Wild Orchid Tea

Elaine, the tea lady, inspired Ankit to synthesize orchids with tea, without mistaking to make a floral infusion, and the results were breathtaking.

Kurseong means land of white orchids but we used purple orchids which are considered rare as we wanted something exotic to evolve, since the tea lady is promoting our Doke white teas.  

Nepal Tea

Ankit took Gongfu team to Nepal today, which is still behind Darjeeling in first flush, being drier and windier, and hardly any new season teas has been made there.

There is an interdependance between India and Nepal as far as the high altitude orthodox is concerned. Tea was mainly planted there since last 15 yesrs only and the main planting material came from Mirik ridge gardens. A war to protect Darjeeling from so called imitation Nepal teas is being fought by Indian Tea Board.

Gongfu Tea

Mike Feller and Rusty Bishop of Gongfu Tea, USA, visited us and we showed them around Makaibari, Castleton & Meghma. Rajah Banerjee and Madan Tamang presented them excellent Darjeeling and Nepal oolongs and other artisan exotic teas.

First flush is setting in Darjeeling hills, but prolonged cold and rains has delayed it. Silver lining is the far superior quality this year, because of far better moisture lavels in the soil compared to last many years.

Indus Foundation

Our efforts to do something for the children of our tea garden workers on Doke organic farm was taken up by Dr. Sandy M. Bushberg of T Ching, who is now considering promoting Indian artisan teas under Indus Foundation label.

If more and more philanthropic people like Sandy Bushberg, Tim Grover, Torgeir Sundgot and John Mcphearson come forward, we can really do wonders for these underprivileged children.

Dong Li……….

What started on a late, wet and cold October Beijing evening in 2004 has blossomed into a strategic partnership and Ms. Xiao, the courageous lady who visited India in March 2006 to study Indian Culture and became a fan of Madhuri Dixit and Darjeeling tea.

She has opened the doors of her Temple of Haven, Olympic Stadium West Road situated Dong Li Tea house to a joint venture to promote Indian black tea in China, and I am proud of her.

Today’s International Women’s Day motivates me to congratulate her for her efforts and I personally wish her all the success in her enterprise. We can not forget to remember Nickey Wu on this occassion, who always stood on our sides.

Holi & Deng Jie..

Full moon today brings the festival of colours, the Holi, in India, whereas China celebrates it as Lantern festival, which is the finishing touch to the lunar new year celebrations. In anyway people are joyful since the cropping season has begun and wheat is ripening now in most parts of India.

Since last few days has been very active, and some Darjeeling teas has been presented to the ultimate consumers thru T Ching in America, and some has been despatched to Russia, and some have been tested in Hong Kong by Lawrence.   

A debate has ever been going on weather the tisanes should be allowed to be called Teas at all? Tea over centuries has been associated with health benefits and its advantages should not be exploited by merely calling everything that leaves color and some flavour in the water after boiling as tea.

Tim

Our partner, Tim Grover of Cargo & James, Edmonton, Canada, has taken over Riddles Sweet Impression Inc., also situated in Edmonton, and now in addition to his tea and coffee business, will have candy and chocolates too. We are proud to be associated with such a fast growing company.

Tim markets our DOKE white teas in North America and has keen interest in Indian tea industry. We wish him all the success.

St. Petersburg

After staying in Moscow from 10th to 17th february to attend Prodexpo 2007, Ankit moved to Saint Petersburg, by train and stayed there till midnight today. A beautiful city full of tea people, tea factories and tea trade. We flew our tricolor there too, it was a moment to be proud of. 

We feel like Morco Polo, whenever we visit new cities and countries looking for tea markets, meeting different people, different races of different languages and cultural groups. It is very exciting and motivates us further to look for newer avenues.

Our next stop may be Hamburg, where Dietmar Scheffler and Robert Scheibler, our old friends, reside and do business. That day is not far when we will start doing business with them. Germany, since 1976, when I first started meeting Arand Vollers and Burnt Wulf, the old timers of tea trade of Darjeeling. In those days of no-internet, they were faster than anyone to beat people on their own games.

Russian Delegation

We received a Russian delegation today evening on our Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) platform at Hotel Sinclairs in Siliguri, headed by Prof. Bublik Nikolay, Doctor of Economics, Director, All-Russia Part-Time Finance & Economics Institute, Ufa, Bashkortostan, and Prof. Igor J. Lukasevich, Vice Rector, All Russia Distance Institute of Finance & Economics, Moscow alongwith Prof. Zavyalova Ekaterina, a beautiful lady, who stole the show.

They came representing their Governments and look for the avenues of investment. We discussed the tea export scenario and looked forward to a better and long term role model of Russia once again in Indian tea industry. North Bengal University and its Tea Management Department hosted this delegation and had prolonged meetings since last four days.

This event luckily coincides with Ankit’s Russian visit and our entry into Russian tea scene and possible future involvement on higher levels. Let us hope for the best. Some auspecious augery.

Doke farm

We started the regular plucking of 2007 season on our tea farm today. So far we were hand crafting the buds to Silver Needles and Bai Mu Dan, and shall continue to do so till first flush lasts. Crop seems bumper since there was no water scarcity in the soil and no blight on the tea leaves and on tea stand. We have applied enough cow dung too this year.

If I can have my way, I would like to make some puerh teas on my plantation, because I have access to Nepali workforce, who like Chinese have dextrous fingers and are very good at tea making. Let us hope for the best. My life time experiment with a tea plant is going to be the utilization of camellia seed also, as a second stage.