Darjeeling tea is renowned for its delicate taste and fragrance. Since 1850, it has been explicitly favored by British tea aficionados.
But now, Darjeeling tea estate is reeling under threat of dreadful weather along with a blight of bugs. As per the estate owners, the area where tea is grown in the Himalayan foothills is facing disaster. This has led to a threat to loom over the UK’s top choices for an aristocratic tea cup.
During the main growing season, the tea bushes were weakened by the drought condition. As per the tea experts, poor rains have also led to more pest attacks. Red spider mite, tea mosquito bug, and blister blight were a major threat to the tea crops.
Moreover, the landslides resulted from heavy downpours during other times of the year also wreaked havoc over the tea bushes.
According to the Indian Tea Association, the disaster has further led to drop in the yields. Since 2010, yields have dropped down significantly to an average of 8,500 tons a year. This was about 10,000 tons a year between 2000 and 2009.
There are close to 87 tea estates in the Darjeeling hills in West Bengal, employing some 70,000 people. The annual turnover of Darjeeling tea estates is somewhere about £55 million a year. But along with the terrible weather and bug attacks, increasing labor costs, falling demand and aging tea bushes are also affecting the production.
The owners are disappointed as there are a few bushes which are 75 to 100 years old. These bushes are less producing and need replacement which is an extremely expensive affair.
However, some new Darjeeling bushes have been implanted and caution is being taken by the labors who are also building new walls to stop topsoil from being eroded in the event of a flood.
Image Credit: Mayatoday
Please Note: Any information picked from here must be attributed to skymetweather.com