Life as a Tea Merchant in India

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Life as a Tea Merchant in India
By: India Tea

My life is, to say the least, unique. Although I have had many, many years of experience in my trade, I am always at the learning end of the business curve.

Tea, although much more complicated than wine, depends upon a variety of things to produce quality. These may include such things as: soil, rainfall, style of pluck (pick), tea plant maintenance, manufacturing process and, yes, even something as simple as the wind. No two teas can be exactly alike and that is the reason why there is an Invoice Number for teas manufactured from one Lot Number of fleshly plucked raw tea leaves (also called "Green" but not to be confused with green tea as a manufacturing process). A Lot Number of green leaves could vary, depending upon the size of the tea factory, anywhere from 3,000 kgs to 5,000 kgs. All of the tea manufactured from a Lot Number of green teas will carry the same Invoice Number.

A tea factory can produce an excellent quality tea from one Lot Number at say, 9 AM, and yet at 11 AM produce a totally different (better or worse) lot from another batch of green leaves. This is one of the primary reasons why one can buy a Darjeeling at varying price ranges. A Castleton Estate Darjeeling can sell at the auction at $50.00, $100.00, $200.00, $300.00 and so forth. Although all of these teas are manufactured from tea leaves from the same estate and possibly from the same bushes, the quality varies by time of day when they were plucked, the plucking process, and how they were manufactured. These things, and many more, determine the ultimate quality of the tea and thus the ultimate price of the tea.

When I was working on the estate, I remember a time when the Tea Maker, during one of his night shifts, nodded off and did not check the withering of the tea leaves. The tea leaves had "more than enough moisture in them" (as the report read) and the ultimate product did not come out well. It therefore fetched a far lower price than what the tea that was manufactured just a few hours earlier bad. This is, of course, only one example from my days on the estate, but it is indicative of how teas can differ even though they have the same name.

This is why I say that being a Tea Merchant, actively participating in the activities taking place at the tea auctions, is a constant learning process. Every week at any one particular auction there are about 800 Lots of Tea offered for sale and the Tea Merchant has to cup or taste each of these lots before making any buying decisions. This is an awesome task which carries with it an equally awesome responsibility because the customers to whom the Tea Merchant caters depend more on his personal input on any Lot Number of tea than on anything else. The opinions expressed by the Tea Merchant about any one particular tea are very important and hence the Tea Merchant has to be sure. The Tea Merchant can only be sure if he has tasted/cupped each and every one of the auction offerings.

Tea in India is produced only in certain places. The three main tea growing regions are Darjeeling, Assam (say Ah-Sam) and Nilgiri. The Darjeeling and Assam regions are in the North(east) and the Nilgiri Region is in the South. Other than the relatively small amount of tea sold at private or closed auction, most India teas are sold by open auction at 6 major auction centers throughout the country. They are: Calcutta, Cochin, Coimbatore, Coonoor, Guawahati and Siliguri. The auction centers of Cochin, Coimbatore and Coonoor service the South India Tea Growers Alliance. Calcutta, Guawahati and Siliguri service the North India Tea Growers Alliance. From these auction centers most of the tea is sold/bought for the entire country and the world. Because all of the buyers from around the world cannot travel to the auction centers every week, there are merchants who are based at the centers who act as agents and brokers for the others.

The Tea Merchant acts as the customer's guardian. I insist that you, as the customer, get the quality for which you have paid. To refer to the first paragraph: I am always at the learning end of the business curve, regardless of my years of experience.

Next time I will talk about the auction process.

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