It's tea time, folks

Unique festival

India’s first ever tea festival, ‘Tea Festival India’ (TFI), will be held at JW Marriott Hotel on March 18 and 19. Despite being world’s largest tea-drinking nation and having savoured tea for centuries, this would be India’s first ever celebration of the drink.

Over 20 leading tea brands like Brooke Bond, Tetley and Lipton would be part of the festival.
Also showcasing their blends would be speciality brands like Teaveda and Teamonk Global. ‘Tea Festival India’ is being organised by Smart iDeAs and ‘It’s Our Cuppa Tea’, a popular tea group of Bengaluru.

TFI organiser Susmita Das Gupta considers tea similar to wine, in every aspect. “Tea is not very different from wine, if you were to compare their aromas and flavours. High-end tea is quite capable of triggering our senses the same way fine wine does. At ‘Tea Festival India’, we are showcasing some high-end varieties of tea that can cost over a lakh rupees for a kilo!” Susmita mentions that India’s contribution to tea is a massive iceberg and varieties like Darjeeling and Assam tea are just the tip of this iceberg.

Some of India’s star tea masters would be holding workshops at the event. These include Gurmeet Singh, who has 24 tea inventions to his name, and Anamika Singh, Founder of Anandini Himalaya Tea. Jyoti Bhat who has done some ground-breaking work on tea pairing will also be mentoring a workshop at TFI.

Visitors to the festival will get access to sessions on tea sampling and tasting, tea appreciation, tea brewing and food pairing.

‘Tea Festival India’ is endorsed by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry and approved by The Tea Board of India. The festival will also see the launch of integrated tea tourism, as part of which travellers will be offered tours of tea estates in Darjeeling, Munnar, Himachal and Nilgiris.

Tourists will get to see how different tea varieties are made, right from them being plucked to them being served. Organisers of ‘Tea Festival India’ will be releasing India’s first tea table book on this occasion.