This article is a theoretical assumption, based on the current trends, and market analysis pertaining to the future of Darjeeling tea and the tea industry in India and abroad concerning the changes that it would meet in a hundred years from today. It is a creative effort in trying to join the dots and forming a clearer picture of the future Darjeeling tea and the tea industry would possible hold a hundreds hence.
A hundred years is a long time for an average person to witness things happening around in his or her lifetime. Given the rising demand for organic and fair-trade teas, we can fairly assume that almost all tea gardens would be converted to 100% bio-organic.
Globally there would be near to 100% preference for organic food products within the next hundred years and tea industry will be no different.
It is assumed that all tea gardens would also adopt fair trade and get certification from the issuing authority in near future.
All Darjeeling tea gardens will be privatized. It is very well known that any organization works more efficiently under privatization than under the indirect management of the government of any type or size. By 2114, almost all Darjeeling tea estate would be privatized to yield better crop, for better management, for better branding and to sustain the changing needs of the industry. In this ever-changing scenario of open and global trades, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to see foreign direct investments entering the Indian tea industry and taking active part in global trade.
More cultivars would be developed by the tea research association of India to suit the changing climatic conditions.
Cultivars to suit warmer climate and lesser rainfall would be developed. Since the world population would rise in multiple folds by then, so would be the case with Darjeeling tea lovers. In order to meet this rising demand constrained with limited area of cultivation, cultivars would be developed to produce more teas out from the present tea growing areas.
The aim would be produce more teas out from the tea bushes as the demand to supply ratio will widen exponentially.
The need to experiment and produce more varieties in terms of flavour, taste, and aroma would be the need of the hour, since, the competition from the emerging neighboring markets and other global tea markets would be immense overlooking or ignoring the trends would directly affect the economy and employment capacity of the region.
Darjeeling tea industry would still remain as one source, which would employ a good percentage of the population and links directly or indirectly to the source of livelihood of more than half the population of the region.
A hundred years from today, the cost of Darjeeling teas would be very expensive.
Given the present trend of rising labor costs, production cost, a gap in demand and supply chain, the rising preference of premium teas in the upper and middle class society and a host of other expenditures; the cost of sipping Darjeeling teas, especially the premium and specialty teas will be a very costly affair. Only the serious tea drinker and a Darjeeling tea lover would be able to afford the pleasures of sipping premium and high-end premium teas from the hills of Darjeeling.
The percentage of fake Darjeeling teas would rise exponentially. To this day, the fake Darjeelings still occupies more than three-fourth of the total teas sold as Darjeeling. The unofficial or unaccounted survey remains elusive which would leave us stare at the cup and ponder the chances of genuineness that was brewed.
What would be the ratio then? The ration or percentage of fake teas sold as Darjeeling tea?
It is open to speculation and statistical analysis. The industry’s inability to meet the demand would genuinely give birth to the fake markets in an unprecedented manner.
It would take a keen and an expert eye and taste buds to discern the pure from the fake ones.
What would remain the same is the number of flushes that the Darjeeling tea industry produces. First flush crop, second flush crop and autumn flush crop would continue to be the three tea producing crops. It wouldn’t come as a surprise if the teas produced from Monsoon crop would be taken as seriously as the crops from other three flushes.
We are open to suggestions and theories from tea experts, tea analysts, and Darjeeling tea lovers from across the globe, with regard to the changes that the Darjeeling teas industry would meet in the next 100 years.
” What future does Darjeeling tea hold?
What changes do you foresee?
Is there a possibility to produce a better tea then what is produced and relished today?
Will Darjeeling teas be caked and preserved like its Chinese cousins? “
Your thoughts.
Despite all the changes that we foresee for Darjeeling tea, a hundred years from today, it would still continue to unfold the happy-wrinkles, and produce a luminous satisfaction reflected in the eye of a tea lover while sipping Darjeeling from her cup, just like it does today, and just like it did a hundred years ago.