Home Brew

Guwahati’s rise as a tea auction hotspot

- SANSKRITA BHARADWAJ

Post lunchtime on a crisp winter afternoon, Rupesh Khakholia settled into a black leather chair at his tea shop in Fancy Bazaar, a bustling market in Guwahati. His tiny office was lined by posters and boxes for various kinds of tea—CTC, green and orthodox, and numerous speciality varieties. Outside, a few employees worked frantically to package teas and keep pace as new crates arrived from nearby warehouses.

Last October, amid the COVID-19 pandemic, Khakholia bought a batch of Manohari Gold tea—a highly prized speciality tea from the Manohari Tea Estate in Assam’s Dibrugarh district—at ₹75,000 per kilogram. This was a record price, confirming Manohari Gold one of the most expensive teas in the world, and it made for many giddy headlines. Khakholia placed his winning bid from his office computer, in an online auction run by the Guwahati Tea Auction Centre.