How climate change threatens the taste – and future – of India’s precious Darjeeling tea
On a foggy March day in Darjeeling, Satish Mitruka walks through the dry leaves of his estate’s tea trees, explaining how climate change is affecting his business.
“Darjeeling is a dying industry,” said Mitruka, a third-generation tea picker in this region of West Bengal in northeast India, adding that he hears that statement again and again from his international clients.
“It’s a scary situation for us.”
The end of February and the beginning of March is when the beginning of Darjeeling, often called the “champagne of tea.” This first crop of leaves produces an aroma and flavor that is prized around the world – and sells for a good deal, up to $2,200 per kilogram.
But months of very dry weather this winter, followed by heavy rain in March, have made the harvest difficult this year, putting the region’s reputation for growing at risk as temperatures rise.
“The climate has changed a lot,” Mitruka told CBC News at Nurbong Tea Garden, the organic farm he owns. “Because tea is a rain-fed crop, it needs proper rainfall [to come] on time.”
When the soil is scarce, Darjeeling’s tea trees – spread over 87 geographically certified tea estates – do not produce quality leaves that lead to high first hits.
Darjeeling has four seasonal variations, the first of which produces a light, soft and floral, slightly fruity tea. The second flush, harvested in May and June, is full-bodied and spicy and what many people see as the quintessential Darjeeling cup. It is followed by monsoon and autumnal flushes which are less expensive.
The changing climate affects the taste of the tea – and, as a result, its reputation, which was built almost 200 years after the British introduced Chinese tea plants to this area at the foot of the Himalayan mountains in the 1840s.
“When we see dry weather, we don’t get that cool taste, the sweet smell of flowers,” Mitruka said.
Climate change threatens India’s tea industry. Nationally, CBC’s Salimah Shivji goes to Darjeeling, India where tea farmers are struggling to hold on to their unique taste.
Climate change is hitting the Himalayas hard
Mitruka says sudden changes in temperature and unpredictable rainfall patterns are common in the area, which sits at an altitude of more than 2,000 meters.
The threat of climate change is ever present in the Himalayan islands. The mountain range is about 50 percent warmer than the global average, according to research conducted by an international team of experts and published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment.
“What’s happening in the Himalayas is, the higher you go, the faster the rate of temperature rise,” said Eklabya Sharma, a longtime ecologist based in Siliguri, West Bengal, who has spent decades working in conservation in the region.
“So, the glaciers are melting, the rainfall pattern is unprecedented and the intensity and frequency of floods has increased.”
Although official data is limited, Sharma said the effects of climate change on the region’s tea gardens are evident, with winter rain and snow – which melts into the soil and keeps the plants moist – less common in recent years.
“For the tea industry, the timing of the rains is very critical,” he told CBC News. “No winter rains means you don’t get hit, if you don’t get hit then you don’t get real tea in the market.”
The changeable weather includes heavy rains, including the strong storms that hit the area last October. They caused a landslide that killed more than 20 people, destroyed homes and wiped out five percent of the region’s tea gardens.
Consumers avoid weather-damaged tea
India is the second largest producer of tea in the world, behind only China. While Indians consume most of the world’s tea, almost half of all Darjeeling teas are exported due to the demand for its quality.
Rishi Saria, whose family owns the Gopaldhara and Rohini tea estates, said he spent all of February worrying about how the season would fare after months of dry weather, before heavy rains arrived in March.
“In the last five years we have had just one normal year of rain. [we had] four years of drought,” said Saria.
His first hit was badly damaged last year, with a loss of between 70 and 80 percent.
He said that the tea industry in this region will not remain healthy if the tea production begins to deteriorate due to prolonged drying.
“This is our most valuable crop,” said Saria, adding that buyers refuse to pay for tea affected by bad weather.
“When the tea is not so fruity, it becomes soft and leathery,” he explained.
According to the Tea Board of India, production at Darjeeling’s 87 estates has fallen from a peak of 14 million kilograms a year to just 5.25 million kilograms last year, while prices have continued to fall.
A changing climate is not the only challenge facing tea farmers. Many of their trees are senescent, meaning they are not productive and cannot withstand the effects of extreme weather.
Darjeeling has also for some time had to fight the menace of fake teas that they say come from the region that flood the market, especially from neighboring Nepal.
The Indian Tea Association has raised the alarm about copycats stealing the logos and packaging of Darjeeling’s top brands, and has called on the Indian government to do more to fix the problem.
“All the gardens are bleeding red. All the gardens have lost a lot,” said Mitruka.
The fear of a generation
The long-term concern is that as the taste of Darjeeling tea declines due to drought damage, the region may lose its identity as a source of premium tea.
As profits decline, the next generation is less inclined to join the industry in which their mothers and fathers grew up.
Mitruka’s love of tea and the process of making it was passed on to him by his father and grandfather, but he says his 24-year-old son is hesitant to join the family business.
“When I talk to my employees, they also say that they don’t want their children to pick a leaf,” he said.
Satish says that while the uncertainty is a result of the pressure of shrinking borders, it is caused by the climate.
“The weather is not helping us at all,” he said.
