From the first Silver Tips at Thurbo to record auction prices at Castleton: how Arun Kumar Gomden came to name Darjeeling muscatel.
Designer Julie Kagti remembers learning to spin yarn beside her grandmother’s loom, and how Assam’s weaving traditions still shape her work.
A Mother’s Day tribute to the mothers of the Nilgiris, who raise children in a small hill town and gather over tea to hold each other up.
The Glenburn Boutique Hotel, Darjeeling
How a tea planter’s bungalow on Glenburn estate became one of Darjeeling’s most loved boutique hotels, told by Husna-Tara Prakash.
Memories of tea and conversation
Three decades of friendship, dogs, stories and cups of Nilgiri tea with Shireen Sethna in her old colonial bungalow in Coonoor.
A tribute to the ultimate tea explorer
Remembering Drew Bednasek of the Teaxplorer blog: his humble, friendly tea writing, his love of travel and the optimism he brought to every cup.
A 99-day South American adventure
Three days after her 59th birthday, Aditi set off alone on a 99-day journey through seven South American countries. Over tea, she tells the story.
Meet three women who changed tea: the Portuguese princess who made it fashionable in England, the duchess behind afternoon tea, and the woman who opened chado to girls.
A walk through Darjeeling’s tea gardens
A spring walk through Darjeeling’s tea gardens, in photographs: the pluckers, the neighbors, the kids and the landscape.
Bringing the world home – at the Kochi Muziris Biennale
Over a cup of tea at Aspinwall House, Bose Krishnamachari tells the story of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale and how it turned Kochi into an art route.
Sangeetha Shinde remembers The Ritz Hotel in Coonoor, its creeper-covered walls, its sugary cups of tea and the kind woman who ran it.
A day on tour with guitarist Daniel Kenneth Rego, told through the cups of tea that bookend his flights, sound checks and shows.
Teatime, Talktime (feat. Anjum Hasan and Zac O’Yeah)
Every afternoon, authors Anjum Hasan and Zac O’Yeah stop for tea. Here is a playful “transcript” of one such break, from Temi tea to Orwell’s golden rules.
Remembering the days of manual tea auction
A Siliguri tea buyer looks back on the noise, rivalry and friendships of the manual tea auction, which went online in 2011.
A Nilgiris native on the people who left, the people who came and the people who stayed in her small, vast tea district in South India.
Sounds of Music in the Nilgiris
Sangeetha Shinde on Coonoor, the Nilgiris tea town where fifties tunes play at Cedric’s, the Enos family teaches music and the choir sings on.
Madam Superintendent and Durga Puja in a Tea Garden
Romita Ray joins a Durga Puja run by the women of Mathura Tea Estate, the Dooars garden her great-grandfather planted, from mahashtami to immersion.
Assam Diaries: A tour of Halmari
A day with the manager of Assam’s famed Halmari tea estate, from the morning plucking charts and the fields to the factory and the afternoon tasting.
A tour of the Tocklai Tea Research Institute
A visit to Jorhat’s Tocklai Tea Research Institute, which advises over 1,000 tea estates, from its tasting room and labs to the mother plant of the first clone.
Assam Diaries: The Jalans at Chota Tingrai
At Chota Tingrai in Assam, siblings Avantika and Mrityunjay Jalan are taking the estate organic, making green tea and hiring young talent over seniority.
A clay cup of tea from National Award-winning potter Ismail Siddiq of Kutch begins a bond with his family that lasts for decades.
The Changing Face of Tea Gardens in the Nilgiris
Workers from eastern India now fill the lines on Nilgiri tea estates, as the educated children of Tamil estate workers move on to professions in the cities.
Perfumer Jahnvi Dameron Nandan bottles memories as scent. We meet her at the launch of the Memory Pod Project and learn why each of her perfumes carries a tea note.
Designer and potter Archana Srinivas photographed her daily cup of chai for years, then turned the pictures into a book. She shares her chai memories.
Fiber artist Maya Sara Matthew on trading city life for a slow, unscheduled one on a tea holding in Coonoor, in the Nilgiris.
The Tale of a City and Two Chroniclers
Mita Kapur meets photographers Dayanita Singh and Mayank Austen Soofi to ask what keeps them chronicling Delhi.
Over chai in McLeod Ganj, Prachi Sibal meets Lhasang Tsering, the outspoken Tibetan activist who runs the Bookworm bookstore.
The artist, an interruption, and a conversation
An evening over chai with graphic novelist George Mathen, aka Appupen, on his imaginary world Halahala, 12-hour drawing days and the value of solitude.
From queues at loose tea shops to two-foot tea and endless adda, a Kolkata writer on why Bengalis cannot imagine tea without conversation.
What I Learned at My First Ever Tea Tasting
A two-day sensory analysis workshop with perfumer-turned-tea expert Carine Baudry, and what it taught one writer about tasting tea.
Musings at the End of the Year
The blog’s editor looks back on a year of tea stories and why a cup of tea is the best way to slow down and connect.
On long Himalayan treks, every day starts and ends with a mug of chai. Sriparna Ghosh remembers the tent-teas and the cook who made her 120 cups.
Reminiscences of life on the tea estate
Over two hours and two cups, Pakhi Bagai shares vivid memories of growing up on the tea estates of Assam, from bow and arrows to elephants at the gate.
Hope and aspiration in Darjeeling’s tea gardens
Nirvan Subba, a schoolboy on Darjeeling’s Mim tea estate, wants to become a doctor so his community no longer has to travel 20 km to see one.
Bonnie Eng of Thirsty for Tea made holiday Spice Drawer Tea Sachets from our teas, and told us how she chooses teas for crafts, recipes and her daily cup.
Meet Joy-da, the Siliguri chaiwallah whose stall on the ground floor of the Teabox office pours the team’s daily cup of Assam CTC chai.
The Story Behind Teabox’s New Brand Identity
Teabox and Pentagram partner Natasha Jen on the 2015 rebrand: finding the brand’s personality, a stencil typeface from old tea crates, packaging and lessons learned.
Tea in the Life of a Life Coach
Pip Stoneham visits life coach Katrena Friel and discovers why making and serving a cup of tea is a quiet but central part of every coaching session.
Meet the team: Ravi Kothari, Tea Buyer
Teabox tea buyer Ravi Kothari on his years in tea broking, switching to the buyer’s side of the table, and what Teabox’s quality checks taught him about tea.
In the wow zone at the Goomtee cottage
A stay at the visitors’ bungalow of Goomtee tea estate in Darjeeling, its books and pinewood floors, and the staff who make it memorable.
Julie Brett spent a year training in Bujinkan martial arts in Japan. The surprise was the green tea breaks, and what they taught her about the way of tea.
Meet the man who created the Darjeeling oolong
Sumon Majumder nearly ended up selling gin. Instead he joined tea, made the first Darjeeling oolong at Namring, and returned years later to help rebuild the estate.
How a wounded Chindit soldier fell for a Lepcha nurse, became a planter at Lopchu, and raised a family in the tea gardens of Darjeeling and Assam.
From Europe and food to Asia and tea
Food writer Jeff Koehler on moving from Spanish and Moroccan cookbooks to Darjeeling, his book on the region’s tea, and the teas he drinks.
What a Progressive Tea Industry Needs
Manisha Singh grew up on Assam’s tea estates and now manages 400 pluckers as a field assistant, one of the few women in the ranks of the tea gardens.
Postcard from a Teabox customer
Longtime tea lover Marion Ware writes about growing up on tea in Vienna, drinking it from a clear glass, and discovering muscatel teas with Teabox.
Conversations from a tea garden
A break-time conversation with tea pluckers at Jungpana in Darjeeling, about bad rains, good harvests and weather that offers no guarantees.
Living the Life of a Tea Explorer
Drew Bednasek of the Teaxplorer blog on falling for tea, drinking chai in Kenya, his teaware habits and the five teas he could not do without.
From blending tea at Starbucks in Seattle to the Teabox office in Siliguri: Shruti on tasting days, fussy palates and whether blending is art or science.