Ten tea sellers of Jalpaiguri were handed carts on Tuesday to popularise teas plucked by the district’s small growers and processed in their bought-leaf factories.

At a function hosted by the Jalpaiguri District Small Tea Growers Association, the carts were handed over to the persons who sell tea on various streets in the town.

Solidaridad Network, an international organisation that promotes innovative and sustainable farming practices and facilitates the development of socially responsible, ecologically sound and profitable supply chains, provided the carts.

The small growers provided some tea samples to get the initiative started.

Shatadru Chattopadhyay, the managing director of Solidaridad Network Asia, who attended the event, said that around 1,000 million kilos of tea are sold in India, of which around 350 million kilos are sold from tea stalls.

“In the country, there are small tea growers who also run their bought-leaf factories to process the tea leaves plucked from their plantations. But such teas do not have much of a market even in their local areas. That is why we took the initiative to hand over the carts to tea sellers from where teas made by the growers will be sold,”
he said.

According to him, different varieties of brew, like black and green teas, will be sold from these carts. “This will popularise the teas made by the growers and also expand their markets,” Chattopadhyay added.

Sources in Solidaridad said they planned to hand over 500 such carts to tea sellers, right from the hilly terrains of Kedarnath to the Nilgiris in the south to Assam in the Northeast.

“All these tea cart owners will sell teas produced by the small growers,” said a source.

In India, the small tea sector contributes around half of the total Indian tea production. While most of the teas in the sector are processed in bought-leaf factories or standalone tea processing units, a smaller part is processed in factories run by self-help groups and cooperative societies of the growers.

In Jalpaiguri, small growers own some tea factories.

Tomojeet Chakraborty, the SDO of Jalpaiguri, handed over the carts fitted with solar panels to the tea sellers.

“This is a unique initiative to separately promote teas produced in the small tea sector. We hope it helps growers find new markets for their teas. Once people sip the brew, they will be encouraged to buy the teas,” said the SDO.

Those who got the carts, including some physically challenged persons, praised the endeavour. “I don’t have money to buy a van-rickshaw or a cart. This cart will help me earn a living,” said tea seller Sushanta Choudhury.

Bijoygopal Chakraborty, the secretary of the small growers’ association, said tea drinkers who come to the carts could get an idea about the quality of teas produced by the growers. “We need new channels to merchandise our teas. This will turn out to be an effective option through which we can route our teas. Tea packets made in our factories will be available at the carts,” he said.