Tea (rec.drink.tea) Discussion relating to tea, the world's second most consumed beverage (after water), made by infusing or boiling the leaves of the tea plant (C. sinensis or close relatives) in water.

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Ronnie H
 
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Default Darjeeling tea plantations go to pot

Published in today's [UK] Daily Telegraph:

Darjeeling tea plantations go to pot
By Rahul Bedi in Darjeeling
(Filed: 18/10/2003)


In the shadows of the Himalayas the tea plantations of Darjeeling, where
retired British officers once held sway over vast estates, are up for sale
at a fraction of a penny.

For one rupee several thousand acres of tea bushes, whose produce sells for
less than it costs to produce, are available, complete with bungalow, a
breathtaking view and a slice of history.

The tea plantations, redolent of the glories of British imperialism and a
thousand sepia prints of moustachioed expatriates taking their ease on
sun-drenched verandas, are in a parlous state.

In the once majestic Darjeeling Planters Club, where Mallory and Irvine
stayed shortly before embarking on their ill-fated Everest 1924 expedition,
the peeling walls smell of decay, and dust covers the once regal library in
a uniform film of grey.

Like the teetering club, Darjeeling's delicately flavoured tea appears in
terminal decline.

A productivity drop that has seen output fall by more than a third to around
20 million lbs a year, a 62 per cent rise in labour costs and a market
collapse in its main buyers, the Soviet Union and Iraq, have combined into a
formula for disaster.

Extortion and killings by insurgent groups in the neighbouring Assam state,
another major tea region, have added security costs to producers' expenses
that include medical care, housing, electricity, education and food rations
for the workforce.

A majority of Darjeeling's 78 tea gardens sold their harvest last year for
around half of what it cost them to make it. Where 2.2 lbs of tea cost
around 95 pence to produce, the consumer pays just 60-65p to buy it.

Sanjeev Seth, head of the Darjeeling Planters Association, piles on the
woes: "Fierce competition from tea growers in Kenya, Sri Lanka and
neighbouring Nepal, soil erosion, environmental degradation, indiscriminate
use of chemical fertilisers and tough legislation have landed Darjeeling tea
in this serious predicament."

As if that were not enough, decimation of the region's forest cover by the
"timber mafia" has accelerated soil erosion in the rain-soaked hills where
landslides now threaten to engulf entire estates. At the very core of the
problem are the tea bushes themselves, nearly three quarters of which are
over 80 years old, many of them either diseased or beyond their productivity
period and in need of replacement.

Plantation owners, most of them with little or no experience of growing tea
and desperate for quick profits, opt for chemicals and other short-term
cures rather than wait seven years for new bushes to become productive.

Of Darjeeling's 78 estates, covering 40,000 acres and employing around
90,000 people, seven have so far closed down or operate erratically. In the
neighbouring Dooars and Terai plains, where a substantial proportion of
India's annual 1.75 billion lbs of tea is produced, another 20 have been
abandoned.

Innumerable tea estates, ranging from several hundred to several thousand
acres, are available today for a token one rupee ( 0.014 pence) each.
Mounting liabilities make them an unattractive proposition, forcing owners
to suffer recurring losses before abandoning them.

Tens of thousands of tea workers have been laid off in the last two years in
Bengal, Assam and in the southern Nilgiri Hills where the crisis is even
worse. "The prognosis for the industry is grim," said JS Tarayal, manager of
the Lopchu estate. "The only hope is to recapture the Russian market and
move into the US where tea is increasingly being seen as a health drink."

With declining profits, standards of living on tea estates have undergone
radical change. "It's no longer a way of life, but a job," said Harsh Kumar,
a planter for 30 years.

The number of servants the "Burra sahibs", or plantation managers, are
allocated has been reduced by a third from around 30 per household.
Entertainment, fuel and soft furnishing allowances have been drastically
pruned and even the legendary Moog and Barua cooks from further east, who
jealously guarded their vast culinary repertoire, have disappeared.

"Gardens are no longer run by managers but by accountants who know nothing
about ground realities," one Burra sahib said.

Club life that centred on tennis, football and golf, the bar and parties
until the early 1990s, has all but vanished.

"Clubs are a poor shadow of their former selves," S Mohankrishnan lamented.
"Where you would think nothing of driving 40 miles for dinner at one of them
just a few years ago, there is no point anymore."

Cable television, home cinema systems and the internet have dealt the coup
de grace to a way of life eroded by greed and exploitation.

"The old planters like the English, the Scots, and the Indians who emulated
them, played hard and worked hard. The new ones are too busy merely keeping
up with the changing times," Vijay Parmar said.

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Lewis Perin
 
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Default Darjeeling tea plantations go to pot

"Ronnie H" > writes:

> Published in today's [UK] Daily Telegraph:
>
> Darjeeling tea plantations go to pot
> By Rahul Bedi in Darjeeling
> (Filed: 18/10/2003)
>
>
> [...various kinds of decline...]
>
> A productivity drop that has seen output fall by more than a third to around
> 20 million lbs a year, a 62 per cent rise in labour costs and a market
> collapse in its main buyers, the Soviet Union and Iraq, have combined into a
> formula for disaster.


Darjeeling's main buyers were the USSR and Iraq? That can't be
right.

/Lew
---
Lew Perin /
http://www.panix.com/~perin/babelcarp.html
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The Immoral Mr Teas
 
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Default Darjeeling tea plantations go to pot

Lewis Perin > wrote in message

> Darjeeling's main buyers were the USSR and Iraq? That can't be right.



I've really no idea, but it wouldn't surprise me ... I take it that
the article is talking about you general low grade leaf that powers
the market, not the best leaf, first picking, single estate, etc
product we might imagine.
In England, although DARJEELING is a household word its certainly not
a particularly popular tea, either by itself or as a significant
contribution to the make up of a blend.
  #4 (permalink)   Report Post  
Jon Nossen
 
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Default Darjeeling tea plantations go to pot

I don't know about Darjeeling, but it's true that Indian teas in
general used to have the USSR and Iraq and other Arab or Muslim
countries as their main export markets. But in recent years they
face tougher competition, particularly from Sri Lanka, which
exports teas of higher quality (orthodox as opposed to India's
mainly CTC teas), but at competitive prices.

"The Immoral Mr Teas" > skrev i melding
om...
> Lewis Perin > wrote in message
>
> > Darjeeling's main buyers were the USSR and Iraq? That can't

be right.
>
>
> I've really no idea, but it wouldn't surprise me ... I take it

that
> the article is talking about you general low grade leaf that

powers
> the market, not the best leaf, first picking, single estate,

etc
> product we might imagine.
> In England, although DARJEELING is a household word its

certainly not
> a particularly popular tea, either by itself or as a

significant
> contribution to the make up of a blend.



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