Few places would probably have the kind of identity tag attached to a geographical product as the recognition that tea has given to the State of Assam. World cognizance about this erstwhile obscure and tucked away place had come with the discovery of oil and tea. However, it is tea that has taken it places by finding its way into the homes and hearths of people the world over. Assam tea has always had a place of its own, the black tea with a strong aromatic flavour being known to grace the homes of the lords and counts of the British Empire.

However, with time, Assam tea faced increased competition from other specimens of tea grown both at home as well as abroad, which inevitably led to a gross decline in production as well as exports. Added to this were certain infrastructural bottlenecks, as were slow reflexes to changes in technology, which unfortunately sustained the decline over a longer period of time. Nevertheless, Assam tea has survived much degradation and is currently on the path of resuscitation, with the support of the Government machinery and the various tea concerns operating in the State. Also, the need to sustain has awakened the patrons of the tea industry to explore the product potential, which in turn has led them to seek ways of diversifying into unknown territory.

This brings tea into the larger framework of organic food. Statistically, there has been an exponential growth in the organic food industry, where annual growth has crossed many perceived thresholds. If the economists are to be believed, the organic food industry is on its way to earn billions by the end of 2009. The increased demand for different kinds of organic food has generated larger demand for organic tea, more specifically in developed countries like the United States of America, Canada, Japan, Australia and countries of Western Europe, where consumers display greater awareness about issues like health, environment , sustainable development et al. The selective concentration of demands of organic food, however, is attributable to the high prices attached to it, and this has restricted its acceptability in developing countries.

Many tea growers in Assam have thus gone “green” as given the lucrative remuneration and the escalating popularity of organic tea, it is not long before domestic demand for organic tea gains ground and poses competition for conventional ones. Basically, organic tea is not an entirely different brew of tea, it is the way in which tea is produced that sets it apart from the conventional way of tea production. In a way, organic tea is sustainable development, where the methods of tea plantation are so altered and modified that the harmful effects of chemicals are erased out in case of old plants or are completely avoided in new plantations.

There has been a slow growth of organic Assam tea which seems to have found a huge demand in countries like the United Kingdom, Canada and the United States of America, to where tea is being sent in various formats like tea bags, small aluminum packs and more recently, in the form of tea coins.

The concept of tea coins, however, brings in a whole new concept of tea manufacturing, which is traced to the traditional way of tea making of the Singhpos, an indigenous tribe of Assam, which is credited with the discovery of tea in Assam. The Singhpo tribes are the forbearers of a very unique tradition wherein they align themselves with the way of Nature, be it in their food habits or in their way of life. It is in such a remote hamlet some 18 kms from the town of Margherita that Rajesh Singhpo harboured a unique concept to propagate the traditional Singhpo tea to generate awareness of the people about organic tea. Branded Phalap, after the Singhpo word for tea, it gained immense appreciation when it was put up in the international market after some initial help from a Canada based non-governmental organisation. Phalap, though, is a slightly different kind of brew, as compared to conventional black tea. As Rajesh Singhpo explained, Phalap is generally a mixed flavour of oollong tea and green tea and this flavour is fast catching on the taste buds of the Westerners. He has, on recent visits to Canada and Thailand, won over many compatriots by displaying the comparative benefits of Phalap over the more popular Chinese green tea. To begin with, Phalap is a kind of blend of both black and green tea, unlike the mono flavoured Chinese green tea and also a Phalap tea coin could be re-used up to five times, compared to three to four times as in case of Chinese green tea. Rajesh Singhpo’s efforts have yielded much returns as he is now flooded with new demands from countries like Hong Kong and Thailand, where the coins are being marketed by putting them into bamboo cans which are then laminated towards preserving the flavour and also inhibiting the unique aroma of the tea.

An overview of Rajesh Singhpo’s plantation displayed the segregation of the same into two main segments, wherein in one segment the orthodox way of plantation is done and in the other organic tea is grown. This, he explained, was done to balance the economies of scale as Phalap required very fine leaf plucking and good number of labour force, so that after one cropping, the second cropping takes a long time. On the other hand, the orthodox method makes at least three rounds of leaf pluckings possible in a month. The export of Phalap leads to long gaps between product shipment and remuneration which is compensated for by local sale of orthodox tea. However, this year organic tea was also released into the local market and was priced at Rs 600 per kilogram ( it is exported at Rs 1000 per kilogram). Currently Rajesh Singhpo is trying to meet his export obligations and to impeccably maintain the quality, he is slowly turning even some orthodox segments of his plantation into organic.

But even for entrepreneurs like Rajesh Singhpo – who dare to break conventions given limited means - the struggle is far from over. The stringent norms defining acceptability of food as organic keeps them on their toes. Added to this are the confounding problems of pests and diseases, peer pressure, infrastructural limitations, lack of reach of Government schemes, paucity of marketing channels et al. Also, the shift towards organic plantation is a long drawn process as there is the need to rejuvenate and refurbish lost soil humus and rebuilding of natural nutrient levels in the soil as well as nullify the effects of chemicals used. This usually takes a time period of four to five years – for the complete elimination of chemical residues from the tea - depending on the soil condition and only when an approval certificate is received from a creditable international accredited organisation, that the plantation is recognized as organic.

The concept of sustainable development has established that the ecological damages made by man can be reverted only if man acts in consonance with natural systems. Though the domestic market for organic tea is currently insignificant, but as with other things, this global trend would also soon catch up at the local level too. The emergence of the small tea growers is an encouraging development as it is easier to maintain a small organic plantation as compared to a large acreages, and this would help in making the conventional tea go “green” that is be freed of chemical toxicity. The hiccup and glitches of marketing is a strong deterrent but could be tackled with help from tea boards and Government. The antioxidants in tea make it a very popular beverage in the West, and we too, live by tea. And it is only fair that the ecology which has borne the brunt of our greed as we drained it with chemicals to harvest bountiful yields, be dealt with compassion so that further damage is arrested. Improving and retaining the exclusive flavour of Assam tea coupled with better productivity, quality controls and constant tuning of production to the demands of the market could reinstate Assam tea as a major player in the world market.

Sangita Das