Some Opinions

Now available, a new, comprehensive, and vividly illustrated book on Indian tea, its past, present, and future, exploring many novel facets of an industry that has become an Indian heritage which is globally respected. This is a book that cannot fail to delight tea professionals and tea enthusiasts alike.

Tea has found a permanent place in the lives and hearts of diverse peoples the world over, and spread cheer and camaraderie for over 4500 years. Poets and philosophers have lavished praise on it, and perhaps no other beverage has been the object of such ritual and ceremony across the planet. Today, over 3 bn cups of tea are consumed every day across the globe, making it the most popular and cheapest drink in the world after water. Its fragrance, flavour and gentle aroma generate a sense of pleasure, well-being, and fellowship across the world, around the clock.

India is the largest producer and consumer of tea in the world. Since the mid-nineteenth century, tea has been one of the largest foreign exchange earners and a major source of state and central taxes. Eco-friendly, it is also a caring industry that generates income and livelihood for nearly 20 m. people in the country. Far from the madding crowd, located in remote and backward areas, tea-growing regions have silently, almost bashfully, evolved a remarkably humane corporate ethos.

The Heritage of Indian Tea provides a perspective of the history of the tea industry in India, the role tea plays in our lives and that of our country, and wide-ranging developmental initiatives that have for decades been undertaken by the Indian tea industry.

This is a story that needs to be told because few are acquainted with the fascinating process through which the tea that enters their markets and homes passes, and how it beneficially impacts the lives of millions of hitherto marginalized individuals. Most outside the distant confines of the Indian tea industry will be astonished at the sheer range, scale, and scope of the innovative welfare schemes launched by an industry that chooses to care.

A well-researched and carefully documented book, it analyses the problems that are threatening to bring the Indian tea industry to its knees and hampering its ability to invest, modernize, grow, and remain competitive in world markets. It raises important questions that deserve serious attention and, above all, decisive action. The author presents a balanced, scholarly, and comprehensive picture of the industry as a whole bringing many hitherto unexplored facets to light that will interest tea professionals and tea enthusiasts alike.