Darjeeling by Jeff Koehler

Author:Jeff Koehler
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781620405147
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2014-03-12T04:00:00+00:00

Although ousted as colonial rulers, the British still controlled the tea sector until 1974.5 On the first day of that year the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA) of 1973 was instituted.* It tightened currency controls on foreign companies in India and instigated the Indianization, or rupeeization, of companies in the country by limiting foreign-owned stakes, making it harder to take profits out of India, and restricting expansion and diversification.6 Some companies complied with the new laws, but others simply left as a result. (Mostly famously, Coca-Cola pulled out rather than partner with an Indian company and turn over its secret recipe as the government demanded; they didn’t return until 1993.)

While sectors, including those engaged in trading, could retain a maximum 40 percent foreign-equity holding, tea companies were given a special dispensation that allowed 74 percent ownership.7 Even that was unpalatable. British firms in the tea industry that had stayed after independence had steadily been losing interest and had already begun exploring alternatives to growing tea in India. The new regulations provoked further divesting and accelerated development of estates in Kenya.8 The East African country was blessed with altitude and rainfall—and room to expand. “The British had a major advantage in Africa,” wrote E. Jaiwant Paul, onetime director of tea giant Brooke Bond India, “because they could take full benefit of their decades of experience in other countries and incorporate the more recent technical advances both in cultivation and in manufacture on the African estates.”9 Or, as Sandeep Mukherjee put it, “Any handicaps they had here they did away with in Kenya.”

The shift was swift. The year of independence India exported 127.2 million kilograms (280 million pounds) of tea to the UK, half of its total production and the lion’s share of its total exports. A decade later it hit 135.4 million kilograms, but then began to slide.10 By 1977 UK imports had dropped to 74.3 million kilograms, and in 1987 they were a paltry 22.4 million kilograms, down nearly 85 percent from their 1947 level.11 Currently Indian tea exports to the UK sit around 16 million kilograms. The UK now gets about 60 percent of its tea from Africa.12 Today Kenya is the continent’s tea giant and the world’s fourth-largest producer. Grown largely in the highlands and nearly all CTC, the tea is bold and vigorous, fresh, and brews a reddish-coppery liquor. It is used in blending, often in breakfast teas.

When India lost the UK market, the USSR and Eastern Europe stepped in to replace it. In 1947, the Soviet Union imported just 4 million kilograms (8.8 million pounds) of tea from India; by 1991, imports had risen to 104.5 million kilograms (230 million pounds), 51.5 percent of India’s total tea exports.13

Soviet buyers preferred dark brews rather than the fine and floral qualities of tea from the Darjeeling hills. “They wanted the cheapest,” recalled the third-generation tea merchant Vijay Sarda in his Darjeeling shop Nathmulls. He sat on a stool at the door greeting acquaintances passing along the narrow sidewalk, while his son, Girish, stood behind the counter.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.