Golden sip! Assam tea fetches record Rs 39,001 per kg

In place of two leaves and a bud, a tea garden in Assam has found a golden bud.

In an all-time record for pan-India tea auction system, a hand-made gold tips speciality tea from Assam fetched a price of Rs 39,001 per kg on Wednesday at Guwahati Tea Auction Centre.

In sale 30, Guwahati-based Sourabh Tea Traders Pvt Ltd bought two kg of Manohari Gold tea for its clients in Ahmedabad, Delhi and Kolkata.

Manufactured by Manohari Tea Estate at Dibrugarh, Manohari Gold, which is made only from the bud, has a unique colour and taste. Gold teas are a latest addition to the list of speciality teas and recently Donyi Polo tea estate in Arunachal Pradesh sold around 3 kg of golden needle grade for Rs 18,801 per kg.

Rajan Lohia, owner of Manohari Tea Estate, said a lot of effort is put to make this kind of tea and it took around 20 days to produce two kg of gold tips.

"It looks like pieces of pure gold," Lohia said. The tea was manufactured under the supervision of tea expert C K Parashar, who had been associated with the company for a long time.

The phenomenal price shows that quality has no end and tea lovers are ready to pay any price for innovative and boutique quality of tea, Lohia said.

The teas were purchased by Mangilal Maheshwari of Sourabh Tea Traders, who said one kg will be dispatched to Ahmedabad for one of his clients who runs a tea boutique. The remaining lot will be dispatched equally to two clients in Delhi and Kolkata, who wanted it for corporate gifting purpose. The produce is entirely for the domestic market, Maheshwari said.

According to Lohia, there are many tea lovers in India now and speciality teas have a greater demand at Guwahati auction.

Swashat Dutta of tea broking firm Contemporary Brokers Pvt Ltd said Maheswari is one of the oldest tea buyers in Guwahati and had earlier procured highly priced speciality teas for his clients. Last year, he bought the entire lot of Donyi Polo handcrafted golden needle sold at the then record price of Rs 18,801 per kg.

J Kalyansundaram, secretary general, Calcutta Tea Traders Association, said this price is a record for all auction centres in India. According to him, Donyi Polo also sold 1.99 kg of silver needle white tea for Rs 17,001 per kg at Guwahati Tea Auction Centre in June.

Manohari tea estate has a total production of 3 lakh kg, of which 800 kg is specaility tea that includes yellow tea, white tea and golden needle. His company Suntok Tea Co Llp, which owns two gardens Suntok and Manohari, has started manufacturing speciality teas since last year. The company acquired the two gardens in 2015 with Suntok tea estate producing around 700,000 kg of curl-tear-crush (CTC) variety of tea and orthodox tea.

In the past, Manohari Tea Estate had a history of default of wages and salaries of workers and staff. In 2015, Lohia bought the garden from Punjab National Bank under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Securities Interest (Sarfaesi) Act, 2002, and turned it around.

LUXURY BREW

In sale 30, Guwahati-based Sourabh Tea Traders bought two kg of Manohari Gold tea for its clients in Ahmedabad, Delhi and Kolkata. The phenomenal price shows that quality has no end