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Sunday 7 September 2008

Fading memories of the Raj in the tea gardens of Assam

Richard Orange says the Indian tea industry is enjoying a revival — but that the traditional tea-planters’ way of life, established by the British, is passing into history

There is not much to distinguish Dhanesheva Kurmi from the rest of the crowd at the Hautely Tea Estate, a remote garden an hour and a half’s bumpy drive from the Assamese town of Jorhat.

Richard Orange says the Indian tea industry is enjoying a revival — but that the traditional tea-planters’ way of life, established by the British, is passing into history

There is not much to distinguish Dhanesheva Kurmi from the rest of the crowd at the Hautely Tea Estate, a remote garden an hour and a half’s bumpy drive from the Assamese town of Jorhat. Dressed in ill-fitting Western trousers and grubby shirt, he looks as though he has just finished a heavy day pruning bushes. But for three years since the estate’s owner Lalit Borah ran out of money, and the management packed up and left, Kurmi has been running the show.

Every morning, the estate’s 11,000 sari-clad tea-pickers, shielded from sun and rain by their conical japi hats, have trudged as usual along muddy red-earth paths to pick the next set of bushes. ‘We knew how to do it by ourselves,’ says Kurmi matter-of-factly. ‘We have the experience — when the plants become ready to pick, you have to pluck them within six to seven days.’

As president of the workers’ union, Kurmi collected and weighed the leaves, then sold them to the next-door tea estate, depositing the proceeds every fortnight in a bank in nearby Golaghat, which paid the workers’ wages. At first it went well — everyone turned up for work, money came in, salaries went out, and after the first year Kurmi had banked £17,000 profit.

Hautely is one of nearly 140 tea gardens in India that were abandoned during a five-year slump in the tea market from 1999 to 2004. Overproduction at home and competition from new tea-producing regions such as Vietnam and the Philippines kept prices depressed. It wasn’t until this year that they rose back above 1999 levels. This June’s harvest — which produces the best and most fragrant teas of the year — is selling at well over 100 rupees per kg, compared to around 60 rupees in the dark days of 2003.

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