We also spent time at the Selim Hill Tea Garden, which borders the town of Kurseong and dates to 1870. Sitting at 4,000 feet above sea level, the estate is named after the tea plantation’s founder, called Selim Sahab by the locals. The current manager, Shahab Mallick, explained to me that the estate is 100 per cent organic and that it has moved away from the commercial model of other tea plantations in the area. Instead, they’ve created the Selim Hill Collective, with an inclusive, sustainable approach to tea growing that’s designed to preserve biodiversity and treat workers fairly.
The estate’s 240 permanent staff receive accommodation, social security and medical care and we learned about the whole tea-production process from start to finish: Plucking, weathering, rolling, drying, sorting and packing. Mallick showed me around the estate’s cottage, now inhabited by the owners. I was excited to learn that Rabindranath Tagore, the 1913 Nobel Prize laureate for literature, used to stay there.
Those who want to visit Darjeeling to be immersed in its tea culture can do so even more easily by staying overnight at a luxurious tea estate such as the Taj Chia Kutir Resort and Spa, the Glenburn Tea Estate, the Ging Tea House or the Singtom Tea Estate & Resort.
By Romy Gill © The New York Times Company
The article originally appeared in The New York Times.
Source: CNA
