Life beyond chai

Ifyou are a fan of tea, the aromatic brew from Darjeeling or Assam taken black without milk and sugar rather than the milky, syrupy chai, then tea is what you will miss most in Sri Lanka, an unexpected discovery during a recent visit.

- KANIKA DATTA.

Yet this little green island outperforms India’s vast and hoarytea industry in the world markets. Of course, the comparison is unfair, since the flavourful variety grown in the uplands of West Bengal and along the Brahmaputra has a natural advantage that Ceylon Tea, for all its energetic branding, can’t quite match.

Note also that Sri Lanka produces a third of India’s annual production, the world’s second-largest producer (naturally, China is the largest producer). Yet two Sri Lankan companies figure among the world’s top-10 exporter suppliers. India has just one. That is Tetley, a British brand that the Tata group presciently acquired in 2000; it remains the group’s most consistently successful overseas acquisition.

When it comes to tea brands, only Tetley keeps the Indian flag flying, though the Indian tea industry is over170 years old —and Tetley was anestablished label even before the Tata acquisition. But Sri Lanka’s indigenously developed Dilmah, a 40-year-old brand ina 160-year-old industry, figures high on the list.