Bad news from Darjeeling, the "queen of hills".
After the entire management left the "Chung Tung/Chon Tong" estate on
January 13th, see the story:
http://www.telegraphindia.com/106011...ry_5718394.asp

Babu Ram Dewan, 62, ex-worker in the estate, writer and social activist
for the poor workers hung himself from the ceiling of one of the
gardens weighing sheds. In his suicide note he accused the proprietor
of the garden for his death.

Tomorrow, Sunday, the whole valley will be on total strike - one more
time.

Karsten / Darjeeling

Where does the $ go? To the middlemen?

We are paying good money for Darjeelings here.

Is the demand in India/world low?

Is the price too low? Quantity of production too low?

It is sad to see the Darjeeling industry in financial turmoil. It can't be
good for the product if the producers are going bankrupt.

--
Aloke
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> wrote in message
ups.com...
> Bad news from Darjeeling, the "queen of hills".
> After the entire management left the "Chung Tung/Chon Tong" estate on
> January 13th, see the story:
> http://www.telegraphindia.com/106011...ry_5718394.asp
>
> Babu Ram Dewan, 62, ex-worker in the estate, writer and social activist
> for the poor workers hung himself from the ceiling of one of the
> gardens weighing sheds. In his suicide note he accused the proprietor
> of the garden for his death.
>
> Tomorrow, Sunday, the whole valley will be on total strike - one more
> time.
>
> Karsten / Darjeeling
>

Aloke Prasad schrieb:

> Where does the $ go? To the middlemen?

Mostly to European companies who buy ridiculously cheap and sell at
enormous high prices (and who press for cheaper and cheaper tea, and
therefore les and less quality as long as the name Darjeeling is a
guaranteed good sell - and as long as the stupid customers go along).

If you produce good orthodox teas with a traditional and solid quality
and struggle with preventing your heritage you're of the market quite
quickly. Only the absolute top tea estates with a small amount of real
high quality teas (which can be sold to incredible prices to tea
lovers) and of course all those estates who changes to cheap mass
pruduction teas, esp. for the so calles 'campaign teas', survive.


Dieter

>Mostly to European companies who buy ridiculously cheap and sell at
>enormous high prices (and who press for cheaper and cheaper tea, and
>therefore les and less quality as long as the name Darjeeling is a
>guaranteed good sell - and as long as the stupid customers go along).

The same thing can be said about Chinese teas. The top teas here,
nobody ever gets to try them because they usually go straight to
Beijing.

It's always seemed to me that the price of something so tasty as
Darjeeling tea has been suspiciously low.

I think the appelation needs to do some serious marketing to
differentiate itself better in the broad population.

Yes, I'm saying I want suasion to increase intangible desire and
tangible demand causing the price to go UP. Because the alternative is
that the gardens go to the monkeys and the weeds.

Don't blame or punish the workers. When you see proprietors offering
to cut pay 50% and fire large chunks of the workforce in any business
with well-developed labor division, you're looking at lazy proprietors.

Any idea that tea or Darjeeling tea is losing out to "competition" is
ludicrous. Coffee isn't tea, and other tea isn't Darjeeling tea.

--Blair

Blair P. Houghton wrote:
> Don't blame or punish the workers. When you see proprietors offering
> to cut pay 50% and fire large chunks of the workforce in any business
> with well-developed labor division, you're looking at lazy proprietors

Exactly. Just let me add that now with the first flush coming up
smaller farmers sell their plucked green leaves for an average 20-25
Rupies/kg (~30-65 US cent) to the larger estates where they are
manufactured and finally sold as "single estate" tea. Now guess what
the workers see of that money. It's usually around 1 US$ and less for a
full working day and of course only during the plucking seasons. Some
of the gardens (Makhaibari) provide school education and medical care
for their workers and families but the majority of the workers don't
see too much of that. I'm not even mentioning the issue of pesticides
and their related health hazards here. You'd really have to visit one
of those villages next to the estates and see the poverty and pesticide
related health hazards among the workers and their families to believe
it.
One more excerpt from Baburam Dewan's suicide note:
"What kind of justice is this that a single man can push 6500 men to
the brink of starvation?",
Note that he was just mentioning one of 83 estates in Darjeeling with a
total workforce of about 50000 people.

As Dieter mentioned before this kind of justice is supported by a
market - greedy proprietors, brokers and vendors and finally
uncritical, "stupid" customers - who mostly don't give a xxx on the
backgrounds of the stuff they're consuming.

Back to the lazy (or whatever) proprietors let me mention just one
example (out of many): the "Happy Valley" estate, right below
Darjeeling Bazaar. A beautiful garden with wonderful plants, own
factory and optimal road connections. Their tea ? Just another sad
story from the "queen of hills" ... to be continued.

Karsten / Darjeeling

@ Blair:
How about Halmari - they're good.
One way to find out the really good gardens is to check out their
average prices achieved over the year. The records can be accessed at
this web site - http://www.assamteaxchange.com. This is the official
website of the GTAC [ Guwahati Tea Auction Centre] and they record all
the teas sold through the Auction System in Guwahati. The Auction
system brings together buyers from all over the world to bid on teas on
offer - it's a clear indicator of a tea garden's quality vis-a-vis
other gardens. For exmaple - an estate averaging Rs 100 [Halmari] will
be considered to be making superior quality tea to an estate averaging
Rs 60 [lots of them]. Another factor to look for while comparing
gardens is to look at the quantum of teas sold. Let us take the example
of an estate averaging Rs 100 but having sold only 10000 kgs, and an
estate averaging Rs 90 but having sold 200000 kgs. It's quite obvious
that there has to be some minimum quantity sold level to make a fairer
comparison. We generally only compare estates having sold 150000 kgs or
more in the GTAC. This then ensures that there is a 'consistency'
parameter attached to the findings.
Another thing which most people may not know is that most of the really
good estates [Rs 80 average or higher in 2005-06] do not sell their
produce in retail form. Blenders and packeteers buy their produce in
the Auctions, blend them and then sells this blend to the end consumer.
Without doubt, the quality of the blend is not superior to any top
estate's tea in stand-alone form. Some of these estates are now
realizing this, and to optimize profits as well as bring to the
consumer better quality tea are now getting into direct retail
themselves. If you're lucky enough to ever taste some good estate's tea
- unblended and factory fresh, you'll never want to drink those
Unilever/Tetley/Brook Bond/Earl Grey packets again. They dont hold a
candle to even a medium-good estate's tea in it's unblended form.

NOTE:
To check average price, one usually takes all tea sold from sale 14
[which starts in April] to sale 13 [ end March next year].

"Sidman" > wrote in message
ups.com...
>@ Blair:
> How about Halmari - they're good.
> One way to find out the really good gardens is to check out their
> average prices achieved over the year. The records can be accessed at
> this web site - http://www.assamteaxchange.com. This is the official
> website of the GTAC [ Guwahati Tea Auction Centre] and they record all
> the teas sold through the Auction System in Guwahati. The Auction
> system brings together buyers from all over the world to bid on teas on
> offer - it's a clear indicator of a tea garden's quality vis-a-vis
> other gardens.

Are Darjeeling teas handled at this exchange?

--
Aloke
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