Why Dooars is losing out to Assam and other tea varieties

Over years of production, each of the tea varieties in the country has been able to carve a name for itself in the export market. While Darjeeling enjoys dominant position as flagbearer, fetching exorbitant prices, Assam tea is best known for a strongly musky flavour and drives sales volume. Nilgiri tea, particularly the spring and winter Orthodox variant, produced in the Tamil Nadu-Kerala-Karnataka belt, is revered for its flowery note and makes up in special private sales. Dooars tea, on the other hand, which started on a healthy note during the British Raj, has not only lost its entire export market but is now headed towards obscurity.

The tea variant used in Dooars is the same which dots the Assam plantations, the Camellia Assamica. However, years of soil corrosion, unhealthy upkeep of tea bushes, plucking issues and several other managerial issues have led Dooars tea to become mere fillers for Assam CTC (crush, tear, curl) tea.

Industry officials and garden owners opine that the primary reason for Dooars tea fetching lower prices as compared to Assam CTC is quality of yield. While on account of elevation and greater advantage of drainage, Assam tea is full-bodied and wholesome, Dooars tea, cultivated on lower altitudes (at the foothills of Darjeeling), faces the primary issue of depletion of soil quality and lack of investment by garden owners.

Kaushik Basu, secretary-general at the Darjeeling Tea Association, is of the opinion that years of negligence by the garden owners have resulted in the soil quality depleting seriously.

“But the owners cannot be blamed alone. In the past, these gardens were the most infested with militant trade unionism and often it led to lockouts. With hostile trade unions operating and uncertainty looming after lockouts, will the managements be interested in investing in the gardens?” he asks.

Industry estimates suggest that while the average yield per hectare is 2,200-2,400 kg in Assam, the same in Dooars is 1,200-1,500 kg per hectare, thus making Dooars tea costlier to produce.

This tea from the Darjeeling foothills accounts for over 200 million kg (mkg) of the total tea production in India and is entirely consumed domestically.

Plucking of the tea leaves is another issue leading to the low quality. Azam Monem, chairman of the Indian Tea Association, said that while in Assam, 7-8 days plucking time is maintained which results in higher quality of the yield (on account of a single nimble buds and two tender leaves), the plucking in Dooars happens over a 10-12 day cycle.

“Naturally, the leaves are overgrown in Dooars as compared to Assam, which results in lower quality,” he reasoned.

Assam CTC, as compared to Dooars CTC, has been fetching 2030 per cent better prices in auctions. In the September 16 auction, Assam CTC on average, was sold for ~149.57 a kg while the Dooars tea fetched ~126.73 a kg in the same auction.

As a result, industry experts opine, the gardens in Dooars face greater stress as compared to their counterparts in Assam. Currently, the Dooars-Terai area jointly has 290 gardens, of which around 20 per cent are potentially sick and another 18 gardens are in an abandoned state.

Although amidst such hardships, Dooars tea was able to hold its ground as it found popularity among Russian blenders (owing to its cheap price) who used this tea to blend high-grade Assam CTC, its death blow was dealt in 1991 when the Indo-Soviet bilateral trade agreement ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Owing to the bilateral trade agreement, Dooars tea was priced much below Kenyan CTC and enjoyed a favourable currency conversion at home. However, the moment the treaty ended, Kenyan CTC, which was of much superior quality, suddenly became cheaper than Dooars tea and Russian blenders abruptly stopped purchases of Dooars tea. Around 100 mkg of tea from the Dooars-Terai region was exported overseas in the early 1990’s.

“It (Dooars) is not an exportable item anymore. In case Dooars tea plans to regain its international market, heavy investments to better the soil and plant quality as well as mechanise the gardens is needed,” a garden owner from the Dooars region said.