In Arunachal Pradesh, homegrown tea keeps the kettle on the boil

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories.I first heard about Margherita 10 years ago and was immediately intrigued. A short and very scenic drive from Dibrugarh, this village in Assam remained on my bucket list since, and last week, the trip finally materialised.Its claim to fame is not just as the source of India’s tea story but also of oil, coal and plywood. The Digboi oil refinery is a stone’s throw from here, oil having been discovered accidentally while the railway line was being built in 1881.

Many of the tea estates en route from Dibrugarh—Bogapani, Dirok, Namdang—belong to McLeod Russell, one of India’s largest tea producers.Margherita is also home to the Singpho tribe. I was here to meet Rajesh Singpho who produces the falap, a tea that’s native to this region and community—made from large-leaf Assamica plants, naturally withered, wok-fired and fermented in bamboo tubes, not unlike the puerh. In Rajesh’s home, over tea served with a side of jaggery, we talked about life in the village, and how borders change communities.

For the Singphos and several other tribes in this part of India, borderlines placed them suddenly in three different countries—India, Myanmar and China. While this divide meant that the tribes were now of different nationalities, perhaps even different allegiances, it has forged a greater unity, a greater desire to define and protect identity, practices and way of life. They remain extremely close knit.In 1823, even as the British were trying to break China’s monopoly over tea, Robert Bruce, a Scotsman was introduced to the native tea plant in Margherita.