A Visit to Tukvar Tea Factory
Understanding Tea: In an effort to understand what goes behind the making of the world famous Darjeeling Tea, I went to visit the tea factory in Tukvar. This one claims to be the very first Tea garden in Darjeeling and also was one of the first bagaans to cross the 10,000 per kilo barrier. Few interesting things learnt: the machines here were brought by the East India Company and the process of tea-making hasn't changed much since it started more than two hundred years ago. The British were clever - they divided the process of tea-making to separate chores and hired people to do only specific jobs, thereby ensuring that no one person has the knowledge of the full process. While at the factory, one of the supervisors - Mr Nayan Gurung - who also happens to be my uncle, showed me the correct way of brewing tea - yes, tea needs to be brewed, not boiled. He also explained to me the different kinds of tea the factory makes and how each process is different and how tea made from