Bad news from Darjeeling, the "queen of hills".
After the entire management left the "Chung Tung/Chon Tong" estate on
January 13th, see the story:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/106011...ry_5718394.asp

Babu Ram Dewan, 62, ex-worker in the estate, writer and social activist
for the poor workers hung himself from the ceiling of one of the
gardens weighing sheds. In his suicide note he accused the proprietor
of the garden for his death.

Tomorrow, Sunday, the whole valley will be on total strike - one more
time.

Karsten / Darjeeling

Where does the $ go? To the middlemen?

We are paying good money for Darjeelings here.

Is the demand in India/world low?

Is the price too low? Quantity of production too low?

It is sad to see the Darjeeling industry in financial turmoil. It can't be
good for the product if the producers are going bankrupt.

--
Aloke
----
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wrote in message
ups.com...
Bad news from Darjeeling, the "queen of hills".
After the entire management left the "Chung Tung/Chon Tong" estate on
January 13th, see the story:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/106011...ry_5718394.asp

Babu Ram Dewan, 62, ex-worker in the estate, writer and social activist
for the poor workers hung himself from the ceiling of one of the
gardens weighing sheds. In his suicide note he accused the proprietor
of the garden for his death.

Tomorrow, Sunday, the whole valley will be on total strike - one more
time.

Karsten / Darjeeling

Aloke Prasad schrieb:

Where does the $ go? To the middlemen?

Mostly to European companies who buy ridiculously cheap and sell at
enormous high prices (and who press for cheaper and cheaper tea, and
therefore les and less quality as long as the name Darjeeling is a
guaranteed good sell - and as long as the stupid customers go along).

If you produce good orthodox teas with a traditional and solid quality
and struggle with preventing your heritage you're of the market quite
quickly. Only the absolute top tea estates with a small amount of real
high quality teas (which can be sold to incredible prices to tea
lovers) and of course all those estates who changes to cheap mass
pruduction teas, esp. for the so calles 'campaign teas', survive.


Dieter

It's always seemed to me that the price of something so tasty as
Darjeeling tea has been suspiciously low.

I think the appelation needs to do some serious marketing to
differentiate itself better in the broad population.

Yes, I'm saying I want suasion to increase intangible desire and
tangible demand causing the price to go UP. Because the alternative is
that the gardens go to the monkeys and the weeds.

Don't blame or punish the workers. When you see proprietors offering
to cut pay 50% and fire large chunks of the workforce in any business
with well-developed labor division, you're looking at lazy proprietors.

Any idea that tea or Darjeeling tea is losing out to "competition" is
ludicrous. Coffee isn't tea, and other tea isn't Darjeeling tea.

--Blair

Sidman wrote:
Methinks a cup of second flush Assam from the Moran/Sonari area is as
good as tea can get.

Throw me an estate name or three and I'll hunt some down.

--Blair

Blair P. Houghton wrote:
Don't blame or punish the workers. When you see proprietors offering
to cut pay 50% and fire large chunks of the workforce in any business
with well-developed labor division, you're looking at lazy proprietors

Exactly. Just let me add that now with the first flush coming up
smaller farmers sell their plucked green leaves for an average 20-25
Rupies/kg (~30-65 US cent) to the larger estates where they are
manufactured and finally sold as "single estate" tea. Now guess what
the workers see of that money. It's usually around 1 US$ and less for a
full working day and of course only during the plucking seasons. Some
of the gardens (Makhaibari) provide school education and medical care
for their workers and families but the majority of the workers don't
see too much of that. I'm not even mentioning the issue of pesticides
and their related health hazards here. You'd really have to visit one
of those villages next to the estates and see the poverty and pesticide
related health hazards among the workers and their families to believe
it.
One more excerpt from Baburam Dewan's suicide note:
"What kind of justice is this that a single man can push 6500 men to
the brink of starvation?",
Note that he was just mentioning one of 83 estates in Darjeeling with a
total workforce of about 50000 people.

As Dieter mentioned before this kind of justice is supported by a
market - greedy proprietors, brokers and vendors and finally
uncritical, "stupid" customers - who mostly don't give a xxx on the
backgrounds of the stuff they're consuming.

Back to the lazy (or whatever) proprietors let me mention just one
example (out of many): the "Happy Valley" estate, right below
Darjeeling Bazaar. A beautiful garden with wonderful plants, own
factory and optimal road connections. Their tea ? Just another sad
story from the "queen of hills" ... to be continued.

Karsten / Darjeeling

@ Blair:
How about Halmari - they're good.
One way to find out the really good gardens is to check out their
average prices achieved over the year. The records can be accessed at
this web site - http://www.assamteaxchange.com. This is the official
website of the GTAC [ Guwahati Tea Auction Centre] and they record all
the teas sold through the Auction System in Guwahati. The Auction
system brings together buyers from all over the world to bid on teas on
offer - it's a clear indicator of a tea garden's quality vis-a-vis
other gardens. For exmaple - an estate averaging Rs 100 [Halmari] will
be considered to be making superior quality tea to an estate averaging
Rs 60 [lots of them]. Another factor to look for while comparing
gardens is to look at the quantum of teas sold. Let us take the example
of an estate averaging Rs 100 but having sold only 10000 kgs, and an
estate averaging Rs 90 but having sold 200000 kgs. It's quite obvious
that there has to be some minimum quantity sold level to make a fairer
comparison. We generally only compare estates having sold 150000 kgs or
more in the GTAC. This then ensures that there is a 'consistency'
parameter attached to the findings.
Another thing which most people may not know is that most of the really
good estates [Rs 80 average or higher in 2005-06] do not sell their
produce in retail form. Blenders and packeteers buy their produce in
the Auctions, blend them and then sells this blend to the end consumer.
Without doubt, the quality of the blend is not superior to any top
estate's tea in stand-alone form. Some of these estates are now
realizing this, and to optimize profits as well as bring to the
consumer better quality tea are now getting into direct retail
themselves. If you're lucky enough to ever taste some good estate's tea
- unblended and factory fresh, you'll never want to drink those
Unilever/Tetley/Brook Bond/Earl Grey packets again. They dont hold a
candle to even a medium-good estate's tea in it's unblended form.

NOTE:
To check average price, one usually takes all tea sold from sale 14
[which starts in April] to sale 13 [ end March next year].

RE 'Lazy' proprietors and' well-developed' labor divisions.
A few years ago, in a tea estate called Sapoi in Assam, a few hundred
workers surrounded two of the estate's executive officer's
[Manager/Asst Manager]bungalows. The Manager/Asst.Managers were inside
with their wives and family, including small children. They finally
came out to reason with the workers, who promptly caught them, doused
kerosene on them, and burnt them alive, also occasionally hacking at
them with daos and other sharp instruments and they burnt. This
happened in full view of the Managers/Asst Managers wives and kids.
The actual reason - The Manager and his staff has caught a few of their
workers illegally tapping into the electricity lines [electricity
theft]. When they were cautioned, some of them incited the others and
this incident happened.

Lets talk about worker benefits now. The tea garden workers today are
far, far better off then their neighbouring village folk. They are
guaranteed quarters, medical benefits, ration, and a whole host of
other welfare, which the poor village folk can only dream of. Apart
from this, their wages are not linked to productivity. A worker who
goes and plucks even 1 kg of leaf in a day [as against the stipulated
21 kgs] is still guaranteed a minimum amout of around Rs 45, not
including benefits. In the recent wage negotiation that happenned, when
the matter of productivity linked wages was broached, it was rejected
out of hand by the workers union. A pertininent question worth asking
then is - does a business [and it is a business] retain all its workers
even if it means it results in low productivity and losses, or is it a
better idea to lay off some workers for the greather common good?

"Sidman" wrote in message
ups.com...
@ Blair:
How about Halmari - they're good.
One way to find out the really good gardens is to check out their
average prices achieved over the year. The records can be accessed at
this web site - http://www.assamteaxchange.com. This is the official
website of the GTAC [ Guwahati Tea Auction Centre] and they record all
the teas sold through the Auction System in Guwahati. The Auction
system brings together buyers from all over the world to bid on teas on
offer - it's a clear indicator of a tea garden's quality vis-a-vis
other gardens.

Are Darjeeling teas handled at this exchange?

--
Aloke
----
to reply by e-mail remove 123 and change invalid to com

The Darjeeling Teas mostly go to the Kolkata [ Calcutta ] exchange. I
do not think the Kolkata exchange has an online site, but you can go to
the following broker sites and check their kolkata sale catalogues -
both sold and on offer. The sites are -
http://www.jthomas-india.com
http://www.carrittmoran.com
Go to the catalogue page and click on relevant link.

thanks for all that valuable information, Sidman!
a few questions though:
http://www.jthomas-india.com/main/estatesrch.asp
what's the difference between valuation and price ? Is it the price/kg in Rupees ? It seems so low !
what's the meaning of the "K" in KGFOP ?

thanks for all that valuable information, Sidman!
a few questions though:
What's the difference between valuation and price ? Is it the price/kg
in Rupees ? It seems so low !
What's the meaning of the "K" in KGFOP ?

2/25/06


"Other tea isnt Darjeeling tea"
Methinks a cup of second flush Assam from the Moran/Sonari area is as
good as tea can get. Fantastic body, very strong, and quite, quite
bright. Darjeelings are no patch on it.
On the subject of Darjeeling vs Assam, one has to note that while
Darjeeling tea sell at higher rates pound for pound, it's more to do
with production and marketing than acual taste. For instance, a good
Assam estate manufactures 700 tonnes of tea year as against 100-150
tonnes for a good Darjeeling [maybe even less]. The whole Darjeeling
area makes 10 million kgs, Assam makes 400 million kgs. So, in terms of
consumption, Assam is ahead then. Even if you take it in absolute terms
[quantity X price] Assam teas still come out ahead.


Hello Sidman,

Leaving the issue of workers' rights and scamming vendors who mark up a
thousand percent, both legitimate discussion topics, Darjeeling is more
subtle and far more complex than Assams, no matter how good the Assams might
be. I admit this is an opinion, but it is a widely held one; Assams just
don't present the depth that you can expect from a fine first or second
flush Darjeeling, especially those grown at higher elevation. It is
absolutely true that on balance Assam teas are cheaper and far more
plentiful. They say that there is ten times as much Darjeeling sold as
grown. What does that tell us?

Michael

What does that tell us?

Michael

DING.................