castleton and Thurbo – and having worked as Assistant Manager at Margaret’s Hope Tea Estate earlier in his long career in tea – also foresees Darjeeling tea becoming more of a luxury item. “I think the lower quality offerings will be relegated to tea bags, and the focus of loose-leaf tea will be on the higher quality batches,” Mukhia says. He adds: “The issue may be in how they are marketed. One has to be able to effectively differentiate the two segments, so the consumer understands the premium nature of Darjeeling loose-leaf.”
In my article, published by WTN, last fall, called Darjeeling: What to Expect from the World’s Most Exquisite Tea, the Chairman of Indian Tea Exporters Association and owner of Goomtee Estate, Anshuman Kanoria lamented the association of cheap commodity teas with premium Darjeeling offerings. “If ever there was a tea that shouldn’t be called ‘tea,’ it is Darjeeling,” he mentioned, making the point that the very association of Darjeeling with a cheap commodity product, harms notion that infusion of high-quality Darjeeling leaf is well-worth the price on offer. After all, if one drinks what is referred to colloquially as “The Champagne of Teas,” one ought not expect the price to be akin to sparkling sugar water-like wines such as Andrés, Verdi Spumante, or Barefoot Bubbly, to complete the unofficial (and unauthorized) comparison.
Kanoria contends that in tea, the lack of success in segmented branding has put pressure on Darjeeling gardens in negotiating prices with exporters.
Alternative Sources of Income
Conference presenter and CEO of Darjeeling District Central Co-operative Bank Ltd., Yangkee Colitas Cargay, wrote in the paper, which she presented and shared with all conference participants, “The traditional plantation model, historically established on a mono-cropping system, fundamentally concentrates risk within a single economic activity….Within rural livelihoods research, diversification is widely recognised as a key strategy for reducing vulnerability and enhancing resilience.”
Following the strike of 2017, which dealt a body blow to the Darjeeling tea industry, the West Bengal government enacted the Tea Tourism and Allied Business Policy, 2019, permitting tea estates (which are operated on leased government land) to use up to 15 percent of the land (capped at 150 acres) for tourism, wellness centers, and eco-friendly resorts. The policy’s intent was to provide a secondary source of income for the estates, especially during periods when tea is not being cultivated or sold.
Initially, estates began investing minimally in refurbishing heritage bungalows to attract tourists. Typically, packages include provision of all meals and regular servings of tea due to the isolated nature of tea gardens. This changed with the construction of the Taj Chia Kutir Resort & Spa on Makaibari Tea Estate – a 72-room luxury property spanning 22 acres – constructed by Ambuja Neotia Group and operated by Indian Hotels Limited under their premium Taj Hotels brand, it being a project on far larger scale.
The state government policy maintains that actual tea cultivation areas must not be reduced or compromised but construction of the five-star luxury hotel breached an area where bushes were growing viable tea. A member of the project team at that built the Taj Chia Kuthir told this writer on condition of confidentiality, that tea bushes were, indeed, uprooted and many moved during construction. “It was unavoidable,” the source said, seemingly annoyed at being questioned on this point, adding: “You know how things work in India!”
Makaibari was the first estate to attract tourists by offering homestays with residents of the tea garden, generally at the homes of families of workers on the estate. The program was encouraged by then estate owner, Banerjee as it provided an authentic local experience to tourists and offered an alternative source of income for the workers. There are now around twenty-four homestays offered around Makaibari.
Having stayed at several resorts in the region, it is evident that those in the hospitality industry cannot rely exclusively on local labor due to in large part to language barriers faced by foreign tourists.
Then there are the training costs. Mayfair Hotels and Resorts, which constructed a sprawling resort on 1,100 acres of lush working tea gardens in the Terai region below Darjeeling, also uses it for a training centre for their Darjeeling resort. They bought Jungpana Tea Estate, constructing a 12-room luxury resort from the bungalow called Mayfair Manor. Due to the need to train hospitality staff in high-end service standards, rotation of staff occurs regularly between the two properties.
Sourenee Tea Estate and Resort in Mirik subdivision of Darjeeling doesn’t have that luxury. Having visited the property on three separate occasions, this writer can certainly make the observation it takes quite some time for tea workers to get the hang of meeting guest expectations. (Dishes were in need of thorough washing, long delays occurred in checking in and out and in serving food both in the restaurant and in rooms, constituting the low point of our experience, which was generally quite pleasant.) The views are spectacular, and then general manager (who has since moved on) was very capable.
Sourenee’s tea garden manager, Dhillon Das, wasn’t convinced that the property brings in enough revenue to justify the investment. “Yes… they charge premium rates and money is coming in – but upkeep especially in the hills is costly – and I have to hire people to pick up garbage left by the ‘tea tourists’ in the garden such as plastic bottles, wrappers, cigarette buts and bottles of boos,” he says. I asked him whether the regular bonfires lit so close to the tea bushes for the amusement of guests was detrimental to the tea bushes. He shrugged his shoulders. “Tea, I’m sure you know, absorbs the smells of the surrounding environment.” He wondered if the owner at the time, primarily a developer, was really interested in the tea cultivated at the garden.
Chamong Group has developed two bungalows into small heritage tea resorts at Tumsong and Lingia Estates. He also built a modern hotel-style establishment at Chamong Tea Estate. Owner Ashok Lohia whose son runs the tourism division, was ambivalent about tea tourism when we last spoke around two years back. “We don’t lose money on tea tourism, but our main business is cultivating and selling tea. Tea tourism shouldn’t take away from this,” he said.
“One benefit that we didn’t anticipate was the marketing aspect. Bringing people to the garden to experience the natural beauty and see what is involved in making tea, is a means of marketing that cannot be replicated any other way. It establishes a bond with the company, and these tourists tend to look for our teas on the market. We’ve gotten many inquiries on how to buy our tea at a retail level – and of course, we sell at the gardens.”
Makaibari went much further than tourism in diversifying worker incomes. Diliram Sharma, director at T’Classic got his start at Makaibari. He describes how in 2014, Banerjee who had just sold 90% of his stake in Makaibari Estate to Luxmi Estates (remaining as Director until 2017) inaugurated a pilot project called Jadi-booti (which means medicinal herb). He brought in a naturopath from Italy to teach workers how to make medicines from plants that were growing wild on the estate. The extracts made from them saved the workers money as they were used to treat ailments plaguing workers. The excess quantity was sold in nearby Kurseung Market bringing in additional income for the workers.
“So…the herbs, were easily available. Very common herbs, like Lantana Camera, your Artemisia vulgaris [also known as mug wort], that is easily available everywhere. And out of those plants, we had prepared more than 16 remedies, like a cough syrup, the massage oil, cream for eczema and many more,” Sharma says.
The medicines were first used for the tea worker community, then sold to visitors, which numbers in the thousands each year, according to Sharma – and then to the market. Over the period of the project while Sharma was present (around 3 years) he recorded around a 45-67% decrease in ailments per year, depending on the illness.
“The potency of the herbs we picked at Makaibari, it being an organic and biodynamic garden, was higher than that commercially available. So, according to our naturopath, they not only treated the symptoms of the ailments but worked on the root causes, preventing relapse and improving immunity of those treated. That’s why we saw such a real decline in ailments.”
In addition to saving the workers money, it provided a few fulltime jobs for some female workers and some extra income for various other employees of the estate. Sharma says he left the project at a point when they were ready to scale-up but is not sure what happened afterwards. This coincides with Banerjee’s ultimate departure from Makaibari as well. Banerjee started Rimpocha around a year later at Sharma’s behest.
Sharma insists that other gardens can easily adopt this kind of a project because the medicinal plants grow wild on many estates.
Cargay identified diversification at Makaibari to be particularly impactful to women. She writes, “Women’s participation is particularly significant across small-scale enterprises and community services…These include running local shops, providing tailoring and weaving services, and processing agricultural products. The collective management of these activities through self-help groups provides microfinance support and strengthens social capital.”
For Rohini Subba, a Salesian researcher who has studied the migration of workers away from the tea estate near where she grew up – Margaret’s Hope Tea Estate – finding ways to keep the estate community at the garden is key to keeping Darjeeling sustainable into the future. Being a personal matter as well as a professional one for her – her mother and father were both tea garden workers at Margaret’s Hope – she is invested in the community. “It’s why I didn’t move far away as an academic,” she says. “They [garden owners] should be aware that tea garden is not just an industry, but there is also a community living there. And they have given their whole life to tea gardens… our great-grandparents, they have, you know, planted this with their own hands…so, the next generations – they have this sentiment towards the gardens.”
Despite the sentiment, Subba says that since most tea garden workers have access to mobile, phones, they can see how others across the world live, which shapes their aspirations. “Of course, social media reels are not always indicative of reality – but that’s another issue. At the end of the day, unless working at tea gardens is made more desirable, then there will be a flight of young people. Times have changed.”
Projects like Jadibooti if scaled-up may well help keep the young at the gardens. So, too will investing in the communities. Perhaps the most ambitious such project was announced recently: a major sports and wellness resort planned at Arya Tea Estate near Darjeeling town across forty acres of non-productive land on the estate. Aside from a stadium and 100 plus luxury rooms, the project coined Sidra Sports & Wellness Resort will involve athletic and educational development for young people in Darjeeling, particularly those living around the tea estate.
Brazilian footballer, Cafu laid the foundation stone on September 6th, and inaugurated two new futsal soccer teams [a fast-paced five-onside version of the sport recognized by FIFA] namely: The Darjeeling Warriors Football Club [focused on hill talent] and North Bengal Fighters Football Club [scouting other northern districts of the state]. The plan offers real potential to develop local athletic talent and steer young people in a direction that will enrich their lives.
Viraaj Bansal, director of Arya Tea Co. Ltd., says that it was always their intention to go beyond conventional tea tourism. He says, the resort should, “bring together hospitality, wellness, sport, nature and the heritage of the tea garden,” adding: “At the same time, we wanted the project to contribute meaningfully to the surrounding community and create opportunities locally.”
The company is currently working through the development and approval process and intends to move forward in a phased manner. Given the location and the heritage of the estate, Bansal says, “Our priority is to build thoughtfully rather than rush the project.” Still, they hope to break ground next year.
“If we succeed, SIDRA should become an ecosystem that benefits the garden, its people and the wider Darjeeling region,” Bansal emphasizes.
Technology at Darjeeling Estates
While those from garden communities like Rohini Subba talk about investing in people, increasingly, companies are intent on dealing with labor attrition replacing the human hand with mechanical pluckers.
In my article published by WTN, “Darjeeling’s Most Storied Tea Estate Writes a New Chapter,” I explored how Prasant Allay, the garden manager of Margaret’s Hope Tea Estate, where arguably the most delicate and floral first flush tea is cultivated in Darjeeling, began phased mechanical plucking during the monsoon season in 2025.
It was unsurprising to learn at the conference that TPI and Chamong were also plucking mechanically (which really means using a double-manned set of shears to clip the tea leaves). However, it was somewhat astonishing to find out far along these companies have come in this regard.
Mechanical plucking is seen to offer a practical means of grappling with chronic absenteeism and attrition of the workforce at Darjeeling tea estates, the rising average age of that labor pool, and mounting production costs on hilly terrain, making it far more difficult to pick tea than along the relatively flat tea fields of the plains. Handheld mechanical shears and motorized harvesters have been found to accelerate harvesting but results vary, depending on tea garden and season. Still, nothing so far can replicate the precision of the human hand in picking premium teas with a plucking standard of two leaves and a bud or specialty teas with one leaf and a bud or a higher tip to leaf ratio.
A year ago, Binod Gurung, then General Manager of Marketing at Goodricke Group told this writer that their experiment with mechanical plucking for the first time at Margaret’s Hope Tea Estate had increased productivity around twofold (which was considered a success by management). The devices were deployed during monsoon flush when it’s most difficult to find labor to pluck in the rain, and landslides add to the risk of manual plucking. Also, this tea harvest garners the lowest prices, typically being used in blends and tea bags; hence, application of an alternative to hand plucking carries the lowest financial risk during this period.
However, garden managers are reticent to attempt doing so during the premium plucking cycles of first and second flush. “We typically pluck in small rounds when flushing occurs during first and second flush as the growth is slow and dependent on altitude,” says JP Gurung of TPI. “So, it isn’t all that necessary at this point do utilize a large labor force during these seasons. At present, labor is adequate to meet the garden needs during these cycles.”
Arun Gomden, the longest serving garden manager (retired now) at Margaret’s Hope stands stridently opposed to the use of mechanical plucking at high altitude gardens where quality tea is produced. “It’s called ‘mechanical’ but it’s basically handheld shears, which cut the tea bushes,” he says, adding: “Maybe it can be used judiciously in lower altitude gardens, which don’t produce high quality tea, and which have long leaf and internodes. It’s not like Chineries [Camelia sinensis var. sinensis or China Bush] in which the leaf is very fine requiring care in hand-plucking even.”
Subba whose mother was a tea plucker at Margaret’s Hope Tea Estate shares Gomden’s criticism of mechanical plucking. “It’s true…machines are replacing the laborers, and it is happening very gradually, you know?” she observes. “They're introducing one or two machines at a time, but it is not like doing the job with the anywhere near the same care as hand plucking. So, how will they produce high quality of tea from this kind of randomly plucked leaves, you know?” she adds.
Subba doubts, too, whether the mechanical approach will significantly reduce reliance on manual labor. “You still need two people to operate each ‘machine’, which is more like a pruning clipper.” She notes that to increase productivity, they will have to pass over bushes with increasing speed – and this would likely lead to consequent and progressive diminishment of quality.
Aside from the quality of the tea, Subba says the introduction of mechanical plucking adds to the insecurity of the communities residing at and around the estates, which is detrimental to the mental health of tea workers. “Already, the communities are facing societal problems like alcoholism and all kinds of escapes… you know, a lot of men who are, you know, dying too soon because of this.”
A more sustainable use of technology is exemplified by Shiv Saria’s purchase of small-scale tea equipment from places such as Japan and Taiwan to make specialty teas as presented at the conference. Equipment such as the Taiwanese half-moon roller and brass SS roller, offer the tea-maker the opportunity to make small batches of tea without a ‘hard roll’ required of traditional Darjeeling. This frees up the garden to make specialty teas. Use of cabinet dryers, which heat revolving discs containing tea, enables drying of tea at lower temperatures. The tea is dried consistently and there is no risk of burning.
Experimentation is underway to see if utilization of drone technology will bring down costs at gardens. The theory is that drones can be used in spraying pesticides, detecting disease, and drought, and a host of other functions currently carried out manually. However, the financial case study that was to be presented at the conference and which was given to this writer, remains unconvincing. None of the assumptions that went into the financial modelling were shared. Also, currently, drone technology is highly regulated in Darjeeling, which overlooks an Indian air force base and shares borders Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh. In addition, it doesn’t take a drone to detect drought or stress in the plant – such observations have been made for long. Stressing of the plant actually helps the tea plants produce the volatile flavor compounds, which make Darjeeling tea distinctive in taste. The more prescient conclusion that can be drawn from the paper is that it is essential for technology companies to first understand the tea industry before bluntly touting their technology as being useful.
A far more practical project was recently completed by the Tea Research Association located in Assam, India (with paper in pre-publication stage) on Volatile Flavor Compounds (VFCs) in tea. TRA researchers developed a model for distinguished Darjeeling tea from Nepal tea, making it possible to test for adulteration in the future. The project was headed by Dr. Bappaditya Kanrar who said that breakthroughs in analytical technology over the past two decades enabled the study to be conducted.
“We collected samples from 45 tea estates [in Darjeeling] from first, second, and monsoon flushes, various elevations, and conventional and organic tea estates,” Kanrar mentions, adding “The samples were analyzed using HS-SPME [Headspace Solid-Phase Microextraction] along with GC-MS [Gas Chromatogram – Mass Spectroscopy] in a total of 325 samples…and we found 397 Volatile Flavor Compounds that distinguished Darjeeling tea from other regions.”
HS-SPME is used to breakdown food and drink into volatile flavor compounds to determine the chemistry behind taste. To develop a model that can be used to identify origin of tea, Kanrar’s team tested samples from eight tea-producing zones: Nepal, Dooars, Assam, Himachal Pradesh, South India, Sri Lanka, and Africa (Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda). The total number of VFCs found in all tea was close to 49,000.
Of the 397 volatile flavor compounds found only in Darjeeling samples, around 30 were of key interest as they have been found to be particularly useful in distinguishing Nepal tea from Darjeeling tea.
“There are certain VCFs that are unique to Darjeeling and others that are unique to Nepal; so, the model can be used to differentiate tea from the two regions,” Kanrar said.
Kanrar called it, “A simple chemometric analysis.”
Innovations, automation, and community investment, aside, in the end, Darjeeling’s future will depend on the value that India as a nation, places on Darjeeling tea, for there is no other product produced without any inputs from other countries that can boast as being best in class. The world’s most exquisite tea can no longer be taken for granted. The government – and there is some evidence that this is beginning – needs to act to preserve the industry’s potential, just as producers need adapt to changing circumstances and do better to reach the consumer, creating a more knowledgeable marketplace.
The outlook, therefore, for Darjeeling is perhaps shrouded in cottony mist that covers its breathtaking landscape. What is being done underneath the beclouded peaks that will be essential – and the conference in March as well as the developments since – offer owners and community groups pieces that when combined could build a solid foundation for the industry far into the future. It’s up to the stakeholders to take the conference to the next level: As Rajah Banerjee noted, “Let this then serve as a call to action.”