Archive for the ‘tea grower’ Category

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devouring the Memoirs of a Memsahib


2011
08.24

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Posted in tea grower, The Empire of Tea | 3 Comments »

I’d like to go into a bit more detail about The Empire of Tea, which I introduced last week (contemplating The Empire of Tea).

After the book’s Introduction, it opens with a description by Iris MacFarlane of marrying a tea planter and her life on the plantation (she’s the mother of her co-author Alan MacFarlane). This first chapter is called Memoirs of a Memsahib.

I’ve resolved to be a bit more concise in my blogging, when possible, so I’ll boil down her primary themes. The most important seems to be that the people actually growing and processing the tea weren’t treated very well at all. She describes the colonial beliefs with which she was raised and that she brought with her into this new life. She even says near the end of the chapter that the other planters’ wives, who hadn’t bothered questioning the status quo, had had a far more pleasant life than she did.

But the majority of the chapter has to do with the relationship between the master and his servant, as well as the way in which the tea growing society/company did nearly everything it could to keep things as they were. Those are the main thoughts. Her writing is quite compelling, so I’d recommend you get your hands on a copy of this enthralling story.

She watched her mother keep a very close eye on the cook and his accounts years before she knew she’d be a tea planter’s wife. As she writes, ‘…The cook went to the bazaar every morning and my mother wrote down his purchases in her Mensahib’s Account Book. Everything was very cheap but the cook’s figures were daily questioned; Indians were “chilarky“, a word that covered lying, cheating and a general (innate of course) inability to resist being saucily devious.’

There’s much more of this. She’s instructed by the other planters’ wives in how to avoid the servants stealing silverware. The remarkable thing is that she slowly becomes curious about these people’s lives and tries valiantly to do her part to improve the situation. The depictions of these attempts and her awakening to the servants’ plight is what makes the story continue to draw me in. It’s as if the reader’s watching her consciousness develop as the story unfolds.

But I’ll leave you with how she describes her initial impressions of her arrival. On page 5, she says:

I had absolutely no idea of the process that turned this perfumed profusion into a drink from a pot. I arrived in July 1946 with all my misconceptions in place.

Then a bit later on page 9, she continues:

I went to bed happily unaware that I would actually spend twenty years in tea; it would be 1966 before I was carried out on a stretcher from this beautiful, vibrant, exhausting, magical country.

Isn’t that alluring? Why did she have to go out on a stretcher? We have to keep reading to find out. And how about the phrase perfumed profusion? I’ll use that one again, I’m sure.

No chilarky from me. I can’t wait to guide you along through the rest of this book.

(Source: The Empire of Tea pp 1-27)

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an entirely new sense of both taste and smell


2011
08.15

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Posted in Ashok Kumar Lohia, Darjeeling, Darjeeling Singbulli, first flush, muskatel, second flush, tea grower, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »



It’s been interesting to go back and look at some of my earliest blogposts and see not only how different my method was then but also the dramatic difference in content. I reported on some relatively early experiences with Darjeeling when I wrote Getting my brain around Darjeeling.

I mentioned an interview with a tea grower called Ashok Kumar Lohia and his attempt to explain what makes Darjeeling tea different from all others. I liked his musings so much that I’ll actually quote what I said about it way back then:

The last thing I want to mention is how the interview began. He was asked why Darjeeling tea was so special. So different from other teas. His answer was that because the tea was grown so high in the mountains in the shadow of the Himalayas that there was something mystical about it. That the soil and the air was certainly crucial, but that the god Shiva lived there and his spirit affected the tea. It’s easy for me to dismiss that part, but then he said that the people who actually tend to the tea have an important impact on the way every cup of tea turns out. That growing tea takes a patience and dedication that has been honed for generations.

I’m sitting here on a very humid rainy day drinking a cup of Darjeeling Singbulli and I’m contemplating how my tastes have changed. This very delicious second flush is rather good, but it’s quite strong and possibly a little overbearing. Early on, I’d have veered away from a first flush because to my taste there simply wasn’t enough there to taste. That was then. It’s as if I’ve grown an entirely new sense of both taste and smell.

Don’t get me wrong. This has both a floral and citrus taste that I love in good Darjeelings. The muskatel is bold and tasty. But I’m smiling to myself that there was a time I’d want more boldness. Maybe a hammer blow of it. My tongue is begging me to brew a light and delicate first flush Darjeeling next to balance all of this power.

I might just do that.

Here’s a blogpost where I went into more detail about Darjeeling first or second flush?