After receiving an email from the tea dealers Nathmulls in the town of Darjeeling for an offer of the latest summer harvest of F.T.G.F.O.P. Castleton tea, I made a join order of two kilos for my te-addicted colleagues in the maths department in Dauphine, delivery that I found in my office this morning. Truly terrific tea, at about a fifth of the price asked by the major tea chain in Paris!
When looking for Darjeeling tea in the recent days, I found out that the summer (or second flush) harvest has been very limited due to a 104 day strike in the region linked with the call for the creation of a Gorkhaland state and the separation from West Bengal. I remember discussing the issue last year in Darjeeling, with guides and taxi drivers, who were calling for the recognition of their cultural specificities, including the use of Nepali in local schools rather than Bengali. What amazes me a lot in this strike is the engagement of the tea garden workers, who have certainly few alternatives if any in terms of income sources. Unless I misread the situation and they were barred from attending the gardens… (Of lesser concern is the rise of the tea prices by a factor of ten for the highest quality leaves.) Hopefully, the tea gardens will recover from being left to grow wild for such a long while. And from workers leaving the region to find work elsewhere.
With high probability (!), I am off to Kolkata tonight, almost an exact year after I visited the city and the Department of Statistics of the University of Kolkata. On this occasion, I will attend a conference celebrating the 125th birthday of Mahalanobis and be staying at the Indian Statistical Institute, in another part of the city. Although I will only stay there for three days, I am looking forward meeting old friends and new faces, enjoying Bengali food and replenishing my reserves of Darjeeling tea. Shubho Nabobarsho (Happy New Year in Bengali)! As in the previous trip, I was also invited at a second conference at the Indian Association For Productivity, Quality & Reliability, on New Paradigms in Statistics for Scientific and Industrial Research, but decided against talking there for fear of being stuck for hours in the infamous Kolkata traffic.
While in India, I took the opportunity to buy Darjeeling tea in large quantities (15 boxes!) as teas from a wide variety of gardens and types were available, including my favourite, Muscatel. Some of which are for family and friends. We also drove through huge tea gardens on our way back to Bagdogra airport, with new buds already growing on the tea bushes. (The pictures below are taken from the Long View tea estate.)
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