20/09/2021
The Battle Won By Darjeeling over China....
An ancient Chinese Proverb says that it is better to be deprived of food for three days than not to have tea for once. Camellia Sinensis or tea is the most popular of all the beverages in the world. The Darjeeling tea industry is a British venture. It is world-famous for its distinct sweet flavour. There is no other area in the world that can produce the ‘muscatel’ flavour teas, Darjeeling tea is indeed the ‘Champagne of Teas’.
Most of the tea bushes in Darjeeling owe their origin to tea seeds from China “smuggled” out by famous Scot adventurer and botanist Robert Fortune nearly 200 years ago. They followed a torturous winding path – like the roads here – of skewed global trade and politics of the colonial era.
By 1850 annual consumption of tea in Britain was already at around two pounds per person. Even as the Victorian England demanded its brew, the English traders were wary of having to depend upon China as a sole supplier. They had gone beyond looking for alternative supply sources; they wanted their very own source. This is what changed the course of Darjeeling forever – from being just a hamlet of few houses in remote fastness of Himalayas, to a hill resort and finally to a producer of world-famous tea.
Before the British reached this remote and secluded part of the country, Darjeeling was inhabited by animist tribes of Tibeto-Burmese stock who practiced slash and burn cultivation. The hills were draped with dense tropical and sub-tropical forests.
The main political forces in the area were the kingdoms of Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan. Darjeeling as a “frontier land” was controlled at different points by each of these kingdoms. The British first entered this territory in the 1820s, nearly 70 years after they had first begun setting up their colony in India. Not surprisingly (since colonial powers loved to fish in troubled waters) they came to “arbiter” the border dispute between Nepal and Sikkim. The dispute centered over Darjeeling.
The arbitration ended in an expected manner - the British took possession of Darjeeling in 1835. They turned the place into a premier hill station where their officials along with their families could retire during summer months to escape the brutal heat of the plains.
Dr. Campbell, the Superintendent of Darjeeling, pioneered the experimental growth of tea in the hill during 1839-41. Initially, he planted a few seeds from China stock around his bungalow, known as Beechwood. In 1841, Campbell started the first tea experimental nursery in Jalapahar but later shifted to Lebong in 1845. The first tea garden began in Upper Takvar in 1852 raised by Captain Masson and Mr. Treustler. The Government offered land on very favourable terms and private entrepreneurs developed. The first commercial tea factory set up in Makaibari in 1859. Later, tea and cinchona cultivation became major attractions for the immigrants and income for the British themselves.
Captain Samler was the first tea planter in Darjeeling. In 1856, he started the Alubari tea garden under the supervision of Kurseong and Darjeeling Tea Company. In 1859, Samler, appointed as the agent for the Darjeeling tea company and made the legal owner of Makaibari. Samler died the same year. However, he sold the Makaibari tea estate to his friend G.C Banerjee. Only tea garden in Darjeeling owned by an Indian family throughout the first four generations and still continuing.
The Wernicke family founded by Johann and Sophie Wernicke, who came to India in 1841 as missionaries for the Moravian Church in Germany. Wernicke’s family were the pioneers to introduce tea in the district on a commercial basis. Their several children carried on the tradition, becoming owners and managers of some of the most important tea estates in the area. The Wernicke’s and Stolkes had owned or managed more than a dozen gardens: Lingia, Marybong, Tumsong, Steinthal, Soom, Glenburn, Bannockburn, Makaibari, Risheehot (Rishihat), Pandam, Aloobari, Goomba, and Tukvar.
This impressive list included some of the most illustrious gardens in Darjeeling. For instance, Joachim Stoelke, a German priest planted Darjeeling’s first tea estate, called Steinthal Tea Estate, in 1852. He also started Singtom (Singtam) tea estate in 1854, the second oldest tea estate in Darjeeling. Bannockburn tea state established around the 1850s during the early stages of tea plantation in the Darjeeling hills. Lingia tea estate established around 1867 by J.A. Wernicke and F.J. Wernicke. Another Scottish pioneer was George Watt Christisan. He became the General Manager of Lebong Tea Company in 1864. The Selim hill tea estate established in 1870 by Mr. Henry. He is referred to as ‘Selim Sahab’. So, this tea garden named as Selim tea estate in his name.
Among the colourful foreign figures in the nineteenth-century annals of Darjeeling tea is Louis Mandelli, an Italian settler in India, a tea-planter and ornithologist. He acquired a contract as a manager for Lebong and Minchu Tea Company at Darjeeling in 1864. Later, Mandelli also became in charge of the Mineral Spring tea estate. In 1872 he came to manage Chontong Tea Estate. Further, the Marybong tea estate (Kyel tea estate earlier) established in 1876 by Louis Mandelli.
Happy Valley Tea Estate established in 1854. It is the second oldest and one of the highest tea estates in the world. David Wilson, an Englishman, had named the garden Wilson Tea Estate and by 1860 had started cultivation of tea. It went into the hands of Tarapada Banerjee, an aristocrat from Hooghly in 1903. Banerjee bought the Windsor Tea Estate and merged the two estates under the name of Happy Valley Tea Estate in 1929.
In 1859 Dooteriah garden started by Dr. Brougham at Sonada valley. Between 1860 and 1874 Darjeeling Tea Company expanded and Darjeeling saw remarkable growth and development of the tea plantations. There were rapid and impressive developments of tea plantations due to the favourable climate and suitability of the soil.
In 1866, 39 tea gardens were covering 3900 hectares of land under tea. In 1874, 113 tea estates were covering 7,400 hectares of land under tea. By 1905 148 tea estates were comprising approximately 19,928 hectares, and the list increased. Currently, there are 324 tea estates of Darjeeling accorded by the Tea Board of India. After a prolonged and sustained effort by the Tea Board of India, Darjeeling in 2005 finally won protection under WTO as a Geographical Indicator. It means only tea that is grown in Darjeeling can be called Darjeeling.
The commercial tea plantation in Darjeeling was more than 170 years under the British regime. Still today, the tea industry forms the major socio-economic mainstay of the local people. It is the largest source of employment and income for the people of Darjeeling after tourism.
