From the first Silver Tips at Thurbo to record auction prices at Castleton: how Arun Kumar Gomden came to name Darjeeling muscatel.
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.
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.
The Beginner’s Guide to Winter Flush Teas from the Nilgiris
Plucked between late December and January, Nilgiri winter flush teas are aromatic, intense and easy to love. Our illustrated guide helps you navigate them.
When King Coffee Bowed Out to Tea
A Nilgiris ghost story leads into the history of how blight, pests, falling prices and a gold rush made the hills switch from coffee to tea.
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.
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.
Nepal: Innovation in the high Himalayas
Nepal’s smallholder tea industry offers some of the best bargains in tea, from organic Guranse to Ilam, Kanyam and Antu Valley.
Almost every great tea comes from a mountain. Here is why mountain regions are tea’s megabrands, and how to use them to explore new teas.
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.
Fiber artist Maya Sara Matthew on trading city life for a slow, unscheduled one on a tea holding in Coonoor, in the Nilgiris.
Castleton and the mystery musk
The story and the truth behind the famous muscatel tea, and the Darjeeling estate that first produced it.
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.
From plucking and withering to oxidation, fixation, rolling and drying: the basic steps that turn fresh tea leaves into the tea in your cup.
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.
On the road between Darjeeling tea estates, Anik Basu meets monks who count cash, play ludo and coach football, and visits a monastery built above a shop.
Novelist Dinah Jefferies on a childhood in Malaya, falling into writing, and researching The Tea Planter’s Wife, set on a 1920s Ceylon tea plantation.
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.
A balancing act in the Darjeeling tea gardens
In Darjeeling’s tea gardens, an old 25-paisa coin is still the weight for tasting samples, and one estate uses a Pakistani quarter. Nobody quite knows why.
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.
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.
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.
What’s the fuss about the first flush?
Why Darjeeling’s first flush is so eagerly awaited: when the spring harvest runs, how lightly the teas are processed, and why they fetch top prices.
A Postcard from Darjeeling: Thinking Spring
A spring snapshot from Darjeeling: a little shop near Goomtee used by tea garden workers, and the flower gardens that mark the season in the hills.
4 common myths on organic farming
A former skeptic asks an agriculture expert about four common beliefs on organic farming, from chemicals and soil health to yield and the taste of organic tea.