Help Makaibari

I've posted this on Twitter and passed on the news to World Tea News (who did a story on it), but I wanted to post here as well. Darjeeling's Makaibari Tea Estate was hit by a cyclone recently, and there was quite a bit of destruction. IMHO, Makaibari is an incredible tea estate with honorable labor and environmental practices, and excellent teas. (Their Silver Green is phenomenal and their Second Flush Muscatel is one of the highest-priced auction teas in the world.) You can donate to help Makaibari through Eco Prima a wholesale tea company, the sole U.S. importer of Makaibari teas, owned by Anupa Mueller, the sister-in-law of Rajah (Makaibari's owner) and a wonderful person in her own right.

Edit -- I originally mistyped and called Anupa Rajah's sister. She is his sister-in-law. Also, I received the following update:

Anupa -- Makaibari was not the only garden to be hit. The entire sub-district got hit pretty bad. Makaibari is situated in the Kurseong Valley in the district of Darjeeling - the entire valley was affected. (I've provided Rajah's description below).

Rajah -- Castleton had heavy damages in their Dhargaon village. There is a huge landslide which has taken away a considerable portion of their tea. The landslide is so devastating that even today a month after the cyclone hit, the slide continues traumatising all in the vicinity with the sound of the slide. More so in the dead of night, as the sliding earth groans horrifically, like a wounded lion as it cascades downhill. The first few nights were sleepless. On top of Singell tea estate, a massive landslide buried a family. all members died. At Longview tea estate, a massive tree which was uprooted, trapped an adolescent girl for over a day, killing her, as none could extricate her. Goethals school, has lost their entire sports campus. Happy Valley lost a great deal of tea as well as a village near the factory, 6 people died on the spot. Goomtee tea estate suffered enormous damages in their villages- mercifully no deaths. Arya tea estate has lost tea and property damage. The list goes on and on. There were about 50 people who died in the cyclone in the district. The loss to property in the Kurseong subdistrict alone is around 6 million dollars and the sub-district is quite small.

Anupa -- This should give you some idea. And now with the monsoons there, rebuilding is a real problem. They will have to wait until after the rains to get permanent structures built. Thank you for all your efforts. Rajah tells me that his people are overwhelmed at the generosity of people thousands of miles away and have hope that they will come through because of it.

In answer to my question regarding why Makaibari is the only estate that seems to have support here in the states, Makaibari got the press because we (Eco Prima) are here devoted to its cause! Other gardens do not have personal representatives here necessarily and we live at Makaibari and have a market presence here in the U.S. I would not even know how to get relief to the other gardens and there is no district-specific effort that I'm aware of. It makes a difference when the owner lives on the estate and is personally aware of all the grief and damage - it brings it to the forefront and you are more motivated to get attention to it - that's the difference.

(Lindsey -- And because I asked World Tea News to cover it. :) No, really, Anupa has been a much bigger supporter than I. She is very devoted to Makaibari.)

Anupa -- BTW, I concur and would add that Rajah is such a dynamic force that all of Makaibari's devoted fans know of him and his unique compassion for the land and the people of Darjeeling, so there is a human connection to the estate, not JUST the great tea.

Lipton Event

I'm off doing an event with Lipton today. Sorry I've been so brief in my posts. Extremely busy with writing, classes and events these days. I'll be back soon, I promise! In the meantime, the first person to email me with two changes I made on Vee Tea in the last month (outside of new blog posts, of course) gets a one of the following (your pick):

Five boxes of assorted Lipton teas (including their newer pyramid bags with larger leaves and more refined flavors)
Assorted samples sent to me by various companies (I've tried them and reviewed them or taken notes for reviews and no longer need them.)
A tiny sample of Makaibari Reserve Silver Green (Incredible!!!)
A tiny sample of a fantastic First Flush Taiwanese Oolong
Two of my tea seeds

Silver Tips Tearoom Blog

You may have noticed that I added another new blog to my blogroll. It's by a friend of mine, Anupa Mueller, and it's about her fantastic NY tearoom, Silver Tips Tea. She posts about going green, tea events, tearoom stories, tea recipes, Makaibari Estate and all kinds of other goodies. Be sure to check it out!

Tea Tourism in India

Tea tourism in India is getting more and more popular with tourists from around the world. All types of people from around the globe are beginning to think about and appreciate the beauty of what goes into the world's second-most popular drink (after water). Time Magazine is definitely a fan of the trend--they named Makaibari Tea Estate one of the best things about Asia for 2008. From the article:






















"If Darjeeling is the champagne of teas, Makaibari is the Krug or Henri Giraud. At the 677-hectare Makaibari Tea Estate nestled in the eastern Himalayas, you not only taste the finest of its aromatic, amber brews, but experience tea as a way of life.... After a day's induction — with tea-tasting sessions and a guided tour of the factory to see how luscious, freshly plucked leaves are processed into green, white, oolong and black teas — visitors get some hands-on experience.... Not a tea lover? You will be at Makaibari."

Makaibari was listed under the category "Best for the Soul." Having been there, I have to agree. It is a deeply calming and centering place, and I am thrilled to be returning to Makaibari and several other Darjeeling tea estates as a tour guide this October. We're working out all the details now (Tearooms and tea estates and tea factories! Oh, my!) and I will have them posted here within the next two weeks. It should be a fantastic tour and I hope some of my readers, students, and clients out there can join me. For now, I'm off to work on the itinerary some more!

Coffee & Tea Festival, Day 2

Sadly, the 2008 Coffee & Tea Festival has ended. Over the next week, I'll be filling in the details of this year's Festival. That way, if you didn't make it there this year, you can still know what to expect next year. For now, here's a quick rundown on today.

There was a bigger crowd here than yesterday. And, of course, there were lots of people to meet and products to taste, smell, and see. Here are my personal highlights of the day:

Hearing Tafu's "Green Tea 101", complete with matcha white chocolate cupcakes and chilled sencha
Tasting BiscotTea's Earl Grey biscotti, which was made with Makaibari Estate's Tea
Listening to Chris Cason's (Tavalon) "The Future of Tea" to learn more about one of my current fascinations--tea trends
Buying "From the Ground Up" and talking with filmmaker Su Freidrich (I'll be reviewing the DVD in a few weeks, and interviewing her soon thereafter.)
Sampling SerindipiTea's teas (my friends adored the City Harvest Black Tea with vanilla and orchid) and talking with their manager (Sonam) about Tibetan clothing (I was wearing a Tibetan/Nepalese chupa/boku yesterday.)

More tomorrow! Check back soon!

India Tour

Today is my birthday. I decided to make a special announcement in honor of the occasion. For some time, people have been asking me when I'll start planning tea tours to India. Today, I can safely say "now." Plans are in the works for a trip to Darjeeling this fall. It will be an eco-tour, focusing on organic and fair-trade practices, and a culinary tour, with lots of extraordinary tea. Vee Tea and Silver Tips Tearoom will take a small group to the famed Makaibari Tea Estate and other tea highlights of India this fall. Exciting! More details soon to come.

Makaibari Eco-Tourism

Soon, Makaibari (a fantastic estate which I visited last summer) will have a luxury eco-tourism resort.

Harsh Neotia, chairman of India's famous Ambuja Realty said, “We have finally decided on our partner for tea tourism. We could not have found a better partner than Makaibari, which is globally renowned for its tea. Now we will decide on the scale of the project and the investments involved along with the nature of the partnership."

Exciting!!! Read the full story here.

Down Time

I'm going to be leaving very soon. I decided to take some down time and mentally process my trip a bit. This meant doing a lot of not much at all. I hung out with the Makaibari volunteers and shot the breeze for a while. I drank a lot of tea. I took a tour of the local village, where many of the Makaibari workers live. Drank more tea. Met with the knotting group and found that they're making great progress with the technique. Talked with some of the loacls. Watched a silly movie. Read more of "The Book of Tea." Relaxed. Enjoyed the scenery. It was a good day.

The Bonus Day

I hadn't planned to stay in Kurseong today. I was supposed to go up to Darjeeling (the city... I'm already in the region). However, I am really glad I stayed, as I got to do some very exciting things.

First on the impromptu agenda was a visit to the Darjeeling Tea Research Centre to talk with Dr. Saha, the head researcher there. We talked about soil science (his forte), the plans for the DTRC's expansion (which include more staff, upgraded facilities, an auditorium for lectures and films, a library, and a museum... I can't wait to see it completed!), ground cover, mulching, composting, organic production, and Pranayama (which seems to be a very popular topic around here). Dr. Saha is very knowledgable and I learned a lot during my visit. I hope to get the chance to meet with him more the next time I come to India.

After the DTRC, I met Rajah for lunch (okra, rice, dal, greens, pumpkin soup, and mangoes) then began my craft education project. I taught several local women a craft technique called "knotting," which I learned from one of the world's top five masters in the field, Ed Bing Lee. He uses the technique to make tiny, richly-colored, sculptural pieces out of individual strands of embroidery floss. I use it to make very textural scarves. It's a technique that allows for an enormous range of styles, so I taught the women the basics, told them some of the ways they could vary the technique, and let them run with it. They pick it up so quickly it was astounding! I've taught seasoned crafters in the States the same technique before, but these women were pros with this stuff! Amazing... My hope is that they can use the technique to make crafts that can be sold locally or on the international market and bring some extra income to their families. The women in the Darjeeling region are very enterprising and motivated. I'm sure they'll do well with it, especially since they seem to enjoy the technique and what it produces.

After the craft session, I went back to Rajah's office (to let him know how it went) and met some documentary videographers from the US. We all talked about organic tea production and such for a while and then I headed back to my hotel for a special treat: a Himalayan stick massage. This type of massage is usually only practiced by Brahmins, but one man outside of the Brahmin class learned it and practices it around Kurseong. It is a unique type of massage that involves the rhythmic rapping of two sticks. (He actually uses the verb "beat" to describe this action.) He explained that the rhythm creates a vibration that aids in aligning one's chakras. I can't vouch for that personally, but I can say that it feels great.

In post-massage bliss, I floated up to the dining room to order my dinner. I was lucky enough to meet the hotel's owner, a lovely woman from Kolkata. She asked me about my day, I mentioned the knotting class, and the next thing I knew, we were bonding over dinner. She offered to carry the women's crafts at the hotel's shop (very exciting!). I gave her chef my tea granita recipes. Her chef made me a concoction for my cold, which was incredibly similar to my Witches' Brew (and exactly what I needed). We talked about politics, the hotel, travel, Indian culture, local legends, and a whole host of other things. What a fantastic conversation!

After dinner and talk, I headed back to my room to call Natalia and Pat. They're off in Agra, having a fabulous time. For a split second I thought, "Maybe I should have planned to spend a few days in the Golden Triangle," and then I remembered that the focus of my trip is tea and realized that I'll probably have much more fun in Darjeeling, despite its relative lack of "must see" architecture. Yes, it is all about the tea this trip.

I've decided that if all bonus days are like this, I should change my plans more often!

Makaibari: Day Four

Today I:

Crossed over to the dark side and drank a delicious Assam blend with fresh mint, spices, and milk

Learned just how hard it is to get laundry dry during monsoon season

Picked tea for the first time (with a basket with a headstrap and all)

Saw a secret project that's in progress at Makaibari, and realized that Makaibari is the tea version of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory

Saw the downy buds of growing Silver Tips firsthand

Walked through the Makaibari gardens, checking out the butterflies, streams (with tiny catfish), tiger tracks, and fragrant flowers

Got a leech bite

Got into a very mild car crash (with a tea bush, no less)

Ate more momos (Yum!)

Read more of "The One-Straw Revolution" (I highly recommend this book to those interested in organic agriculture and sustainability.)

Ate tea-smoked mushrooms and ginger "pudding" (cake) with black tea sauce (Double yum!)

AND

Watched a ridiculous movie called "American Chai."

Fun times.

Makiabari: Day Two

Today I awoke with a cold and plans for a tea tasting. Talk about a bad combination! It was fine, though. Natalia and I slurped and spit our way through about 20 unsorted teas and six of Makaibari's premium teas. Amazing. The pinnacle was the last one--Imperial Silver Tips, the highest-priced tea in the world.

Afterward, I switched gears and went to the biofuel plant, where three cows (named Red, Black, and Angry) are housed and their waste is composted for methane cooking gas and slurry for composting into mulch for the tea garden. There's a great program in place that encourages the locals to use the plant for their fuel instead of gathering firewood to burn. Talk about a commitment to sustainability!

Later, Natalia and I headed down the mountain to meet her boyfriend (and my friend and webdesigner) Pat. He had just flown in from Kolkata and we arrived at the airport to surprize him. Rajah arrived a little later and we all waited for some of Rajah's business associates while talking about politics, mangoes in Dubai, and plastic surgeons over a very large beer that was brewed with Himalayan spring water and mixed into shanties with Sprite from a bottle. Normally I don't drink beer during the day or Sprite, well, ever, but this was a pleasant exception to those rules. The associates, a couple from Hyderabad, arrived and we left for Makaibari again. The view of the mountains was the best I've seen so far. I guess Pat got lucky.

When we got back, we chatted more over tea and met with the leading staff of Makaibari. They seemed to be humble and proud of their work at the same time. It was such a contrast to so many Americans who are egomaniacs with no pride in their work. Natalia and Pat left for some alone time and I headed down to the shaman's house for some old-fashioned cold remedies. He had me taste a variety of bitter and sour roots from around Makaibari, each for a different purpose. Then, he have me a tuft of grasses and told me to dampen them, wrap them in cloth, and sniff the fumes to alleviate my cold. Afterward, I went on a walk and enjoyed the night view, and then read "The One-Straw Revolution" by Fukuoku (a loan from Rajah). I don't know if it was something the shaman gave me, the altitude, or just being at Makaibari, but by the time I got back to the hotel, I was on cloud nine. And that was BEFORE the tea-smoked mushrooms and African curry. I love this place.

Down to Kurseong

To say that yesterday was horrendous would be an understatement. It has nothing to do with India or Darjeeling. I suppose mourning isn't any fun no matter where you are. Today, I tied up some loose ends in Darjeeling and headed down the mountain to Kurseong (the home of Makaibari, Castleton, Goom, Ambootia, and numerous other tea estates). As I descended the mountain, the mist moved from the valleys and the steep hills below my feet to the sky above my head, I felt as if my world was being set upright again. Our stop at an ornately decorated and richly colored Buddhist monastary didn't hurt, either.

Early evening, I settled into my lovely "Old-World Style" hotel and immediately ordered a pot of tea from their extensive tea menu. (Oh, how I love India.) Natalia and I called Makaibari to set up a meeting time for tomorrow, looked out over the garden and nearby locals' houses, and then pampered ourselves with spa services (a massage for her, a green tea facial for me, both very relaxing). Afterward, we ate a meal of spicy wontons (Indo-Chinese food is my new favorite type of cuisine...so tasty, and completely different from American-style Chinese food), vegetable korma, rice, and (our OTHER India staple (besides tea)) bottled water. It's the first meal I've been able to enjoy since yesterday, so I really savored it. It seems that travel or this place or something is demanding accelerated healing. As emo as it sounds, I feel like my heart is being ripped out, torn up, sewn together, and shoved back in all at once. Ah, well. Nothing that a good cup of tea can't help, right? Tomorrow: the famed Makaibari Tea Estate.