India Brews a Stronger Cup

Leaf pluckers at the Happy Valley Tea Estate in Darjeeling work the 132 hectares of tea gardens.

Zackary Canepari for TIME

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Everything that happens in the tea industry, of course, depends on its workers. The Plantation Labor Act of 1951 guarantees not just a minimum wage for workers in tea, coffee and rubber but also housing, education, medical care and drinking water. Those benefits add about 11% to production costs and are the main reason Indian tea costs about $1.62 a kg to produce, compared with $1.23 in Sri Lanka, $1.16 in Kenya and 84¢ in Malawi. Strong unions in India's tea-growing regions have fought to preserve those benefits. Tea-estate workers are paid on average $1.38 a day in northern India and $2.25 in the south, and because the estates are so remote, workers must rely on tea companies for basic services. "The only long-term, sustainable solution is for estates to give workers a stake in the earnings," says Samir Roy, head of the Defense Committee for Plantation Workers Rights.

That's exactly what some tea producers are trying to do. Tata Tea's Kanan Devan estate in Kerala, in southern India, gives each worker shares in the company. Although Tata is otherwise exiting the plantation business, this new ownership model has the unofficial support of many tea producers and trade-union leaders. Ambootia workers raise organic oranges and ginger, which the company markets abroad. At Makaibari Tea Estate in Darjeeling, owner Rajah Banerjee gives workers cows and buys back manure for use on the estate. "My mantra is, Partnership with workers, not ownership," says Banerjee. "You can't run a tea garden merely as a business."

In India, tea has always been more than a business. Tea drinking is as much a part of the national culture as playing cricket or watching Bollywood movies. And like those other Indian institutions, it is changing rapidly. Nearly half the population is under 25, and young people have been drinking more coffee and cola, leaving the tea in their parents' drawing rooms. Teamakers are trying to woo them back with home brew--whether instant, iced or canned, black, green or white.