going through the separate security lines for men and women. We landed
in Bagdogra, a small airport in East Bengal, one of the northeastern
states in India. We were picked up at the airport by a representative
of the Glenburn Tea Estate.
I should take a moment here to mention how wonderful my sister is. The
entire impetus for this trip was Lexi's friend's wedding. Lexi asked
me to join her AND funded a great portion of the cost, without which
it would not have been possible for me to have these amazing
experiences. Thank you Lexi!!!! Now, back to the story...
Lexi arranged for us to stay on a tea estate, which is probably most
analogous in the US to a wine estate. Glenburn is situated in the
mountains, about an hour and a half drive on mountainous roads to
Darjeeling. In fact, from the estate you can see Darjeeling high up on
the mountain top a couple of ridges away. Staying at Glenburn is like
staying in a full service five star hotel, except you are surrounded
by mountains and small villages. The drive from the airport took about
three hours, much of which went through small villages reminicent to
me of SE Asia, Laos in particular. We also traveled through a nature
preserve before we started climbing.
Bagdogra is just above sea-level, where Glenburn is at about 3200
feet, though we had to climb to 6400' through teak and pine forests
before dropping down into the estate, with the last few miles on an
unpaved, bumpy road. The vistas along the way were unceasing and
amazing.
The tea plantations are quite striking. Each plant looks like a small
bush, about 2 feet high and the same in diameter. Each is trimmed to
have a flat top and is spaced just far enough apart from the next one
for a small Indian woman to be able to squeeze between them. The
bushes themselves are between 100 and 120 years old. The bottom leaves
are dark green and left alone. Only the new, bright green leaves
growing from the pruned branches are picked, so each branch only
yeilds two tea leaves at a time. The pickers must wait till the next
day for the new shoots to grow. The tea bushes line the hills in all
directions, with trees and other fauna spotting the hillside.
The estate itself was built some time ago. The buildings have a very
colonial feel to them, as the British are the ones who introduced tea
to this area (though there are some studies now suggesting that the
tea plant may actually be indigenous to India, though uncultivated).
The factory sits right in the middle of it all. We took a tour during
which they explained to us all the steps of processing tea. It is all
very delicate and anyone misstep can ruin it. (if you have no interest
in the production of tea, then stop reading here)
There are four picking seasons from February to November: 1st flush,
2nd flush, Monsoon, and Autumn. We arrived right at the beginning of
the 1st flush.
There are four basic steps to the process for black tea (green tea in
a minute). After picking, the leaves are left to "wither". During this
step the leaves are spread on large screen beds, separated by type of
plant (there are three different species grown here) and location on
the estate. Unheated air is then blown from underneath to dry out the
leaves. Only about 22% of the leaves are dry matter; the rest is
water. The withering process lasts between eight hours and overnight,
very much depending on the humidity, etc. After this the leaves are
rolled in these large pneumatic machines that roll the leaves by
spinning them while a large plate presses down on them. This step
starts to break down the cells of the leaves. After filtering out the
fine material they are spear out on large metal tables to ferment.
This lasts about 40 minutes, again depending on the atmospheric
conditions. From here they are loaded into the dryer where hot air
(only about 245 degrees) is passed over them ad they run through a
series of conveyers. Then the leaves are sorted through a number of
screens which separates the leaves into different sizes. These are
then gone through by hand to pick out the stems.
Green tea is actually the same exact leaves, it just skips the
withering and fermenting steps. The fresh leaves are put into a
tumbler and steam is applied for three minutes and then let to dry.
They give the leaves a light roll (less pressure) and put them into
the dryer and then sort them.
It's all supremely facinating, especially for its simple yet delicate
process.
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