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Tea Tourism : The hot new Engine of Growth for Darjeeling’s Economy
First published on Travel Span ; contributed by Madhav Sarda, Managing Director, Golden Tips Tea
Why Shouldn’t Darjeeling be everyone’s cup of tea
Some people travel for leisure, many people travel for food and some travel for both. So, it would be fair to say that there would be people who travel for the drink that many of us just can’t do without, first thing in the morning. There are few better places to savour a cup of tea than at a tea plantation, close to the land where the leaves were plucked from, overlooking verdant hillsides and picturesque valleys. India has a plethora of stays for tea lovers, mostly estates from yesteryears which have been refurbished into quaint homestays.
In the British era, Darjeeling was one of the favourite retreats for the officers. With its quaint colonial charm and endless green stretches of lush tea plantations, the region has been a favourite for people who have yearned to do away with city life for some time, and get lost in magical natural beauty. Nowadays, estates have started adding varied experiences like horse riding, nature trains, visit to local families, cultural evenings, among other things. Hence, Tea tourism provides travellers with the opportunity to interact with nature, wildlife and simultaneously extract the goodness of socio-cultural diversity of the region.
People can learn about local cultures by getting a first-hand account of the rituals and ceremonies. Boosting rural tourism will help solve socio-economic problems and alleviate the livelihoods of denizens.
It would not be incorrect to state that tea tourism can alter the tea drinking experience entirely by helping us understand the origins, processing, and terroir of tea in an intellectual manner. It can engage sensorially – we can touch the dew laden tea leaves and smell the earthiness of the soil in which it grows. Sometimes to taste the best tea, you just need to have a sense of adventure.
With the government allowing tea garden owners to use a part of their unused land for the purpose of tea tourism, there is also a growing need to educate tea estate owners, guides, and travel agencies on the benefits of tea tourism.
The Challenges: – Tea tourism in India is still in its nascent stage. Given our colonial history and our own rich legacy, India has immense potential to offer a robust tea-tasting and tourism experience. However, it lacks proper structure, policy and marketing initiatives.
Detailed planning is required for making tea tourism more attractive in India. The Tea Board and the Tourism ministry at the Centre can join hands to play a crucial role in this endeavour. Tea companies too should come forward and aim to promote Eco-Tourism by devoting land which is not feasible for plantation tea for multifarious tea-related activities, and setting up resorts and homestays.
This will boost the economy of the region by creating new jobs, increasing revenues of all stakeholders, improve infrastructure and plant a sense of cultural exchange between visitors and locals.
Organising Tea Festivals in the tea gardens, visits to Tea Boutiques located at nearby towns where exotic teas, tea wares & souvenirs are on display, will further drive interest in such tea tourism.
Tea gastronomy could be highlighted with the promotion of Teainfused drinks & beverages, confectionery, food and this could further add to the many lucrative avenues for the areas around the tea estate. These steps could help promote, upgrade & highlight the consumption of teas as well as their multi-health benefits, which fall within the ambit of Tea Tourism.
Most of the above measures can inject a much-needed impetus to the Tea Tourism industry, tea trade in general, rural areas scattered around tea plantations, tourist guides & interpreters, manufacturers & dealers of tea accessories etc. However, there needs to be a concerted effort involving all stakeholders to move ahead in this direction.
Lastly, the pandemic has led people to search for more isolated and secluded spots, which has slowly resulted in more and more people being interested in these beautifully preserved estates. This accounts for the rise in Indian tourists visiting tea estates, which were predominantly popular with foreigners. This momentum needs not only to be preserved but also to be accelerated further.
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Why shouldn’t Darjeeling be everyone’s cup of tea?
Some people travel for leisure, many people travel for food and some travel for both. So, it would be fair to say that there would be people who travel for the drink that many of us just can’t do without, first thing in the morning.
Golden Tips' opens its flagship tea boutique and café - Teattoria
First published on Millennium post ; contributed by Madhav Sarda, Managing Director, Golden Tips Tea
Capturing the essence of Darjeeling is a home-grown tea brand 'Golden Tips Teas', which comes with a heritage of 80+ years and four generations of tea entrepreneurship. Following the 'direct from plantation + auction model', the expertise of 'Golden Tips' lies in sourcing, packaging and marketing of premium quality single-origin teas and tea blends. Apart from the domestic market, the company exports teas to 90+ countries with Russia, Japan, Mongolia, Nepal, Bhutan and now China being their main international markets.
'Golden Tips' has recently opened its flagship tea boutique and cafe 'Teattoria' in Darjeeling. It offers Italian/ Continental and Oriental cuisine along with specialty teas and exotic mocktails.
"We have endeavoured to cater to domestic as well as foreign customers, especially those visiting India, through our omnichannel presence across India and of course through our online route. Our specialised tea stores, including our flagship tea boutique and café 'Teattoria' are spread across Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Gangtok and are playing a major role in popularising the finest teas of India and making them available to connoisseurs," said the managing director of 'Golden Tips'.
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Tea. The love for this elixir made the British do some industrial reconnaissance and bring the seeds of Camellia Sinensis to the foothills of the mighty Himalayas, to Darjeeling. Darjeeling is blessed with a unique terroir with an altitude ranging between 1200 – 6000 ft above sea level.
Butterfly Pea Flower (Blue Tea): A Wonder Beverage Par Excellence
'First published on the health site contributed by Madhav Sarda, Managing Director, Golden Tips Tea'
Blue Tea helps boost immunity, acts as paracetamol, and has anti-aging effects. Read on to know more about the health benefits of butterfly pea flowers.
Over the years we all have come across various types of teas like Black, Green, Masala, and White teas, but have you ever heard of Blue Tea? Seems a bit weird for tea to have that name, right? Made by infusing Butterfly Pea flowers, Blue tea (Aparajita or Neelkanth) is named after its beautiful azure blue hue. When infused in hot water with lemon in it, this flower gives the famous blue color to the beverage. This tea has a distinct floral aroma that gives it an earthy and woody flavor, similar to green tea in some ways.
This super beverage is also a caffeine-free herbal concoction packed with antioxidants and is also rich in Anthocyanins, which are compounds responsible for its unique blue color. For this reason, manufacturers also use Butterfly Pea flower in cosmetics and as a natural dye for foods, drinks, and textiles.
The flowers are also commonly brewed into an herbal tea, often alongside ingredients like lemongrass, honey, and lemon. When the acidity of the Pea flower tea changes, the color changes as well. This quality makes the butterfly pea flower a popular ingredient among mixologists for specialty cocktails. Recently, the flower made its way into the cocktail world, where it's used to make Blue Gin.
According to the Journal of Pharmacological Reports, the Butterfly Pea flower is a common ingredient in rice-based recipes, such as Nasi Kerabu in Malaysia and rice cakes in Singapore.
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Role of digital and social media in popularizing Blue Tea
Blue tea has been available in the market for long but now thanks to social media, food bloggers, and travel bloggers, these teas are very popular and are widely available for consumption at retail stores, supermarkets, and online marketplaces. They are regularly used by tea aficionados across the globe for their various health benefits too.
According to Verified Market Research, the herbal tea market was valued at $3289.67 million in 2020 and is projected to reach $4877.80 million by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 4.89 percent from 2021 to 2028. India is second only to China in terms of acceptance of teas that have been blended with spices, fruit bits, flower petals, herbs, and a whole array of botanicals.
7 Health Benefits of Butterfly Pea Flower Blue Tea
Some of the health benefits of Blue Tea are as follow:
1. Acts as a Paracetamol
Blue tea is believed to aid in bringing down a fever by dilating the blood vessels right beneath the skin. This would enable the air to cool the blood more easily.
2. Stress Buster
A high dosage of blue pea flowers has had beneficial anxiolytic effects in humans and has helped the body deal with stress.
3. Immunity booster and anti-inflammatory
The blue flowers are rich in flavonoids, which are powerful antioxidants with anti-inflammatory properties. They also help boost immunity.
4. Asthma healer
Blue tea can help give relief from cough, cold, and asthma, as it acts as an expectorant. In other words, helps clear the mucus from the airways, lungs, and trachea.
5. Boosts memory
Blue tea has garnered a lot of interest across the world and this can be attributed to the memory-boosting properties it has. Studies have shown that the Blue Pea flowers assist memory and brain function as they help increase Acetylcholine (a Neurotransmitter).
6. Reduces risk of cell damage
The rich color of blue tea indicates the high quantity of antioxidants in it. Antioxidants reduce the risk of cell damage, they are also known to slow down the effects of aging on skin and hair.
7. Anti-diabetic
Butterfly pea flowers help inhibit glucose uptake from food and thus, help treat type II diabetes. The benefits of having blue tea are not just internal in nature, they have a number of external benefits too, like for the skin and overall beauty.
Some of them are enumerated below:
- The tea is well-known for its anti-aging benefits, due to its high antioxidant content. This makes the skin shinier and younger from within.
- Blue pea flower is excellent for the hair too, as it contains Anthocyanin - a compound known to increase blood circulation in the head and therefore maintain a healthy scalp.
- The flavonoids present in blue tea may also stimulate collagen production, helping develop and maintain skin elasticity.
At Golden Tips stores, both physical and online, blue tea has emerged as one of our bestsellers. It has overtaken our previous hot-sellers and this trend is here to stay. We have introduced other flower blends too in our product portfolio like Chamomile, Hibiscus, Rose, Jasmine, Lavender but have given them an 'Indian Spin'.
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