How climate change is threatening the flavour — and future — of India's prized Darjeeling tea

On a misty process daytime in Darjeeling, Satish Mitruka walks through and through the sear leaves of his estate's camellia sinensis bushes, explaining how changing weather patterns are affecting his business.

"Darjeeling is a dying industry," said Mitruka, a third-generation tea harvester in this area of West Bengal in India's northeast, adding that he keeps hearing that statement from his clients abroad.

"It's an alarming situation for us."

Late February and early March is when plucking begins for the prime first flush of Darjeeling, often called the "champagne of teas." This first harvest of leaves produces an aroma and flavour that is prized around the world — and is priced accordingly, up to as much as $2,200 per kilogram.

But months of extremely dry weather this winter, followed by heavy rainfall in March, has made the harvest difficult this year, with the taste the region is famous for increasingly at risk as quality dips.

If the soil is starved of water, Darjeeling's tea bushes — spread out over 87 geographically certified tea estates — don't produce the quality leaves that lead to a premium first flush.

Darjeeling has four seasonal flushes, with the first producing the lightest, most delicate and floral, slightly fruity tea. The second flush, harvested in May and June, is more full-bodied and spicy and what most people recognize as a quintessential Darjeeling cup. It's followed by the less prized monsoon and autumnal flushes.

The erratic weather affects the taste of the tea — and, consequently, its reputation, built over almost 200 years after the British introduced Chinese tea plants to this area of the Himalayan foothills in the 1840s.

"When we experience dry weather, we do not get that soothing taste, that flowery aroma," said Mitruka.

Why your Darjeeling tea might not taste the same

Mitruka says sudden shifts in temperature and unpredictable rainfall patterns are the new normal in the region, which sits at an elevation of more than 2,000 metres.  

The threat of climate change is ever-present in the Himalayas. The mountain range is warming nearly 50 per cent faster than the global average, according to research conducted by an international team of experts and published in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment. 

"What happens in the Himalayas, as you go higher in elevation, the rate of the rise in temperature is faster," said Eklabya Sharma, a longtime ecologist based in Siliguri, West Bengal, who has spent decades working on conservation in the region. 

"So, glaciers are melting, the precipitation pattern is unprecedented and flood intensity and frequency have increased." 

While official data is limited, Sharma said the effects of climate change on the region's tea gardens is evident, with winter rainfall and snow — which melts into the soil and keeps plants moist — very infrequent in recent years.

The erratic weather also includes heavy rainfall, including the torrential downpours that hit the area last October. They triggered landslides that killed more than 20 people, destroyed homes and wiped out five per cent of the region's tea gardens.

India is the second largest producer of tea in the world, behind only China. While Indians consume the most tea globally, roughly half of all Darjeeling teas are exported due to demand for their quality.

Rishi Saria, whose family runs the Gopaldhara and Rohini tea estates, said he spent all February worried about how this season would turn out after months of dry weather, before the heavy rain arrived in March.

"In the last five years we have just had one normal year of rainfall. Otherwise, [we had] four years of drought," Saria said.

His first flush was heavily damaged last year, with a loss of between 70 and 80 per cent. 

He said the region's tea industry cannot remain healthy if the first flush is consistently damaged by lengthy dry spells.

"This is our most prized crop," Saria said, adding that buyers refuse to pay for tea affected by bad weather.

"Once the tea is not so fruity, it is a little plain and it becomes leathery," he explained.  

According to the Tea Board of India, production in Darjeeling's 87 estates is down from a peak of 14 million kilograms a year to only 5.25 million kilograms last year, while prices continue to fall.

The changing climate is not the only challenge facing tea growers. Many of their bushes are getting old, meaning they are less productive and less resilient to the effects of extreme weather.

Darjeeling has also long had to fight off the threat of counterfeit teas claiming to be from the region that are flooding the market, particularly from neighbouring Nepal.

The Indian Tea Association has flagged the issue of copycats stealing the logos and packaging of premium Darjeeling estates, and has called on the Indian government to do more to address the problem.

"All the gardens are bleeding red. All the gardens have sustained huge losses," Mitruka said.

The more long-term concern is that as the taste of Darjeeling tea flattens with drought damage, the region could lose its identity as a source of premium tea.

As profits fall, the next generation is less keen to join the industry their mothers and fathers grew up in. 

Mitruka's passion for tea and the process of making it was passed down to him by his father and grandfather, but he says his 24-year old son is hesitant to join the family business.

"When I talk to my workers, they also say they don't want their children to pluck the leaf," he said. 

Satish says while the uncertainty is a result of pressure from shrinking margins, it is rooted in the climate.

"The weather is not helping us at all," he said. 

Foreign correspondent

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