A DAY IN THE LIFE OF A DARJEELING TEA PLANTER…
Relics of the British Raj in India and bastions of tea industry, these planters since 1850 have been carrying the baton that has allowed the world to savor the flavors of Darjeeling over centuries…
From April 1984 to July 1989 I was Manager of Seeyok tea estate near Mirik in Darjeeling, West Bengal. Looking back, those were probably the golden years of my life. Since it was my first managerial posting, I had the burning desire of proving my mettle after getting myself trained by stalwarts of the industry at Sholayar estate in South India and Longview estate in Darjeeling. Just thirty years old I was perhaps too young to get the billet in those days of Arend Vollers and Burnt Wulf, and this gave me energy to put this estate in a more organized shape.
Thanks to the tea –garden workers who extended their sincere co-operation I was able to achieve my immediate goals. Everybody wanted to see this top quality tea garden become an economically viable entity once again after having lost its factory to the 1961 floods. For 17 long years the tradition of sending the green leaf harvested from this garden to its sister unit and next-door neighbor Selimbong tea estate had been maintained faithfully. Then, in 1978, a new factory was built at the top of this garden, just above fog line, considering that its lower reaches, where the old factory was located near the Rungbong river, was too hot to produce good quality leaves. Not only did we make the best quality tea here, we also doubled its crop from 70,000 kilos to 140,000 kilos! The wheel had begun to turn. As we kept realizing better prices for its produce, we offered better and better amenities to the workers. It was a synergy of sorts that benefited everyone – the owners, the staff, the workers and the government ; the best partnership deal anybody could imagine.
For the next five years I slogged 20 hours a day with a grit that adds zest to one’s life and one can share the joys of labor with one’s partners. Let me give a recount of a typical day in a manager’s life uninterrupted by visits of foreign buyers from Germany, England or Japan, or a government or company inspections:
A quintessential manager gets up at 2 AM to visit the factory, if it is nearby, which it usually is (Those were times when only one manager was allowed in small plantations). This was important to calculate the degree of wither required to get the best out of tea leaves plucked the day before. Usually a shuffle was given by the workers present there to the leaf thinly spread on the withering trough beds, and the fan speed, blade rotation and wind direction was suitably adjusted to get it sufficiently flaccid and crisp by 6 AM when it would be gathered to be rolled.
The manager would then return to his cozy bungalow and catch a short nap to get up again at 5 AM, and after a shower and breakfast would be ready to walk to muster, where everybody would be gathered to start the day on the plantation. On the way he would pop into the withering shed again to see the condition of withered leaves being weighed to be stuffed into rolling machine.
It was a fantastic view from the muster as the whole Rungbong valley lay spread before you in the morning sun rising from behind the Kurseong hill. A fresh, drizzle-soaked breeze or usual mist floated around you as the clouds danced at 5000 feet altitude where we would be standing. It was breathtakingly beautiful, enough to lift one’s spirits. Then there were days of lashing rains with winds in July-September when the airs trapped in the Balasun valley would rim the basin of Kurseong valley.
After instructing everybody, and feeling like a king both by virtue of his position on the plantation, where everybody looks up to him for everything from material help to personal advice, and his ability to control the heart and soul of his workforce, the manager is on his way to the tea plantation. Here an impressive array of activities would be in progress including production –i.e., tea leaf plucking, and maintenance –i.e., taking care of the tea bush.
These garden activities are so diverse that they keep changing in dynamics every moment and are as engrossing as Yanni playing his four Yamaha musical keyboards at a time with his deft fingers. The same swiftness and dexterity is needed of a tea garden manager as he dashes around his 500 acres of tea plantation (about 200 hectares) – managing, advising, solving, and tackling crises all at the same time!
The green leaf weighing process provides the best opportunity to a manager to control the quality of leaf coming into his factory. Normally all the workers engaged in tea leaf plucking would walk up to the factory and Manager would personally supervise the weighing and then proceed for his lunch, which is quite sumptuous, with his wife and guests present and a retinue of servants serving the courses.
Afternoons are normally reserved for office paperwork and tea testing sessions to evaluate the teas made and possible adjustments in the manufacturing process of the next day in consonance with the leaf quality coming in the factory. As the hours melt into evening he needs to supervise the all important leaf weighing before he meets his senior staffs to confer on the next day’s jobs.
The tight schedule usually leaves him with little time to attend to his family, with which he may be attached in person but is somewhere more involved with his tea bushes. The only silver lining is that his company compensates him well and his needs are well looked after.
‘Quality is produced in tea-gardens, and the factory is there to protect what you have brought in’ – I would often hear my seniors chant this mantra. Making tea is an ongoing process. Tea bushes are trained to get the best green tea leaves, which is a complex process in its own right. These green leaves are plucked at regular intervals to get the best quality, and then the withering concentrated cell sap present in the leaf is brought out by rupturing the cells during rolling process and then it is oxidized enough to give the best quality in the cup, which is arrested by firing in a drying machine, to give it a shelf life to reach the final consumer. Varying degrees of various parameters decide whether the teas are white, green, oolong or black tea, and the manager selects the leaf and the process to cater to the needs of customer.
A tea plantation manager is an institution in himself –an engineer, an accountant, a charming host and a service provider to his workforce that should be kept in good spirits to deliver the goods. He needs to have enough chutzpah to be all of the above – and still be left with the energy to enjoy Nature that unfolds before him in bountiful glory. And, in the evening of his life he can sit back and savor the fragrance of his memories with a steaming cup of Darjeeling.
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