TEA FROM ASSAM
A tea is not just a tea
"Don't worry here. The only animal you might encounter is a leopard," reassures me Ashok Trivedi, the manager of the tea farm in Assam, in response to my question about the animals that live here. It's 5 a.m., and I'm heading out for a morning tour of the Boisahabi tea plantations. Assam is located in the northeast of India, on the banks of the Brahmaputra River, at the foothills of the Himalayas. The harvest season is just beginning, a time of celebrations and blessings for the year ahead.
An early wake-up call by sirens
​Luckily, we didn't encounter any leopards. We ride through the alleys between the vast tea fields on a Honda motorcycle at the break of dawn. Every day at half past four in the morning, a siren sounds in the solitude, waking up workers from both nearby and distant surroundings. "We start working at 5 a.m. India has one time zone, and here the day begins early. It's already dark by around 5 p.m. In Delhi or Kolkata, they start working when we are already having lunch," continues Ashok.
The Taste of organic tea
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The sharp green color of the plantations is a beautiful contrast to the early morning, the mist slowly rising, and the temperature is comfortable. In the endless rows of bushes, small colorful patches of plantation workers begin to appear, as they start picking the first ripe leaves. It's early March, and the first harvest is just beginning. Spring has arrived, and the first leaves are perfect for green tea. "Our farm is entirely organic, we don't use any chemical fertilizers," proudly announces the plantation manager in good English, who, upon learning that I'm from the Czech Republic, begins to talk in detail about tennis and our players' successes at Wimbledon. In Assam, the approach to natural fertilizers is slowly changing. Although the connection to other forms of agriculture and the additional labor is significant, chemical pesticides are on the decline. At the local farm where the main manager lives, cows and other animals are kept, allowing them to fertilize the land solely with natural substances.
A dream about education
"This is Rahul, he has worked here the longest of all of us, but he doesn't know how long or how old he is," smiles the guide, and Rahul cheerfully agrees. Most of the workers on the plantations are illiterate, and the education level in this forgotten area of rural India is poor; teachers often don't even show up to class. "I lived in a boarding school in Delhi from the age of seven. I only came here during the holidays. Now I am getting to know the local community, and I would really like to help improve the level of local education and family relationships," says Arjun, who returned to the tea farm after studying physics in the USA, much to his parents' surprise, and now running his own school!
British machines
The owner of the tea plantation is a large company based in Kolkata. The manager's residence is a house built in the second half of the 19th century by the British, and the machines used to produce tea in the factory are over a hundred years old. "The British brought all these machines here on elephants or horses from Bombay, as there was no railway yet. The machines are mechanical and can be beautifully repaired. The new devices we bought ten years ago already need to be replaced with new ones." An express train heading to Delhi is passing by the farm. There are plans to construct a highway to neighboring Malaysia, which is expected to extend all the way to Kuala Lumpur.
Blessing for the harvest
In the factory, a religious ceremony is being prepared for a successful season. The priest is giving a blessing to the factory, and all the men from the company's management are present, reciting religious texts together for a good harvest. The organic tea from the local farm is consumed in Germany, the United Kingdom, and France.
