Now the new plantings on most gardens are with saplings from cultivars rather than assorted seeds. In Darjeeling these are referred to as clonal varieties, as they produce a replica of the parent plant. While India’s Tocklai Tea Research Institute released its first clone in 1949 and has a few hundred on stock, three cultivars are by far the most popular in Darjeeling: AV–2, B–157, P–312.* Bushes behave more similarly and leaves are as uniform as possible, which means withering and fermentation can be more exact. “Clonal is easier to manufacture,” Sharma said.
“Some you can’t believe the flavor,” Mittal said. “So intense.” He can prepare a cup with lower-grade fannings and it comes closer to tea steeped from better leaves. “It’s on a high pedestal.”
Yet much of the current optimism among garden owners and managers—what keeps many of them in the business for the moment—stems not from such sales figures or even flavors but rather a recent legal ruling.
In 2004, to stanch rampant counterfeiting, mislabeling, and misuse of the name, and to discourage fraudulent claims, imitation, and adulteration, Darjeeling tea become the first product to which India, as a member of the World Trade Organization, awarded “geographical indication” (GI) status. This was a significant step toward seeking international protection for the product, which came in October 2011. Darjeeling tea was then awarded Protected Geographical Indication (PGI) from the European Commission, one of the first non-European products to receive such designation. Darjeeling tea is now a geographically protected product like Scotch whisky, Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese, and saffron from La Mancha, Spain.
While trademarks are used for private entities, geographic protection is communal and extends to the collective community producing a specific product in a specific area. According to the Tea Board of India, “Darjeeling Tea” means—only and specifically—tea that has been cultivated, grown, produced, manufactured, and processed in an orthodox manner on Darjeeling’s eighty-seven tea gardens.
Forty million kilos of “Darjeeling tea” sell each year, insiders frequently reiterate, yet the area is actually producing just a fifth of that. “Once fully into force, you will have more demand than supply,” said Vijay Dhancholia on Marybong. “Then you will get more price.” Managers are saying the same thing all over Darjeeling, almost like a mantra.
“As of now, blenders in EU countries generally mix forty-nine percent of any tea with fifty-one percent of Darjeeling tea and still sell it as Darjeeling tea,” Tea Board of India chairman M. G. V. K. Bhanu said after the ruling. “But it has now been decided that only those packets that contain one hundred percent Darjeeling tea can be sold as Darjeeling tea.”3 Such packets will carry the Darjeeling logo as well as the PGI logo.
As nearly 60 percent of exports head to the EU, and the majority of those to Germany, that’s huge news. Germany is Darjeeling’s largest importer and most important client. They buy in bulk and reexport much of it. “Germans are traders, not consumers,” the manager at one top estate said. “They are big clients but not forever. It won’t last long with the PGI changes,” he predicted, indicating that many of the importers will lose interest when they can no longer blend and profits become harder to make. “Why should they continue to promote Darjeeling tea if they don’t have a stake in it?” another manager said, arguing that Darjeeling tea was simply being bought and sold as a bulk commodity. “They will concentrate their efforts elsewhere—on Nepal.”
The PGI notification took effect in November 2011 and started a five-year grace—or transition—period. The year 2016 is the most anticipated in industry memory.
Darjeeling teas will benefit, but which ones will benefit most isn’t yet clear. J. Thomas’s Choudhury thinks exports and high-end teas; Sengupta at the Chamong group’s headquarters in Kolkata disagrees. “It will help everyone,” he said, “and will help the middle and bottom teas even more.” As the price of Darjeeling tea rises, the first to benefit will be those at the bottom as the price gets pulled up, he said. “The Rs two thousand [per kilo wholesale; $36] tea will now be Rs six thousand, the Rs three hundred [$5.50] tea will be Rs six hundred.” Buyers used to paying a certain amount will want to pay about the same, he thought, and will go after a lower-level Darjeeling tea that has come up in price as opposed to spending more.
“It’s about supply and demand,” said Ambootia manager Jay Neogi. Small, white tea bowls, stacked upside down four levels high, ran along the white tile counter in the estate’s large tasting room. “Darjeeling tea is a limited product. Other countries can increase production and just plant more tea bushes. In Darjeeling you can’t.” The hills are protected from further tea expansion, the clearing of the forests now illegal, and the area’s topography and difficulties in irrigating makes planting out new gardens impossible. Resources—from manpower to water—are already being stretched. “So as demand gets higher than supply, prices will rise.”
This hinges on the distinctiveness of Darjeeling tea and the impossibility of producing a similar one elsewhere. As a poster hanging on Ambootia’s tasting room wall exclaims, “Darjeeling Tea. Born only in Darjeeling. Desired worldwide.”
Among the lonely voices of those who don’t think PGI designation alone will make a significant difference in how much their tea fetches on the market is Rishi Saria of Gopaldhara and Rohini estates. “Prices of Darjeeling tea will never go up unless Indians starting drinking Darjeeling tea.”
Indians generally prefer stronger, brisker teas, with plenty of milk and sugar, over Darjeeling’s delicate and fragrant flavors. Lack of a national Indian market with more readily accessible clients has long been what Sandeep Mukherjee at the DTA calls “an inherent handicap.” Nearly all of the tea needs to be exported to faraway clients. Some shift has recently occurred. The rising middle class means more Indians can afford the higher prices Darjeeling tea commands, but whether they will opt for it over colas and coffee is another matter.
In a small, randomly chosen grocery store on a side street in central Kolkata, among shelves of Amul Gold milk, mung dal, and hefty sacks of basmati rice, sat boxes of Darjeeling tea by Typhoo and Lipton as well as Tata Gold Fine Darjeeling Tea. “To enjoy the fine flavour—Brew,” the front of the Tata packet instructs. “Do not boil,” a distinct change in the way most Indians make their tea at home.
Also on the shelves were, more significantly for the industry, packets of popular Tata Tea Gold. These contain a blend of Assam CTC for strength and body and 15 percent Darjeeling long-leaf tea, which, says recent publicity, will “open up and release a superior aroma.” That gives a staple drink something of a premium touch. Across the bottom of the familiar green-and-yellow package runs its catchphrase: “Rich aroma, refreshing taste.”
Tata stormed the global market in the early 1990s and in 2000 consolidated its rise by taking over Tetley Tea; Tata is now the world’s second-largest tea company, after Unilever (which has Brooke Bond, Lipton, and PG Tips in its portfolio). In India, Tata has a strong presence on supermarket shelves and in kitchen cabinets with a range of offerings from its various brands: Tata Tea, Tetley, Good Earth, Kanan Devan, Chakra Gold, and Gemini. At the Tuesday auction for Darjeeling tea at J. Thomas & Co. in Kolkata, Tata is now the biggest domestic player and the largest buyer in terms of volume. That has happened, said Choudhury, only within the last handful of years. “Knocking to Tata” is now heard over and over in his auction room, especially on midrange lots. According to Choudhury, Tata Global is buying about 12–15 percent of what is offered at auction.