Abhishek Dev, tea grower at Teesta Valley Tea Estate

This is Abhishek Dev, the tea grower at the Teesta Valley Tea Estate. He is one of six brothers, and most of them work in the tea trade. He started out as assistant manager at Puttabong, then at Sungma, among others. He was then offered a position managing a plantation that was not in a good state.
Everyone in Darjeeling agrees that he has really improved the quality of the teas produced here.

Abhishek had quite a surprise for me when I visited him on 23 February. He had just produced a single lot, especially for me. Just ten kilos of tea, the first Darjeeling of the year, so it was quite an event. The very small quantity is due to the fact that the leaves have not grown much at this stage. So this is an exceptional plucking, due to both its earliness and because it is made up of only very young shoots. In the cup, it has a wonderful subtlety, the freshness of spring, and a unique vitality.

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Visiting the Balasun tea plantation

Last week I had the pleasure of visiting the Balasun plantation, in Darjeeling. The plantation got its name from the river Balasun, which runs below it. Anil Jha, who manages the Sungma Tea Estate, and who you can see beside me in this photo, also supervises the Risheehat Tea Estate and the Balasun Tea Estate. He is one of the most respected and most experienced growers in Darjeeling. There are only three or four others with his level of expertise – and authority. I admire him, and I’m also grateful to him, because he was the first person to teach me so much, here on these mountains. We first met 20 years ago, so he has seen me progress, professionally speaking.
Whenever we meet, we talk for hours, united by the same passion.

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Tea grower’s bungalow in Teesta Valley

This is the type of house I stay in when I’m in Darjeeling. It is a grower’s bungalow, and is typical of the region. There is one on each tea plantation, where the grower and his family live. I took this photo last week. When I woke, I sipped my early morning tea, served in bed as is the tradition, and waited for the sun’s rays to warm up the ground and flood the flower beds with light.

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Darjeeling : tea trade is threatened

The situation in Darjeeling has improved considerably. The road blocks have been lifted, the shops have reopened and life is getting back to normal. But the tea trade is still affected, as the party campaigning for independence is threatening to prevent the movement of trucks carrying the tea in a few weeks’ time, in order to demonstrate its political clout and bring negotiations to a conclusion.

However, this does not stop me from enjoying a quiet moment tasting teas, as I am about to do here at the Teesta Valley Tea Estate factory.

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